Tour/Giveaway: I Heart Robot by Suzanne Van Rooyen

By Jen On April 6, 2015 · 1 Comment · In Blog Tours, Guest Post

Please help me welcome Suzanne Van Rooyen, author of I Heart Robot! She’s here today to share the music behind her novel, including android Quinn’s playlist! Check out the book below, along with her guest post, and be sure to enter the giveaway!

I Heart Robot by Suzanne Van Rooyen

Sixteen-year-old Tyri wants to be a musician and wants to be with someone who won’t belittle her musical aspirations.

Q-I-99 aka ‘Quinn’ lives in a scrap metal sanctuary with other rogue droids. While some use violence to make their voices heard, demanding equal rights for AI enhanced robots, Quinn just wants a moment on stage with his violin to show the humans that androids like him have more to offer than their processing power.

Tyri and Quinn’s worlds collide when they’re accepted by the Baldur Junior Philharmonic Orchestra. As the rift between robots and humans deepens, Tyri and Quinn’s love of music brings them closer together, making Tyri question where her loyalties lie and Quinn question his place in the world. With the city on the brink of civil war, Tyri and Quinn make a shocking discovery that turns their world inside out. Will their passion for music be enough to hold them together while everything else crumbles down around them, or will the truth of who they are tear them apart?

The Music of I Heart Robot

by Suzanne Van Rooyen

Music is essential to my writing process and became even more essential while writing I Heart Robot since the book revolves around the theme of music.

While writing the novel, I listened primarily to music by the likes of Beethoven, Scriabin, Chopin, Dvorák, and Sibelius. The classical music provided the perfect backtrack while drafting without distracting me too much. Many of the tracks I listened to were also pieces my characters were playing. When I wrote scenes involving specific pieces of music – such as Scriabin’s White and Black Mass – I had those pieces playing on repeat making the experience more real to me as an author.

While editing and revising I Heart Robot, I switched things up a bit and listened to a lot of music by the Icelandic composer Olafur Arnalds. I strongly recommend listening to Arnalds’ albums ‘For Now I Am Winter’ and ‘Living Room Songs’ while reading I Heart Robot.

During the editing phase I also created playlists specifically for each character and even for specific scenes. Here’s the playlist for my android Quinn:

Robot Boy by Linkin Park

I am Dust by Gary Numan

Save the Robots by Institute

Keep the Streets Empty for Me by Fever Ray

R-Evolve by Thirty Seconds to Mars

If I could pick just one song to be the anthem of this novel though, it would have to be Human by Civil Twilight.

Which song is the anthem for your life?

About Suzanne Van Rooyen

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Suzanne is a tattooed storyteller from South Africa. She currently lives in Sweden and is busy making friends with the ghosts of her Viking ancestors. Although she has a Master’s degree in music, Suzanne prefers conjuring strange worlds and creating quirky characters. When she grows up, she wants to be an elf – until then, she spends her time (when not writing) wall climbing, buying far too many books, and entertaining her shiba inu, Lego.