Fiction Fans

Author Interview: Countess by Suzan Palumbo

• Episode 157

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Your hosts are joined by Suzan Palumbo to talk about food, colonialism, and more in her new novella, Countess. They also talk about the unique experiences of queer characters and classic lit inspirations by way of The Count of Monte Cristo.


Find more from Suzan:
https://bsky.app/profile/sillysyntax.bsky.social
https://x.com/sillysyntax
https://www.instagram.com/gothicsyntax/

Find us on Discord / