Character Playlist: The Prince’s Guide to True Love’s Kiss
By Adelyn Sterling
When it comes to writing, music is a vital part of my brainstorming and drafting process. When I first start brainstorming and planning out a new novel, one of the first things I do is create a playlist of music that fits the mood and characters for the book. During drafting, music helps keep inspiration flowing, and it can even make for a great writing prompt when I get stuck.
To create this playlist specifically for Prince Benedikt, I wanted to include some songs from the drafting process, and some new songs that remind me of Benedikt. I loved finding new songs to add to my Benedikt playlist, but when I went into the original playlist I created for this story, I found a whole bunch of my favorite writing songs from 2014 and 2015. It’s been quite some time since I finished drafting this story, but listening to this playlist brought me right into the scenes they’d inspired during that stage. There may be a song in here that inspired a campsite kiss that I never intended to write until a song carried me away and suddenly there was kissing.
Now meet Benedikt: a luckless prince who must find his True Love by his twenty-first birthday, but after failing to wake fourteen maidens with True Love’s Kiss, he must team up with a band of misfit mercenaries, and their beautiful captain, to tackle his most perilous quest yet and return with his True Love before his conniving cousin usurps the throne. He’s a valiant prince, dutiful, selfless, and a bit stubborn. These songs are tender and emotional and incredibly brave and I hope they evoke some of Benedikt’s struggles with love, failure, and learning to trust.
A little bit more about the book: “The Prince’s Guide to True Love’s Kiss” is an audiobook from Hachette Audiobooks: Powered by Wattpad – an innovative collaboration between Hachette Book Group and Wattpad — Prince Benedikt is on a mission to find his True Love, but more so, he has a duty to his kingdom to fulfill. As a prince of Stalvart, he must find his True Love by his twenty-first birthday. At twenty-one, he will begin his regency where his father will train him up to be a great king. The quest seemed simple enough, but after failing to wake fourteen maidens with True Love’s Kiss, he’s starting to worry that he’ll never find his True Love. And he’s not the only one.
With his conniving cousin, the next in line for the throne, questioning his ability to rule, the pressure is on. News that a maiden rests in the forest of Bleakwood reaches his kingdom, and Benedikt’s next quest is decided. But with a resurgence of Withering Magic in the Lowlands, he must bring in special help. He teams up with a band of mercenaries, if they can be called that, to help him face the perils of Bleakwood.
Captain Grielle is a professional thief, but her and her Liberators, aren’t criminals for hire. They specialize in the liberation and return of lost things, precious things, to their rightful owners. They wouldn’t normally take a job like this, but the price is right. They must get Prince Benedikt to his maiden and bring him home safely, but the quest turns out to be much more than Grielle bargained for. With her past turning up to haunt her at every turn, she’s made to face her demons all while trying to understand her growing feelings for the tender-hearted, ill-fated prince.
About the author: Adelyn Sterling is a graduate of Grove City College with a BA in Marketing Management. In 2013, she left corporate marketing to explore her passion for storytelling. She lives in Ohio with her husband and fur baby where she enjoys long cups of coffee, collecting beautiful books, and writing whenever she can. A hopeless romantic, she writes kissing books and woke up at 3 AM to watch the royal wedding. You can find her on instagram and twitter @AdelynSterling where she shares her writing journey and plenty of cute dog pics.
Make sure to head over to AdelynSterling.com/blog to listen to an exclusive character playlist for Hel, Goddess of the Underworld from “Ragnarok Unwound.”