I can’t work at all while music is playing. If it’s something I like, I want to listen or sing along, and if it’s not… either way it’s distracting. But I have a large mental library of songs, lyrics, and melodies which I incorporate into my writing. The following Playlist is from my new book The Fragile Breath and the music serves to augment key plot developments.
Queen of the Night aria; from Mozart’s The Magic Flute/ America - Paul Simon
Fiona leaves New York with her caregiver and travels 600 miles to Johnson’s River, TN seeking a lung transplant. As Mason drives, Fiona faces her fears of the next few months, and that she may never come back. She talks through her memories of the city, represented by the Metropolitan Opera.
However, once through the Lincoln Tunnel, her mood lifts, and she counts the cars on the NJ Turnpike looking forward to finding America.
All You Need is Love - The Beatles
Fiona and Mason have been invited to a pizza party at the apartment of another of Fiona’s transplant cohort, Terry. Terry’s brother Lyle is bringing his college a cappella group to sing for the guests. Fiona spends an enjoyable evening, and she feels a closer connection with the assembled collection of hopefuls who are all seeking a transplant. When Lyle sings “All you need is Lung” to this group, everyone joins in.
My Sharona - The Knack
Michaela, Mason’s seven-year-old daughter, has moved in with them. Fiona, who has no children of her own, has fallen for this charming girl. One evening, Mason comes in dressed in 1980’s clothes, cranks the music, and dances flamboyantly, singing: “My Fiona.” He pulls in a delighted Michaela, and all three end up laughing uproariously on the couch. It is clear that they have become a family.
Over at the Frankenstein Place - The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Fiona has finally had her transplant, but her ravaged body rejects the new lung almost immediately. She has a port placed in her neck as a machine recycles the plasma from her blood to filter out harmful antibodies. To distract herself from this procedure, she sings to herself, feeling that now she has received a lung from another body and blood from a machine through a bolt in her neck, she is just like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster.
Feeling Good - Michael Bublé
Fiona Is sitting in her new apartment, looking through the Johnson’s River Facebook page to see what has become of the members of her transplant cohort. The doorbell rings signaling the next part of her adventure, and she is feeling good.
A Novel
Based on a true story, this heartwarming and often humorous story follows a fortysomething New Yorker as she uproots her entire life in pursuit of a cure after developing a terminal disease—and ends up finding much more than a new set of lungs.
When Fiona Copeland is diagnosed with terminal lung disease, she risks everything on the chance of a few more years of life.
Far from New York is a lung transplant center that can procure lungs for transplant within a month. But the center requires each patient to bring their own full-time, in-house caregiver with them—and Fiona’s husband, Dane, cannot leave town. So, in breach of the center’s strict rules, Fiona hires a caregiver and she and her fake husband, Mason, head to Tennessee.
The Johnson’s River center is a grueling rehab program where patients exercise for three hours daily to prepare for surgery. Over the course of her first weeks there, Fiona discovers the close bonding that develops among people fighting at high risk—and is devastated when one of the cohort dies. Meanwhile, weeks turn into months without Fiona getting transplant matches. Her marriage suffers from the long distance, and the realization she might actually die threatens to unravel her. But she is thrown a shocking life buoy when Mason’s young daughter comes to join them at the center. Captivated by the girl and growing increasingly closer to Mason, Fiona finds herself with compelling new reasons to fight—not least of which is this unexpected found family.
Women's Fiction Friendship | Fiction Family Life | Romance Medical [ She Writes Press, On Sale: May 12, 2026, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9798896363026 / eISBN: 9798896363033 ]
Sharon Agar grew up in Hampshire, England, and later moved to the US to attend Yale. After business school, she worked in a variety of fields including both finance and not-for-profit. Her life took a major turn when she was diagnosed with a potentially fatal lung disease and, over the next two years, underwent two lung transplant operations. Her debut novel Out of Options, a business thriller, was published in April of 2014. A lifelong singer and a passionate advocate for organ donation, Agar has three sons and currently lives with her husband in Los Angeles.
No comments posted.
© 2003-2026