Playlist for Heart of a Dire Wolf

Heart of a Dire Wolf is now available as an audiobook (narrated by the fabulous David Brenin). You can also listen via Spotify if you have a subscription. As a sort of companion soundtrack, I've put together a playlist for Heart of a Dire Wolf.

If these bring you joy, check out Playlist for Shifter Mate Magic and Playlist for Shift of Destiny.

Playlist Song for Skyla

The Very Thought of You, performed by Nancy Wilson. “The very thought of you, and I forget to do the little ordinary things that everyone ought to do…” At the start of Heart of a Dire Wolf, heroine Skyla and hero Nic make a mad dash for freedom from an illegal auction of magical beings. In addition to being a dire wolf shifter, Skyla is brilliant at magic. But one delectable whiff of the sexy Siberian tiger shifter who could be her mate, and her intellect is short-circuited. This song might have been written for Skyla. If the composer had known about shifters, of course.

Nota bene (NB): Originally written as a pop standard for a 1930s-style big orchestra, this song has proved quite versatile, from R&B (nice) to rock (blech) to jazz (yes, please!). Here's a bonus performance of this song by Corinne Bailey Rae and Jon Batiste. Slow and sultry, with a fantastic collaboration between the singer and the accompanist. Magic!

Illustration of a woman and a Siberian tiger in a small car, as generated by MidJourney. — *Skyla and Nic (a Siberian tiger shifter) make a mad dash across the desert to escape the auction house.*

Playlist Song for Nic

Red Hot Momma by Grassland Jam: Roochie Toochie & The Ragtime Shepard Kings. This is such a fun performance that reminds me of the novelty numbers of the 1930s and 1940s. Nic, whose geology career has taken him all over the world, loves to sing along with his favorite songs and doesn't care who hears him. He would definitely sing this song to Skyla, the magical shifter woman who his inner tiger insists is definitely his mate. Nic cursed his luck when he got kidnapped for the illegal auction. But he'd have never met his mate, either, or driven a magically sentient hybrid car through a fairy portal, or… you get the picture.

N.B. Spike Jones was the king of novelty-performance zaniness. If you haven't seen a performance from his 1950s television show, here's a sample.

Illustration of a red hybrid vehicle emerging from a portal, as generated by MidJourney. — *An unlucky lightning strike on a fairy portal sends Nic and the hybrid car named Mauk to the mountains of Wyoming.*

Song for Heart of a Dire Wolf

So Far Away by Carole King. Nic and Skyla get separated because of an old magic spell cast by desperate people. Skyla ends up in a ghost town, and Nick ends up in a town full of very live people. It's going to take two very stubborn, determined people and a whole lot of magic to get them together again. And they better hurry, because that illegal auction house? They really want their escaped merchandise back, and don't care who they hurt to get it.

N.B. I've heard a few cover performances of this song, but I will always hear King's original version in my head. Back in the days of vinyl, I wore out at least two records of her 1971 Tapestry album.
As a side note to this side note, I was looking for a song about portals, of which there are surprisingly few. I feel like there ought to be more.