There are certain perks to being best friends with Tarryn Fisher for over ten years. For one, I get to be the godmother of her children. Two, she paired me up with my puppy soulmate, Scout. She created Senna—the main character of Mud Vein—after me.
I mean, there are just too many to name. Of course it’s always a fringe benefit reading her books when they are fresh out of her brain before anyone else gets to.
You think I’m bragging.
Wait until we get to the downside of this prestigious position.
She makes me eat all these wonderful foods with her and I get fat and she doesn’t.
She tries to rip my clothes off me when we drink too much.
She interrogates me about myself and then tells me my answers are stupid.
Ask her about Joseph Gordon Levitt.
And do you know how hard it is to read chunks of her books, and then have to wait for her to write more of it?
Everyone is so happy on a Tarryn Fisher release day because they get to buy her book and binge read it. From beginning to end. Cover to cover. Instant gratification. You lucky dogs.
Do you know the sheer hell of reading three-quarters of her manuscript (which, you know from reading my plotting post, is right near the climax), and then the words just stop? They just aren’t there anymore? NO MORE WORDS.
It’s like this:
See? No words. Infinite space.
And I grab my phone with a manic intention of paying for some upgraded membership that will deliver the rest to my inbox, or trolling some pirating website that may have posted it for free and risk getting a virus on my computer. Then I drop my phone and gaze across the room, my glossy eyes landing on probably a framed picture of Tarryn and me, and it hits me…
…there is no ending yet. It doesn’t exist. The words are still swirling around in her brain.
So I text her.
Me: omg I’m loving this. Do you have more to send?
Tarryn: no, I just finished that chapter. Idk if I like it. It’s driving me crazy.
Me: well what are you gonna do next? How are you gonna fix that?
Tarryn: idk (insert shrugging brunette emoji)
Me: idk what you’re gonna do. I mean, how the HELL are you gonna get Yara out of this.
Tarryn: idk.
Tarryn: So when are you coming to see me?
Do you see? How infuriating???
I finally got the rest of the book over the weekend, and I can honestly say, without giving anything away, this might be my new Fisher favorite. When she had left me last chapter-less, I didn’t know how she was going to end it, and I’m a pretty good predictor of books. I mean, I knew the ending of Girl on the Train like, a quarter of the way through. But I wracked my brain on this one and all I knew was that my heart was going to be mangled, either way.
She did it. Perfectly.
My heart was both broken and full. It was like someone took a hammer and shattered it into little glass pieces, and then took a pitcher of whatever is in our hearts when we say our hearts are full, and poured it all over the glass shards. Then it all gelled together into this living, breathing Jell-O mold and now that’s what I have for an aortic pump. That’s what’s pushing blood and new life through my veins.
I remember when Tarryn was writing The Opportunist. I have in my bedroom about four early versions of the book, before it was even named The Opportunist, when the current first chapter wasn’t even in the manuscript. They’re printed as Word Documents inside a pink zebra-striped folder. We were so young then, and as I was reading AWKAP, I was getting vivid flashbacks of The Opportunist. It was nostalgic. It was warm and fuzzy and absolutely terrifying.
AWKAP is like in an alternate universe of TO. Oh, it’s the same in the sense that everyone is way prettier and more clever than I, but it was like reading TO in a mirror. Our star-crossed lovers, the ones that were made for each other. The ones that are so broken in all the right places, that you hurt for them before they manage to hurt themselves. Their love is an art so perfect, it’s ominous.
Then the fall from grace—you try to brace yourself for it, you think you’re ready. But it’s so tragic you can’t breathe. And just when you think they’ve hit rock bottom, oh. My. Lord. They manage to split the earth and plunge into hell.
The Opportunist
Dirty Red
Thief
Atheists Who
Kneel and
Pray
I can tell you to expect the heartbreak, to expect the life altering, and yet …
You just can’t expect anything.
See for yourself. Tarryn is letting me give you sneak peek. Just don’t forget – you read it here first (winks, tongue clicks, and air guns).
Dear Yara,
The band’s in London November 12th. Want to catch up?
David
So casual. So nonchalant. You’d think we were only acquaintances, that we’d once sipped a couple of beers together instead of tattooing love on our skin and reciting marriage vows. I read the e-mail again and analyze the shit out of it. How can I not? I count out the words: thirteen. The punctuation: four. His name, my name. They used to go together. A flippant, casual turn of the phrase: catch up. In the end, there’s only so much psychoanalyzing you can do to a thirteen-word e-mail. I move on with my life, feeling rather pathetic. But not before I e-mail him back. And okay, sure, I don’t move on with my life. I am stuck. What does moving on entail? Forgetting? Forgiving? Being happy? Besides, I know what he wants to talk about. I know why he’s coming.
