Book Spotlight + Playlist – Fairy Lights by Edward Lorn
He’s baaaaaaaack! Yes friends, Edward Lorn is once again a feature on my blog and I honestly couldn’t be more pleased about it. If you haven’t already met E., as we all fondly call him, I highly recommend you check out these posts:
You can also scroll up to that review portal up there, and find his last name, for some reviews of his books! Spoiler alert, they’re great and also deliciously creepy.
Anyway, I’ll stop babbling and let you know that the reason E. is here this time is to promote his newest book, Fairy Lights. I’m not going to lie, I auto-bought this as soon as it popped up. Here’s the synopsis.
Available online now at DarkFuse Magazine!
On Palomar Mountain, there hides a creature capable of unspeakable malice. A monster hungry for flesh. A being capable of manipulating those it allows to live.
Tony and his mother, Brenda, have plans to vacation on Palomar Mountain and intend to bring Tony’s buddy with them. The party of three ascend the mountain for three days of camping without the aid of technology. But when the boys get lost in the woods, things escalate from bad to deadly in the blink of an eye. Because they’re not alone, and the creature in the cave is not the only thing they have to worry about.
Find it on: DarkFuse | Amazon | Goodreads
Intrigued? I was too! I’ll be reading and reviewing this soon. Now, before you run off to go and purchase this (as I know you will), take some time to check out the playlist that E. put together for this book!
Edward Lorn here, but you can call me E. I had no idea how hard it would be to create a playlist for a book and explain how each song connects with the story without spoilers. But I think I succeeded.
First and foremost, many thanks to Jessica (Hopelessly Devoted Bibliophile) for having me. I’m a huge fan of her reviews. Always a pleasure to see her in my inbox, so when she asked me to come over and share the playlist I concocted for my new book, Fairy Lights, with her followers, I was honored and jumped at the chance.
Without further ado…
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Track #1: “Kowarete iku Sekai”, by Girugämesh. If Fairy Lights were a movie, this would be the music playing over the opening credits. So, before you even crack the book open, give this Japanese band’s best song (in my opinion, anyway) a listen.
Track #2: “Closer”, by Nine Inch Nails. Let this classic piece of electronic rock play loud as hell during Chapter 2 and why I picked it should be abundantly clear.
Track #3: “Stressed Out”, by Twenty One Pilots. I feel this song works best during Tony and Bobby’s introductions. Getting to know these two young men and their Odd-Couple-esque friendship to this song just feel right.
Track #4: “A Little Piece of Heaven”, by Avenged Sevenfold. All I’ll say is, “Poor Ralph.”
Track #5: “Freak on a Leash”, by Korn. This song should accompany you as Moss leads us into the Handy’s cave for the first time. Not only do the lyrics fit, but the music sets the tone for the eeriness of the scene to come.
Track #6: “What If it Was Me?”, by Tech N9ne. Much of the book deals with race relations and racial tensions. The book is meant to be a modern-day lost-in-the-woods parable set firmly in the horror genre. While writing it, I wanted the book would be as violent and disturbing as possible, but at the same time I wanted to tackle some important questions. I think the biggest of these questions was “Is anyone really colorblind?” If I say “I don’t see color” am I ignoring the bigger problem, and by default, does that make me part of the problem? Tony’s mother Brenda asks herself the same questions.
Track #7: “Wait and Bleed”, by Slipknot. My reasoning for this one is simple. If Moss had an anthem, this song would be it.
Track #8: “Prison Sex”, by Tool. Put this one on repeat and let it play while Blake and Charlie are checking out the observatory.
Track #9: “Heart-Shaped Box”, by Nirvana. I imagine this song working best while Brenda is playing with her son’s phone. I actually had this song and the next one on repeat during the writing of Fairy Lights.
Track #10: “Lucretia”, by Megadeth. Probably the weirdest song on the entire list is this classic from Megadeth’s fourth album, Rust in Peace. I knew this was going to be an adult version of stories like Hansel and Gretel and Snow White with modern topics and social issues but I didn’t want the typical witch character. The monster in the book, without spoiling anything, is probably the closest I will ever come to writing about the type of witch that cackled through some of the best fables ever written. Every time the Handy is on the page, this song was playing.
Track #11: The final three chapters of the book (15, 16, and 17) should be read in complete silence. And then…
Track #12: “Come on Up to the House”, by Tom Waits. If Fairy Lights were a film, this would be the song that played over the ending credits. I think it speak very well to the book as a whole.
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And that’s where I’ll leave you. Thanks again to Jessica for having me. If you like your horror to make you think and enjoy being disturbed on a visceral level, please give my newest release Fairy Lights a try.
