Today on Letters Inside Out I’m happy to introduce Jus Accardo whose debut book Touch recently came out. If you haven’t gotten your hands on it yet, you are going to want to do so immediately! It’s such a great book! My review will be posting later this week, but in the meantime Jus will be telling us about three songs that helped shape the book and the characters.

Silence is Not Golden

Silence. There’s very little of it in my world. My house is rarely quiet. Between the three large (and very chatty) dogs, the coming and going of friends and family, and the never ending supply of tunes filling the background, silence is a rare and illusive thing.

And I’m okay with that.

The truth is, I can’t concentrate when it’s quiet. Total silence—for me—is like a vacuum that sucks the air from the room. It makes me twitchy. When I sleep (on those rare occasions) I need the whirring sound of the fan—even in the middle of December. When I cook, I need tunes or conversation or I screw up and burn something. Trust me on this—I’ve tested it. There was biscotti, too much silence, and the local fire department…

And when I write, I need music. Every time I think of a scene, there’s a musical background. Each one, like all my characters, have a song. Songs inspire me. They help me create deeper, more real characters, situations, and feelings.

Take Secondhand Serenade’s Fall for You for example. This song is all Alex. It’s so much of what he feels about Dez. It inspired a very strong scene between them and sparked a turning point in their relationship.

Another good one is This Night by Black Lab. This one inspired one of my favorite scenes. Without getting too spoiler-y, it involves Kale and Dez and is so much of what he’s thinking by that point in the book. He craves the peace he feels when he’s with her—even though he feels he doesn’t deserve it. “I know I’m not forgiven, but I hope that I’ll be given some
peace.”

And what book is complete without an awesome fight scene? Powerman 5000’s Bombshell was the perfect background for one of my favorite fight scenes in TOUCH. The pulse pounding beat got my blood pumping and enabled me to envision a killer fight scene, followed by an awesome chase. Plus, Spider One is Dez’s celebrity crush, so winwin!

So now I’m curious. What are a few songs that have made an impact on your life? And to anyone that’s already read TOUCH, can you match the songs to their scenes?

When a strange boy tumbles down a river embankment and lands at her feet, seventeen-year-old adrenaline junkie Deznee Cross snatches the opportunity to piss off her father by bringing the mysterious hottie with ice blue eyes home.

Except there’s something off with Kale. He wears her shoes in the shower, is overly fascinated with things like DVDs and vases, and acts like she’ll turn to dust if he touches her. It’s not until Dez’s father shows up, wielding a gun and knowing more about Kale than he should, that Dez realizes there’s more to this boy–and her father’s “law firm”–than she realized.

Kale has been a prisoner of Denazen Corporation–an organization devoted to collecting “special” kids known as Sixes and using them as weapons–his entire life. And, oh yeah, his touch? It kills. The two team up with a group of rogue Sixes hellbent on taking down Denazen before they’re caught and her father discovers the biggest secret of all. A secret Dez has spent her life keeping safe.

A secret Kale will kill to protect.

Find out more about Touch and Jus here:
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