The Hand, The Eye and The Heart Music

Welcome to my stop on The Hand, The Eye and The Heart blog tour! Yes, it's me and am back to doing something I haven't done in quite some time: putting music to the book I was reading. And it was such a joy to do! 

When asked by John at Walker if I wanted to be involved in this tour, I jumped at the chance! So, thank you John for asking me to be involved. 

For those unsure of what The Hand, The Eye and The Heart, it's a reimagining of Mulan in a fantasy world. Ok, I was using that to grab your attention, but OH, this book is much more than that! Zhilan was born a girl. Despite the rare gift of illusions, she is destined to live her life in the confines of what is expected for a women. But when a civil war breaks out in her empire, one man from every family is called to fight. With her father being disabled from the battlefield of his youth, Zhilan is desperate to save him and takes his place, becoming a boy called Zhi to survive army training. But that’s the first challenge as love and betrayal can be two sides of the same coin and soon, the weight of the country is on Zhi’s shoulders. But to win, they have to decide where their heart truly lies as, sometimes, the greatest battle is to be who you are… 

I told you there was more to it than my awful elevator pitch. Anyway, as part of the tour, I was asked to create a playlist via Spotify. Now, I love reading to music and the playlist below has a nice mix of songs I listened to while reading and a few others that I went "This is perfect!" and added on to give it a good mix. But, this is subjective and because these are my music choices doesn't mean they will be yours and I would love to hear your playlists for this book, as well as everyone at Walker and Zoë herself. 

Before I throw my music at you, I want to thank Zoë and if you want to check her out, go say hi to her on her website - zoemarriott.com - or via her Twitter at @ZMarriott. And if you want more info about the book, check out Walker Books or Book Depository. (Special thanks to Luna at Luna's Little Library for going through my playlist and making some suggestions on placement and a few other songs she thought might be good for playlist.

Now, ONTO THE MUSIC!

Now that you see the playlist, I want to quickly reference why a few songs got on the playlist... 

A WORLD OF DARKNESS BY IMOGEN HEAP

This was the very first song I put on the playlist I made on my Apple Music when I started making this playlist. I loved the dark tension to it (plus, Imogen Heap. Love her!) anti sets up the upcoming war that takes place in the book. Plus, if you know Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, you know where this song is played... 

DEEPEST YOU BY WARD THOMAS

This was the second song I added to the playlist, and this song was added because, not only did I like the song, but there were so many lyrics in the song that made me go "This fits The Hand, The Eye and the Heart!". The main lyric that made me connect this song to this book is "You know if I could, I would swim out that far, Carry you home to who you really are, Relight your fire but I can't..."

HURRICANES BY DIDO

This song was added for a weird reason. When I was making up this playlist and reading The Hand, The Eye and The Heart, I listened to this in a certain order: World of Darkness by Imogen Heap, Deepest You by Ward Thomas, Hurricanes by Dido and Handmade Heaven by MARINA. And these songs sum up my reading experience of this book. 

JO BY GOLDFRAPP

Ok, this is a super weird reason. When I was reading the last 115 odd pages, I decided to listen to an album I haven't heard and, seeing as I have rediscovered Goldfrapp, I decided to listen to Tales of Us while I read and there was something about this song that hooked in my brain while racing towards the end!