What do you get when you pair two music-lovers in a romance and the hero plays guitar? Well, you end up with places where music is played and at least a small playlist of songs – each of which was researched and listened to in the creation of the story.
The songs below were not all the songs that danced through my imagination while I wrote this story, but they are the ones that ended up being mentioned on the page. (For instance, “A Marshmallow World” played in my head, and might have been sung aloud, as I wrote the school program practice and presentation scenes.)
I have listed them in the order in which they appeared in the story and have included where they were played.
- “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”
(Instrumental Christmas piece Fred plays annually, played at the Waterwheel pub) - “Let Your Horses Run” — Brett Kissel
(Played at the Waterwheel pub) - “In the Bleak Midwinter”
(Instrumental, Christmas Eve service set list, played at church) - “Oh, Come All Ye Faithful”
(Christmas Eve service set list, played at church) - “Help Is on the Way” — TobyMac
(Playing in Fred’s car, in the driveway at his new house) - “The Goodness of God”
(Wedding processional, played at church for Henry and Trish’s wedding)
As you can see, three of them are Christmas songs. Two are contemporary Christian music songs. And the final one, is a country music song by a big-name Canadian country music star – and it fits Fred’s stipulations about songs he will play with Parker:
“I don’t do music that strays from my belief system.”
Or as Parker states it:
“If we keep our selection to clean stuff without too much drinking, cheating, and carousing in the lyrics, do you think you could strum a few chords for us?”
Parker is quite a character. Have you met him? (I think he’s going to need a story at some point. He’s just so interesting – which is one of the dangers of fun side character creation! I don’t know if he’ll get a story, but the idea has passed through my mind.)
I didn’t just create the above list for you, I have actually placed all of those songs in a playlist on YouTube so that you can check them out. They are played as I would have imagined them – since they are what I listened to when I did my story research. “Help is on the Way” and “Let Your Horses Run” are official videos put out by the artists. The rest are guitar instrumental pieces since Fred plays the guitar.
You can find that list on YouTube HERE and below.
In case you haven’t picked up your copy of Don’t Tell My Best Friend I Love Her you can find links to all the places where it is available on the books page of my website HERE.
OR if you’re a subscriber to the Faithbooks newsletter, you would find it in there today as a new release announcement.
What is Faithbooks? It’s a newsletter that arrives each Wednesday and Saturday filled with info about new releases and free/bargain books that are all Christian romances. It is SO nice to have a newsletter like this. I subscribe to other bargain books newsletters (like Bookbub or My Book Cave) but none of those are completely dedicated to Christian romance. You can subscribe to their newsletter or find links to follow them on social media HERE.
That’s it for this first newsletter for 2026.
Have a lovely weekend, and since, I haven’t had the opportunity to say it to you all yet – Happy New Year! May the Lord bless and be at the center of it.
<3 Annilee
