Dolly Parton and James Patterson can relate to the heroine of their first book together, ‘Run Rose Run’

As entertainment pairings go, it’s hard to beat. James Patterson, he of the page-turning thrillers and no stranger to teaming up on books with celebrities within their areas of expertise (notably Bill Clinton for “The President’s Daughter”), and Dolly Parton, who tells stories through songs that have become classics of country music.

Not surprisingly, their new novel “Run, Rose, Run,” which comes out March 7, mixes their interests and talents, with a propulsive storyline about a young woman who wants to make it as a singer/songwriter and a new album from Parton, also titled “Run, Rose, Run,” with songs taken straight from the book.

There’s sort of dual storytelling going on, with each working in their most comfortable medium: Patterson writing the book, and Parton writing and recording songs.

“We alternated words,” Patterson deadpanned as he and Parton talked on the phone back in December, such was the advance planning for this book. “The. Car.” Laughter all around.

They would flip back and forth with ideas on the outline “I like outlines,” Patterson said. He’d write a draft and they’d go back and forth with the chapters. Parton, meantime, was writing songs, which she would send to Patterson, and sometimes they’d stimulate a chapter. Or he’d write a phrase “like Blue Bonnet Breeze” and she’d turn it into a song.

Most of the songs, Parton said, “are really about situations, attitudes, relationships.” All the elements needed for a good story.

Which goes like this: AnnieLee Keyes can’t help but sing. Even in the most dire circumstances — and we meet her as she’s hitching a ride to Nashville, escaping a bad situation, hoping to catch a break that might launch a musical career — song lyrics come into her head.

“Is it easy?

No it ain’t.

Can I fix it?

No, I cain’t.

But I sure ain’t going to take it lyin’ down.”

The words are from the song “Woman Up (And Take It Like a Man)” — the lyrics at the back of the book and the song on Parton’s album.

AnnieLee (her “real” name is Rose McCord; the book will tell you why she changed it, no spoilers) is sleeping rough, trying to keep things together, looking for places to play: “(S)he needed a bar desperately. Not for a drink, though: for a chance.”

She meets Ruthanna Ryder, a country music legend, and Ruthanna decides to help her out. While Ruthanna would rather be at home “curled up in silk pajamas with a glass of wine and a good novel,” she still did some things in the industry, believing in giving back to the community. She had come up from nothing, too, after all.

“Well, I could relate to the character in every way,” Parton said. “I really think it’s amazing, I’m so grateful and thankful that I have been able to make a living in the business I love so much. It was my childhood dream and I’ve come a long way.”

“Chasing dreams is a big thing,” said Patterson. “We’re both from small towns and the odds against us making it were high. Like AnnieLee in the book, she is talented and the odds against her are stacked, and she makes it. We definitely want to encourage people to chase their dreams and do what they have to do, and work hard and go for it.”

Books have been a big part of that for Parton, even if this is the first time she’s participated in writing one. As one way of helping kids reach their dreams, she famously founded her Imagination Library, a program in which kids get a new book every month, from the time they’re born until they start school.

“That way they can learn to read. And like James was saying, if you can read you can educate yourself. You don’t have to have a college degree. It’s nice if you can afford it … but it also shows that anybody’s dreams can come true.”

In the book, Ryder is sort of semi-retired when she gets drawn back into the business. Which begs the question of Patterson, 74, and Parton, 76: Do you ever have moments where you say enough of all this?

“It’s just a weird word to me. How would you retire? How would people like us retire? Or get out of the business? That’s the only life I’ve ever known. I just wake up with dreams and thoughts and lines and things to do,” said Parton.

“I always say I don’t work for a living, I play for a living. Nobody’s retiring,” said Patterson.

“I’ve always said … I hope that, like one of those little fainting goats, one day I’ll just keel over and never wake up,” added Parton. “I always say I hope I die onstage, hopefully in the middle of a song I’ve written myself, like something from ‘Run, Rose, Run.’”

As for Patterson, this is what he’d like to see: “Jim died at the age of 103. He was slowing down: he’d only written four books that year,” he quipped.

Parton and Patterson worked on this book, they reckon, for about a year to a year and a half, and they did it during COVID-19. “People said did it slow you up? And we said, no, it actually helped us because we were sittin’ in the house” — “We were locked in the house,” Patterson added — “able to communicate in all the ways that one communicates these days,” said Parton.

Both she and Patterson, of course, are in a place where if they’re going to work on something they have to want to. “We really wanted to do this,” said Parton.

Is another book in the works? “Lord, we’ve got to get through this first,” Parton said.

While she may not know what’s next, she’s philosophical about where she’s been and where she’s going. “It’s a long way from the Smoky Mountains to the top of the world and I’ve just been blessed to have great people around me. God has always put good people in my life and now James is one of them. He gave me an opportunity to do some things and expand my horizons with my first novel, and to be able to have the chance to write some good music because I had a good man and a good book to work on.”

Amen to that.