‘Music used to be background until this character’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Helen Hollick

My guest this week used to regard music as a mostly-ignorable atmosphere. Then one inspirational moment changed everything. She was listening to Mike Oldfield when a character leaped, fully formed, into her imagination – an enigmatic pirate of the Caribbean, skilled with a cutlass and a roguish smile. This character also proved a turning point in her career, as her agent advised her that the adult readership did not want stories about pirates. But so strong was her conviction about the character that she wrote him anyway – and thus her indie career was born. She is Helen Hollick, her novels are the Sea Witch series, and she’s on the Red Blog with her Undercover Soundtrack. All say ‘arrr’.

‘It began as a buffer to domestic chaos’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Jan Ruth

My guest this week began using music as a sanctuary in a busy, rumbustious house. But she soon found that the music was having its own inspirational influence. For her unconventional romance novels she finds rich emotions in the music of Enya, Enigma and Clannad, which also complement the settings of her native Snowdonia. A bereaved character was embodied by an album from Sarah Brightman; a male protagonist was found in The Kings of Leon.  Wait – a romance novel with a male protagonist? Well, I told you she was unconventional. She is Jan Ruth and she’s on the Red Blog with her Undercover Soundtrack.