What I love about this playlist is that several songs were suggested by people who got to read the book early and their choices told me that they really got Faolan Kelly and her story. RED IN TOOTH AND CLAW is a genre-blending kind of book, part western, part horror, part fantasy. It’s a story about one young person howling out their grief and who (or what) answers back. At times, it’s bloody, but it’s funny and hopeful, too. I feel like this playlist gives you a good idea about what kind of vibes you’d be stepping into when you crack open the book, and I hope you love it as much as I do.
Mood to Burn Bridges by Neko Case
There are a lot of reasons why this song works. The opening is all about people in your town being so happy to see you fail that she’s “surprised they don’t come up and thank me.” Which is essentially the first chapter of RED IN TOOTH AND CLAW. Case’s response to her neighbors in the chorus is also Faolan Kelly’s attitude all the way: “'Cause my mood to burn bridges/ Is not unlike my mood to dig ditches/ Don't cross me on either a day, baby.”
Hexie Mountains by Orville Peck
This song (to me) is so much about loss and moving forward and that bittersweet transition in between, and Peck’s vocals really nail those feelings for me. The line, "And wouldn't it be nice if I could sleep in my own bed?" really mimics how Faolan is feeling for the whole book.
Shank Hill Street by Shovels & Rope
The tone of this song, both of the lyrics and the actual sound, just really work. There’s a slow grit to Michael Trent’s voice that contrasts with Carry Ann Hearst’s higher notes for this duet, echoing the contrast between the bleak tragedy of the story and that sharp, almost joyous edge of revenge. Lyrically, it’s a very evocative song that tells a bloody story and I love it.
Among the Ghosts by Lucero
What I love about this song is that it’s a blending of musical genres probably best described as alternative country punk. At first pass, you might think these things don’t belong together, but they really do, and Red in Tooth and Claw is the literary equivalent to that. It’s a song about longing for home, which again, is so key to Faolan’s story, and the lyric, “No longer will I walk among the ghosts” really hits.
This is How We Do Things in the Country by Slim Cessna’s Auto Club
This song has an almost rollicking sound to it and if you didn’t listen to the lyrics you might miss that it’s a dark story about murder. More specifically, it’s about murder, a town complicit in the narrator getting away with it, and how the action poisons the whole town. The last line in the last verse is, “these crooked graves will be our fate” and I think that applies to a whoooole lot of people in the book.
Bells of Every Chapel by Sierra Ferrell
Okay, so this one seems like an odd one out compared to the rest of the list. It’s a love song. It’s got kind of a jaunty beat and Ferrell’s haunting voice is a delight. However, I could see this song playing over the end credits of a Red in Tooth and Claw movie. There is a love story in the book, but the tone and the lyrics would also dovetail with the ending in a way that’s a bit tongue in cheek. If you’ve seen the scene in Deadpool & Wolverine where a brutal, violent and bloody fight is set to the tune of “You’re the One that I want” by Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta, you’ll know what I’m getting at.
This edge-of-your-seat YA horror flips Western archetypes for a gritty, edgy, and wholly original read.
For fans of Dread Nation and Westworld!
Faolan Kelly’s grandfather is dead. She’s alone in the world and suddenly homeless, all because the local powers that be don’t think a young man of sixteen is mature enough to take over his grandfather’s homestead…and that’s with them thinking Faolan is a young man. If she revealed that her grandfather had been disguising her for years, they would marry her off at the first opportunity.
The mayor finds a solution that serves everyone but Faolan: He hires a gunslinger to ship her off to the Settlement, a remote fort where social outcasts live under the leadership of His Benevolence Gideon Dillard. It's a place rife with mystery, kept afloat by suspicious wealth. Dillard's absolute command over his staff just doesn't seem right. And neither do the strange noises that keep Faolan up at night.
When Faolan finds the body of a Settlement boarder, mangled by something that can’t possibly be human, it’s clear something vicious is stalking the palisades. And as Settlement boarders continue to drop like flies, Faolan knows she must escape to evade the creature’s wrath.
Fantasy Urban | Young Adult Paranormal [Penguin Young Readers Group, On Sale: October 8, 2024, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9781984815620 / eISBN: 9781984815637]
Lish McBride is a writer, former bookseller, and amateur goblin living in the PNW. In the crime of the century, she tricked not one but two universities into giving her degrees, ending up with an MFA from the University of New Orleans. (They cannot have it back, either, as she has invoked the ancient law of “no backsies.”) When she is not writing or reading, she’s usually hanging out with her family and friends…and talking about writing or reading. Her ultimate dream is to have her own castle and one of the libraries with the wheely ladder. You can find her online in all of the usual places under the handle @lishmcbride, usually posting pictures of her dogs.own castle.
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