I’ll have to admit that the initial idea to write the song itself was not my own; it was the Viking’s. He wanted to know if perhaps I could write a song with the words from the book and play it at Mom’s next book signing. I was excited to take on the challenge, of course. As most of my friends and family know, I usually write hard rock songs, so it was a bit of a challenge to do justice to the words written in “Whisper Me This.” I had a guitar idea I had been playing around with earlier in the year that I ended up adapting to be the verse of the song. After this, the melody and cello part rang in my head as soon as I had figured out the general chord progressions.
The recording process was painless as Jimmy Hill of Amplified Wax took us through his flawless process of recording an acoustic song. It took about four hours to track the guitars, cellos, and vocals. I was fortunate enough to convince Keadrin Cain to join me in the studio as I had heard she was the best cello player in the area. Upon entering the studio, I found out that she was also able to sing. I immediately recruited her for harmonies. The harmonies were written in the studio with the help of Jimmy.
I’ve always felt self conscious of my voice, I still find myself picking apart my vocals and wishing I could fix several things. But Keadrin’s voice is such a perfect complement to mine that it makes me forget I even hate my voice. Overall, I’m exceptionally proud of the song and I think it represents the book well. I’m so excited to share it with everyone!
-Brandon
Sheriff Holston wants to go outside—outside of the underground silo system where people migrated after the world became toxic for humans. His wife went outside three years ago, after winning the lottery to become pregnant and failing to do so. Maybe her decision was based on digital records she discovered of the founders’ secret. In any case, Holston prepares himself to go outside the silo.
Suzette is convinced that her 7-year-old daughter Hannah is trying to kill her. The child is non-verbal, talking only through an invisible friend, the last “witch” burned in France, a piece of trivia she researched online. Alex, her husband—Hannah’s father, struggles to believe that anything beyond selective mutism is wrong with his beloved daughter, who adores him as much as she abhors her mother. An incident forces him to confront the truth, and they must take drastic measures to save their daughter from herself.
Brian Hildebrand becomes conscious a few days after a bizarre car accident involving him and his car after he stepped out of it. However, this conscious state does not equate to him awaking from a coma. Though psychic, his mother cannot reach him, but her mother’s intuition tells her that he’s in there, aware and listening. An unreliable narrator, he enlightens the reader upon his favorite caregiver, a mysterious stranger, ghosts, psychic connections, and the various new and unorthodox treatments to unlock him.
Ana believes the only way to move past her sister’s murder is to find her real killer, the powerful figure behind the cartel’s low-level felons who went to prison for it. Feeling invincible, she joins the police force to clean up the streets, with the secret agenda of tracking down the mysterious murderer. In this endeavor, she misleads her family and oversteps her rookie authority with her new partner. Everyone has their own way of working through grief—Ana’s is exceptionally brutal and insular.
Adrienne leaves an abusive relationship and divorce in Chicago and buys a fixer-upper in Florida, where she starts her new life of independence on the Gulf. A box of eloquently written letters from a WWII soldier in her attic sets Adrienne on a journey to friendship, potential romance, and matchmaking. She exposes decades-old secrets, changing lives and mending relationships while building strong bonds with her new “family.”
Before—she was Mackenzie Cooper, who had a loving husband and a beautiful daughter; After—she is Maggie Reid, a single woman with a secret past who lives with two cats and a dog and sells confidence through makeup artistry at her job in a resort spa. She can only move forward, away from her family, away from her “crime,” away from her former life…until her ex-husband arrives to manage the resort his business group just purchased, HER resort. At the same time, her friend and co-worker learns that her son hacked into his high school, their spa, and a prominent journalist’s computers, and her friend is terrified that her secret past—a powerful and dangerous man—finds her.
Lyla Volpe doesn’t expect her life to change after her crush takes a drunken, semi-naked photo of her at a party, because she doesn’t want to do anything about it. Tom, her working-class, single father, astonished by her complacency, cannot let it go. The boy’s mother, Nina, is sick over the incident and also cannot let it go, though her wealthy husband attempts to cover it up. The story whips back and forth on who exactly the culprit may be, but eventually the truth comes out, and Nina finally releases her insidious secret in order to save herself, her son, and his victim. The ending wrapped up quickly in a summarized chapter, disappointing readers who expected more about how the boy redeemed himself.
After a glimpse into her future as a leader of her people, this family saga opens with the childhood of the great Obeah, Meme Abeje, who lives to see the official end of slavery in her homeland of Martinque, and her niece Hetty’s migration to Canada, where she becomes an abolitionist with husband Dax Rougeaux. After a quick (and confusing) foray into the future of the Rougeaux family in the mid-1940s, Hetty’s granddaughter Eleanor brings the story full circle, when she visits Martinique to honor her Obeah great-great aunt at the end of the 19th century.