A Top Ten Playlist for a Girl Who Really Needs Music in Her Life
10. We Are Family
A failed war for independence killed everyone in Nya’s family but her little sister, so this song would really resonate with her. Memories of her parents and Grannyma sustain her during her darker moments. Over the trilogy, she has to rebuild her family, and she does learn that family is more than just blood.
Her favorite line: Have faith in you and the things you do.
9. War
War has defined Nya’s life since she was ten years old, when enemy soldiers threw her and her little sister out on the street to fend for themselves. She’s known war and the trouble it brings to both sides.
Her favorite line: War can’t give life, it can only take it away.
8. Healing Hands
Nya has the power to heal or hurt with her hands, but her pain shifting ability means to help one she must hurt another. Her ability is both a blessing and a curse, and she struggles with how to use it. Especially when it’s the only weapon she has when she needs to save her missing sister.
Her favorite line: There’s a light, where the darkness ends, touch me now and let me see again.
7. You Gotta Be
When life is constantly trying to beat you down, you need a little inspiration to pick you back up. Des’ree is perfect to inspire Nya to get back up and fight the good fight even when she wants to hide away from it all.
Her favorite line: Challenge what the future holds.
6. Talkin’ About a Revolution
Since the day her people lost their war for independence, Nya has prayed for freedom (and truth be told, a little payback). It was never her plan to trigger a revolution, but she does and becomes the symbol that might just save her people.
Her favorite line: Finally the tables are starting to turn.
5. It’s My Life
When people discover what Nya can do, they come after her, wanting to use her for their own sinister purposes. Even those on her side want to use her as a weapon, but she just wants to be her. And for most of her life, she’s had no one to depend on but herself.
Her favorite line: Tomorrow’s getting harder, make no mistake. Luck ain’t even lucky, gotta make your own breaks.
4. Missing
Nya’s lost so many and so much, and those who took it all away from her don’t know or even care. She wishes it could all go back the way it was, but it never will. What’s gone is gone.
Her favorite line: You won’t cry for my absence, I know – You forgot me long ago.
3. Fallen
Nya does some questionable things to save her sister, but she does them with good intentions in her heart. She struggles over the ethics of her actions, wondering if she’s gone too far to save those she loves.
Her favorite line: The past can be undone.
2. I Will Survive
Despite the fact that her pain shifting ability makes Nya extremely hard to kill, she’s a fighter who never gives up. She’s a survivor through and through.
Her favorite line: You think I’d crumble, you think I’d lay down and die, Oh no, not I.
1. Courage
So many times Nya should have turned tail and ran, but she’s not the type of girl who backs down from trouble – or from what’s right. She steps up when needed, even if it’s the worst thing for her personally.
Her favorite line: Courage, it couldn’t come at a worse time.
The Healing Wars Trilogy
Discover a war-torn world where healing is dangerous, and those with the best intentions often do the most harm.
Nya is a Shifter, someone who can heal by shifting pain from person to person. She’s hunted by those eager to exploit her unique ability for their own purposes, determined to make her a weapon, a killer, even a symbol for the war that’s brewing. All Nya wants is to protect her family and regain her people’s freedom, but the more she’s drawn into the plans of others, the more she realizes how key to everyone’s victory she really is.
And how much she’ll have to sacrifice just to survive.
Janice Hardy always wondered about the darker side of healing. For her fantasy trilogy THE HEALING WARS, she tapped into her own dark side to create a world where healing was dangerous, and those with the best intentions often made the worst choices. Her books include THE SHIFTER, and BLUE FIRE. DARKFALL, the final book of the trilogy, is due out October 4, 2011. She lives in Georgia with her husband, three cats and one very nervous freshwater eel. You can visit her online at www.janicehardy.com, chat with her about writing on her blog, The Other Side of the Story (http://blog.janicehardy.com/), or find her on Twitter @Janice_Hardy.
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Looks like I have a couple of new books to add to my list. Hugs!
It was more fun than I expected. Music is so personal, you really have to know your character to figure out what they'd like.