‘Music that flows into the marrow of the soul’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Birgitte Rasine

Once upon a time, a schoolgirl resolved to never be a slave to music. She says she is glad this promise never lasted, because she cannot imagine having a creative life without music to guide and inspire her. Her latest work is a historical novel for young readers about the story of cacao, and features a heady soundtrack of Lana Del Rey, Cirque du Soleil and Manish Vyas. She is multipublished author Birgitte Rasine and she’s on the Red Blog with her Undercover Soundtrack.

‘Music to wake the living’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Consuelo Roland

This week, Undercover Soundtrack day falls on Halloween – shiveringly close to Mexico’s El dia de los Muertos. And my guest has more than risen to the occasion with her award-winning literary novel The Good Cemetery Guide. It centres on a guitar-playing mortician’s son and she built his life and loved ones from  reggae, Texan ballads, traditional Mexican music, Phil Collins and Robbie Williams. You’ll grin like a ghoul when you see what she took from Meatloaf. She is essayist, poet and novelist Consuelo Roland and she’s on the Red Blog, sharing her Undercover Soundtrack.

‘Dark bars, blazing sun and volatile people’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Erika Robuck

My guest this week says music helped her slip away from 21st century family life into the volatile, simmering Key West of 1935. Her novel features a half-Cuban woman who goes to work for Ernest Hemingway (who himself once said he used words the way that Bach used notes). She is Erika Robuck and she’s on the Red Blog talking about the Undercover Soundtrack for Hemingway’s Girl.