As a wonderful surprise for Friday the 13th, not only has J. K. Rowling met the team from StrikeFans.com, she has shared with both them and now us, the title of Strike 9 – Sleep Tight, Evangeline. A quick google search reveals that this is the title of song and album from Whiskey Shambles, who are described as “pitch dark ultra-blues” and “RL Burnside and Black Sabbath jamming with Nina Simone in a burned-out rum shack…”
The Whiskey Shambles refuse to accept the constraints of the narrow opinions of how a blues band should sound. Their prime objective is to steal your heart, melt your face, and make you feel alive. With backgrounds steeped in the traditions of the Delta to the hallowed opera stage, they are just as likely to call up the darkness with a murder ballad as they are to take you to church.
The lyrics for the tune and a Whiskey Shambles performance:
I live the closest dreams, when I’m lying broken, and done for.
I live the closest dreams, when I’m dying, choking, and dead for . . .
Sleep tight, Evangeline. I’ll see you in my dreams
When I’m lying broken, and done for.
Sleep tight, Evangeline. I’ll be there in your dream
when I’m dying, choking, and dead for you.
The trademark for “Sleep Tight, Evangeline” was registered in 2023 (almost certainly by a J. K. Rowling cut-out) and the album was released in November 2025, which makes this album an unlikely source for the book title, but…
The band are followed by J. K. Rowling on Twitter, and they have been playing the song Sleep Tight, Evangeline, at least since 2014. It seems possible, and I would argue likely, that permission was sought and gained from Whiskey Shambles to use the title in 2023. The band, realising the huge publicity potential, releases an album with that title in 2025 prior to the book release, their first album in more than ten years.
Other Likely Inspirations for the Title
The Longfellow Poem:
John Granger found that: The name Evangeline was first popularised in the 19th century by the poem “Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie” written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poem tells the story of a young woman named Evangeline who is separated from her true love during the forced deportation of the Acadians from Nova Scotia. The poem was incredibly popular in its time and helped to establish the name Evangeline as a classic and romantic choice for baby girls.
Musical Inspiration:
Evangeline is most famous in popular music as a song by The Band.
Emmy Lou Harris recorded the song and titled the album Evangeline.
Excellent post Nick! How interesting re: the possible inversion of the trademarking of the title (no chance of spotting that one!) and the release of the album. The musical equivalent of being influenced by reading things in manuscript before they are published!
This is certainly the source (musical epigraphs again? Or will this be another Running Grave with a unique title source?) but it will be fun if she plays around with other Evangelines. I note there is also an Edgar Allan Poe poem which is spectacularly rude about critics – https://classic-literature.co.uk/evangeline-poem/ – so, let’s hope that one doesn’t make it in 😉
Oh, but that would be fun! I love the knocks at annoying critics and fans in Jo’s Boys and Aurora Leigh. 😉
There was an Evangeline comic series in the 80s, with the title character described as a sexy killer vigilante nun.
So I’m hoping that’s a reference point.
Another brilliant catch and breaking story write-up, Nick!
I’m hopeful that Prof Groves is right and is this is a ‘title-only’ source for Strike9 rather than the source from which all the epigraphs in the book will be taken.
The best argument I’ve found that this is Whiskey Shambles’ ‘Evangeline’ rather than Longfellow’s or Poe’s is that ‘Sleep Tight’ as an expression has its first appearance, per the OED mavens, in 1933.
I love the scenario that the Rowling Fat Cops family are fans of Whiskey Shambles and that Rowling’s title choice moved them to put together recordings made over the last decade into an album with that as the album title.
But those lyrics… Rowling’s tweets about Strike9 continue in the ‘Robin is a Goner’ vein.
The good news? ‘Evangeline’ means “the Good News” and refers to the possibility of eternal life for mankind in the incarnation and resurrection of Christ, hence ‘Evangelist’ and ‘Evangelicals,’ those proclaiming this News or Message.
Is that a pointer, like many of the charms, to embedded Christian content in the penultimate Strike novel? Your guess, but it’s a possibility.
Again, Nick, thank you for doping out and writing up the meaning of the Strike9 title!
The name “Evangeline” reminds me of Evangeline St. Clare in Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) who’s often cited as the quintessential example of the angelic dying child trope so common in American sentimentalist novels of the era. Those childlike angel charms come to mind!
Oh! Great catch, Sarah.
Love this! So happy to wake up to this news
Does this mean we’re going to get a book this year?!
Getting Whittaker Vibes from the bands Halloween videos! Maybe this will be the Leda book with Charlotte in book 10?
These lines from the poem seem very relevant
This was the old man’s favorite tale, and he loved to repeat it
When his neighbors complained that any injustice was done them.
“Once in an ancient city, whose name I no longer remember,
Raised aloft on a column, a brazen statue of Justice
Stood in the public square, upholding the scales in its left hand,
And in its right a sword, as an emblem that justice presided
Over the laws of the land, and the hearts and homes of the people.
Even the birds had built their nests in the scales of the balance,
Having no fear of the sword that flashed in the sunshine above them.
But in the course of time the laws of the land were corrupted;
Might took the place of right, and the weak were oppressed, and the mighty
Ruled with an iron rod. Then it chanced in a nobleman’s palace
That a necklace of pearls was lost, and erelong a suspicion
Fell on an orphan girl who lived as maid in the household.
She, after form of trial condemned to die on the scaffold,
Patiently met her doom at the foot of the statue of Justice.
As to her Father in heaven her innocent spirit ascended,
Lo! o’er the city a tempest rose; and the bolts of the thunder
Smote the statue of bronze, and hurled in wrath from its left hand
Down on the pavement below the clattering scales of the balance,
And in the hollow thereof was found the nest of a magpie,
Into whose clay-built walls the necklace of pearls was inwoven.”
Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie
Part the First – III
How exciting!! Great writeup Nick, loving all the theories that’s come out so quickly, you guys are amazing!
I did a quick search on my kindle and thought it was interesting that the name “Evangeline” comes up 4x in Troubled Blood, referring to occultic astrologer Evangeline Adams. Robin packs a copy of her book “Your place in the sun” to read at the Leamington spa inn before interviewing Satchwell. Could book 9 also have occultic elements as well? If we’re seeing Whittaker again it could be possible. I think he was hardcore Crowley and Aleister Crowley was also born in Leamington Spa
I am sure John will like playing with the name – Evangeline/Evangelism…..it has a faith/spiritual etymology.