Hi David,
Yeah, sounds good. Let me know when and where.
Yara
My e-mail is a word shorter.
I’m that petty.
FRICK! I love it! I want more. Thank you for posting this. Now she just needs to hurry up and release this shiz! ♥
Yes! You are going to absolutely LOVE it!
OH. MY. GOD. I need this book! I want this book! Yet I know this book is going to break me! Yet, that is okie dokie with me, I am not right in the head, LOL. By the way I totally do not envy you, it would suck only get part of the manuscript. You gave me a new insight into what I do to my besties. Ouch! My bad!
Hahaha! We are all such masochists…
She’s killing us, and now you’re trying to kill us too ? I can not wait for this book.
I would NEVER kill you. Tease, yes. Kill, not so much. 🙂
I didn’t read the sneak peak. I couldn’t . I know if I read I will obsess over it and I’m still trying to finish the book I started three weeks ago.
What! Read it!!!! It’s short. Little. Itty Bitty.
I have no will power. I couldn’t resist reading the sneak peek and now I know a teeny bit of the torture you feel. I need more! It’s going to be beyond amazing and I’m ready for my heart to be shattered by her again!
You’re not supposed to RESIST reading it, you’re just supposed to read it! It’s good, right??? We love stuffing Jell-O molds into our chest cavities…
Well well. This right here that short preview had my heart in knots. You’re lucky. I didn’t know Senna was framed around you what an amazing character to have mirrored after oneself.
Thanks, I’ve always hoped Senna wasn’t too crazy. LOL
Thank you for sharing this with us Traci ❤️
Waiting for this book has me in a tizzy, I’m anxious, I want to read it so bad but I’m freaking scared.
When this is published I’m on it like a car bonnet!! Just don’t know if my heart can take it ❤️
You may have a little PTSD from The Love Me With Lies series, but it’ll alllll be worth it. 🙂
First of all…holy freaking CRAP. You’re Senna? YOU’RE FREAKING SENNA? I thought I was Senna..? Seriously, MV changed my life. And when I say it changed my life, I mean in the biggest way one’s life can possibly change. So, I guess I have Tarryn AND you to thank for that. Thank you.
Second of all…I’m scared of AWKAP. My life is looking pretty good right now, and I don’t think I want it to change. But that’s what Tarryn’s words do to you. They completely annihilate you. I don’t know if I’m ready for that.
Thank you for sharing. And for being Senna.
You’re welcome, Cassie!!! Love, Senna
GAH! WHY! All this teasing is TORTURE!! I need this book! I need something that will wreck me, make me feel, I NEED a Tarryn book!
It’s coming! Hold on tight! (that’s what she said) Sorry, I had to…
I was shocked by the confession that YOU are Senna. How? I mean, that was a really good plot twist from what I imagined on Tarryn’s life. What else to say more than “I love you” because Mud Vein is beyond words. I wish I had the privilege of being tortured by reading her stories like you.
Well Tarryn always puts what’s currently going on in her life in her books/characters. So yes, while Senna’s relationships are Tarryn’s, she picked my brain for days because she patterned Senna’s person and personality after me. I don’t know if that makes me a crazy person or a cool one. LOL
Thanks for the blue balls.
Both of those words start with B. Know what else starts with B?
Biiiiiiitch.
Which is coincidentally what I said when I finished reading. Extremely loudly. In the middle of my office. Luckily, everyone here is used to my outbursts. But damnit. Tease.
I just now saw this and it made me laugh my ass off! LOL! So glad you liked it…I mean, I think you liked it…your comment may have been derogatory, but alas, I took it as a compliment. Muhuhahaha
Traci, I’m so happy that I know you. Your posts about the boys crack me up and often lead to me nodding in understanding of our shared struggle. I watched over the years as you posted about Tarryn and her books without ever reading her work because it wasn’t ‘my’ style, I was a paranormal genre junkie, that was my genre,-period. Then one day I decided to take the plunge; first I read Mud Vein, then Bad Mommy, I then devoured the Love Me With Lies series…I feel lost now. I think I’m a #pln, I’m thrilled, I’m strung out, I want more Caleb and Olivia. I don’t want to go to work tomorrow; I just want to read all day. Thank you Traci for being your amazing self and being the reason I’m now obsessed with your bestie and her books.
This is just the best comment and compliment I’ve ever received, hands-down. Thank you, April! Seriously! I’m so glad I know you, too! I wish we could see each other more often, and I also love when you post of your boys because I love watching them grow into gorgeous young men, and anticipating mine going through that, as well. I’m also really glad you’ve grown to love Tarryn’s books, lol! If you want more of Caleb and Olivia, read this one! It’s so much like Love Me With Lies, and I think you’ll love it. 🙂 XOXOXO