How Taylor Swift’s Love Songs Helped Me Write My Wildest Thriller Yet (Exclusive)

I became a Taylor Swift fan at the age of 26, when love destroyed me. For several months that year, I played “Dear John” on loop while driving to and from work. It was the first Taylor single I hadn’t heard, and as I drove it down the dusky freeways, tears fogging the brake lights, I marveled at how a complete stranger wrote a song that detailed my heartache, helping me feel a little less as if I had lost my mind as well as my heart. Little did I imagine then that more than a decade later, Taylor’s music would help me write one of my most twisted thrillers to date.

Cross of My Heartwhich comes out on January 14, follows Rosie, a heart transplant recipient, who becomes fixated on her donor’s husband. She believes that he is meant to love her too, since the heart he once loved is now hers. It’s a story of obsession, about a woman so desperate for a relationship that she crosses more than one line to find it—even when she discovers that the man she’s chasing may have had something to do with his wife’s death. Because in her eyes, regardless of his flaws, he belongs to her.

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So it should come as no surprise that when I was thinking about this novel, I had Taylor’s “You Belong With Me” in my head. The song is about someone longing for a friend who is too caught up in a beautiful, popular girl to notice that she is the one he should actually be with all the time. It’s a sweet, hopeful love song – or so I’ve always heard it. But when I listened with Cross of My Heart in mind, one verse hit me like a scratch on a record.

‘Cross My Heart’ Megan Collins.

Atria books

After Taylor spends several choruses affirming the song’s title phrase, she sings, “Think I know where you place, think I know it’s with me.” She thoughts does she know? To me, that line reveals that for all her insistence, for all her certainty about this relationship, some of it may be all in her head. That idea seems to be foreshadowing Speak now vault song “I Can See You,” especially these lines: “You won’t believe half the things I see in my head. Wait until you see half the things that haven’t happened yet.”

And that kind of runaway imagination is so Rosie in there Cross of My Heart. Even as she finds real ways to interact with her donor’s husband, Morgan, she still fantasizes about him, still dreams of the bond they surely share—which only strengthens her belief that they belong together.

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After spotting that nuance in Taylor’s classic love song, I couldn’t stop hearing new layers in others as well. In “Labyrinth” the narrator declares again and again that she is “falling in love again”, but she prefaces this statement with “uh oh” and “oh no”, admitting that for her this is not necessarily a good thing. Listening to that song at my desk, I knew my book needed that perspective. Only, it was too self-aware for Rosie, who is dying to find love before giving her a new heart, which is always possible with transplants.

Taylor Swift performs on stage during ‘Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour’.

Emma McIntyre/TAS24/Getty

Enter: Nina, Rosie’s best friend, who tries so hard to be her voice of reason, warning her not to start a relationship with Morgan, reminding her that she’s repeating the patterns that got her into trouble before. But just like at the end of “Labyrinth,” where “uh oh” and “oh no” overlap competing notes until the words are almost a blur, Rosie doesn’t hear Nina’s warnings. Even as her innocent infatuation leads her down increasingly dangerous paths, Rosie pleases Nina.

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If Rosie communicated with her friend using only Taylor Swift lyrics (something I never done — no need to check my group chats!), she might have replied, “Nothing worth driving for sure.” It’s from the movie “The Traitor,” which on the surface is about diving headfirst into romance, even knowing that love is a dangerous gamble. The narrator acknowledges the risk just before singing, “I’d follow you, I’d follow you home.” When this song was released in 2012, I was in the bold-move, clear-eyed relationship phase myself, so all I heard was her willingness to take chances with her love interest, to follow him wherever he leads.

Taylor Swift performs on stage during ‘Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour’.

Emma McIntyre/TAS24/Getty

Writing my novel, however, I heard something else: an undercurrent of obsession as a provisional “I would I’m following you home” transitions to the more definitive “I want I’m following you, I’m following you home.” It is repeated several more times, as if the narrator cannot shake the thought. As if he would follow him regardless of whether he called or not. And just like that, another element of Cross of My Heart born: in more than one scene, my the narrator, Rosie, stands outside Morgan’s house, watching the man she is certain is her future.

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However, in order to begin living that future, Rosie must first arrange a meeting with Morgan. Taylor Swift, the queen of teasing new projects with Easter eggs, knows all about making detailed plans. She even sings about it in “Mastermind,” where she admits she pulled some strings to make the relationship happen: “What if I told you none of this was by accident and the first night you saw me, nothing was going to stop me?”

Taylor Swift performs on stage during ‘Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour’.

Kevin Mazur/TAS24/Getty

What strikes me the most here is that she doesn’t say “the first night I saw your.” The lyrics are very deliberately “the first night your saw me”, implying that, in fact, the narrator had been glancing at the man for a while without him knowing it. That difference inspired me when I was writing the scene where Rosie sees Morgan in the coffee shop and hatches her plan to “accidentally” run into him, which will set off their tortuous – and twisted – journey together.

Without Taylor’s music, Cross of My Heart would be a very different book. Even if it had the same characters and the same big surprises, it wouldn’t delve deeply into the more obsessive—even possessive—side of love. A side that is as much a delusion as it is a desire. The side where passion turns into danger, where the pursuit of a partner seems as necessary as a heartbeat.

Rosie isn’t the easiest character to root for, but even in her most outrageous moments there’s something about her – Taylor’s quality songs helped me find it. Because just like when I was 26, her music reminded me that we all lose our minds a little because of love.

To hear more songs that inspired me while writing my novel, check out the official one Cross of My Heart (Taylor’s Version) track list.

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Source: HIS Education