Heather Tracy is joining us today to talk about her novel, Only a Chapter. Here’s the publisher’s description:
“A call to change a lifetime…
Clare O’Donnell is in a dead-end relationship with her girlfriend, until she receives a phone call that changes her life—literally. In one timeline, her biopsy results are positive for cancer. In another timeline, her results are benign. In one timeline, the faceless person she has romantic dreams of becomes masculine. In the other timeline, they become feminine.
Her world begins to diverge, sending Clare on differing journeys of self-discovery and romance. In both, her dreams seem to show what might happen, and she realizes they all started after she survived the fatal car crash that took her parents. There is one constant: that no matter the challenges she faces, this is only a chapter of her life.
Explore how one phone call could change your life forever.”
What’s Heather’s favorite bit?
With Only a Chapter being my first published novel, I could talk about many favorite bits from Roddy’s quirky French mother to the dreams Clare has that were inspired by my own dreams of a faceless person to how therapeutic it was to write about my breast cancer journey through fiction. But instead, I’m going to talk about music.
Music has always been a huge part of my life, from singing in the car and choir with my dad to playing piano (and violin very briefly) to going to concerts to continuing to sing…pretty much anywhere. I love the feelings music can evoke, and both during and after cancer treatment, a lot of songs hit me in different ways. I can’t hear Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” without both feeling empowered and tearing up.
When writing both the original (2015) and current versions of Only a Chapter, I knew I wanted the main male lead, Roddy, to play cello for the North Carolina Symphony. My husband and I love going to the symphony, and the cello is one of my favorite instruments in the orchestra. So, obviously, there are several classical pieces referenced in the book that I love which specifically feature the cello.
But my very favorite bit about the music in Only a Chapter is that every Chapter and Part title is a song title. Since there are two timelines in the book, each corresponding pair has songs that share some commonality, be it the same artist, the same theme, or both. For example, “Set Fire to the Rain” by Adele is paired with “Here Comes the Rain Again” by Eurythmics, and “Where the Light Shines Through” and “Dare You to Move” are both by Switchfoot.
I had a lot of fun picking out songs that not only related to the individual Chapters/Parts, but also coordinated with each other. The first two Parts both have rain, so that one was relatively easy, but I did have find just the right songs with/about rain in them to go with the story in each Part.
If you’re not a music fan, you can gloss over this and read the book without thinking about the titles, and it shouldn’t change the way you read it. But if you are a music fan and/or want to immerse yourself more fully in the music-filled world I’ve created, there is a full song list at the end of the book with the artists so you can create your own playlist and see if you spot all the connections. Plus, you might find some fun new music or artists to enjoy!
Oh, and feel free to sing along in the car, shower or anywhere your heart desires. I’m a true believer that music can heal the spirit.
LINKS:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HeatherTracyAuthor/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hunnyjar319/
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/heathertracyauthor.bsky.social
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21665935.Heather_Tracy
BIO:
Heather Tracy (she/her) is a travel agent by day, and a masked copy editor and writer by night. As a travel agent, she plans Nerdventures—travel for the nerd in all of us. From visiting Hobbiton to following in the footsteps of your favorite author, she can plan a trip for you.
As a copy editor, she’s found hundreds of typos, comma splices, and other grammatical nitpicks for Space Wizard Science Fantasy since before 2016. With over 30 titles copyedited, she’s now turned her hand to her first published short story in Fiery Deeps, and her first novel, Only a Chapter, which features some of her personal journey surviving breast cancer.
Heather lives in Raleigh with her husband of over twenty years, William C. Tracy, where they have two rambunctious cats and several beehives. They enjoy taking their own Nerdventures—as much as they can be away from their small businesses—and cosplaying at various markets and cons throughout the year.
