Readalong 2

We are starting to get some more backstory and the basis for Cara and Javi’s uneasy friendship. And there’s a lot of music in this section! See below for some of the inspiration.

For one song, you have to love me.

• My beta readers didn’t like Javi’s long fingernails, but I wouldn’t change that. It’s part of who he is.
• There really is a Colombian restaurant under the railways arches at Elephant and Castle. When I was writing the book, it had a dance floor and club section, but it’s been renovated now and is just a restaurant. But I certainly took artistic licence with the venue!
• The punctuation of the songs in this was a nightmare and I’m seeing mistakes in the final text!
• Tonto rumbero means crazy party animal. I probably should have sneaked a translation of that one in somewhere, but I initially assumed a vague idea of what it meant would do.
• I wrote and rewrote their first kiss so many times. I edited it and proofread it to kingdom come. And I still got a tingle when I read it just then!!! I should have made it a bit longer LOL.

She wanted to dismiss him as a fun-loving dilettante, but his hands brought the assumption into question. Who was he? And how much would it cost her to get the answer to that question?

I enjoyed the tension of this part, where the creative collaboration blurred the lines of professionalism. On the one hand, Javi behaved terribly, dancing with other girls in front of her, but on the other hand, they are both insistent that there is nothing romantic between them, so it should have been okay. It’s just the situation they’ve found themselves in and it’s pushing all their buttons. Scroll down for some musical influences, or click here for the next readalong post.

Which line did you think you were going to overstep?
I don’t know, mona. You’ve got a lot of lines.