A lot of you have asked me two questions: 1) Is Working For The Devil the first book in the Valentine series? There seems to be an awful lot of backstory. And 2) You mention soundtracks to your books. Does The Devil’s Right Hand have one?

1. Yes, WFTD is the first book. There’s a lot of backstory because it was necessary to show how Dante’s world differs from ours. When I started it initially, I didn’t think she was so far in the future. Until the day she gave me a sidelong look and said, “Six hundred years, idiot.” *sigh* I suppose I deserved it. Here I was blithely writing about hasn’t-happened-as-history with nary a care in the world.

Plus, Dante and I are both fascinated with history, with thinking about the reasons WHY things are the way they are today. I also am not a fan of big chunks of exposition, it tends to drag a book down. So there is a lot I’ll hint at, and leave the reader to figure out or come up with their own reasons for. Hey, you guys are smarter than me.

2. Yes, and I’m listing it below. This soundtrack is one of my favorites, mostly because Lucas, Tiens, Vann, and McKinley get their own tracks. I couldn’t get into their histories, but I love the songs they picked for themselves. Tracks and comments as follows:

I Have Given You Time Lovers In A Dangerous Time, Barenaked Ladies– This is a remake of one of my favorite Bruce Cockburn songs. It so perfectly expresses Dante and Japh.
Dante And Death/ The Geas Solsbury Hill, Peter Gabriel– Dante’s relationship with her god is a pure source of strength for her, thank goodness.
The Devil Never Forgets This Is Hell, Elvis Costello
Venezia Flowers Become Screens, Delerium
Night Train/Freetown New Prague Go It Alone, Beck– A lot of times I forget Dante is a highly-trained bounty hunter with a gift for mayhem. She really doesn’t mind being alone or being in a bad part of town.
Lucas Villalobos Katana Groove, Tomoyasu Hotei– If you listen hard at the end of the track, you can hear him laughing.
The Team/Vann & McKinley Attitude, Hardknox– Heh. They do so love to rumble, these two.
Tiens To The Shock Of Miss Louise, Thomas Newman– A Nichtvren deserves carnival music. Plus, fans of vampire movies will recognize this track from The Lost Boys. It’s a little in-joke.
Sparring With Japh Echo Game, House of Flying Daggers
Hellhound living dead girl, Rob Zombie– This is Dante’s song in more ways than one. It works itself into the final battle in book 5 as well. You can hear Dante and Eve at the beginning, Eve speaks first.
Bothering With Trifles Silicone, Mono– I keep having trouble with Japh not being human. So does Dante.
I Will Have Your Cooperation Hand That Feeds, NIN– The trouble with that is, Dante isn’t good at cooperating…and part of why Japh loves her is because she just doesn’t know when to submit.
Sarajevo DMZ Cost of Freedom, Experiment
Eve Life In Mono, Mono– Little girl all grown up and causing trouble…
Lucifer I Alone, Live– Because the Devil doesn’t like anyone else playing his games.
Do Not Doubt Me/Japhrimel Silence, Delerium– This is such an awesome track, because it features Sarah McLachlan. And also because it perfectly expresses what Japh feels for Dante, almost despite himself.

So there it is, the soundtrack for Devil’s Right Hand. Enjoy. I certainly did.

In other news, the hardback of smoke and the paperback of mirror are up on Amazon. Whew. Eventually both hardback and trade paper versions of each book will be available through Amazon. I was just glancing through mirror the other day when I got to the crucifixion scene, and I actually thought it wasn’t half bad.

Yup. Lucifer’s carrying ice skates.

I had much more to talk about, including encouraging everyone to go see this movie RIGHT NOW TODAY! But that next Kismet book calls, and I’m listening to the Devil’s Right Hand soundtrack again, which just makes me think of fight scenes…

Man, I love this job.

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