We recently brought you a sex scene excerpt from erotic romance novel American Queen by Sierra Simone, the first in her New Camelot series. Now here’s her companion playlist for the novel.
“The Wolf” by Phildel
“Meant” by Elizaveta
“Fuel to Fire” by Agnes Obel
“Toxic” by Melanie Martinez
“Tessellate” by alt-j
“Wicked Game” by Giant Drag
“Sour Times” by The Civil Wars
“The One That Got Away” by The Civil Wars
American Queen was one of the first books that I intentionally created a playlist for, and the process was hyper-intuitive. I wasn’t worried about it being a public-facing list as I created it, and I wasn’t worried about the lyrics specifically matching who the characters were or what the story was doing, plot-wise (although it was always a happy accident when it did end up matching)! And I wasn’t even really seeking out a certain sound so much as I was a particular feeling. And that feeling was the way Greer felt to me, the way it felt to be loved by two men like Embry and Ash.
Looking back, I can see a few strong threads that bind this playlist together—mainly women-led vocals, a heavy lyrical bent toward longing, a tonal skew toward alternative. But there is something else that unites this list too, something that simmering in my mind as I was writing New Camelot. Let’s call it romantic ambiguity…or perhaps an erotic gray area.
The way these three characters love each other make pleasure, pain, and power nearly indistinguishable from each other. Loving, in the world of New Camelot, hurts. But it’s a hurt these characters can’t get enough of, and these songs capture that energy completely.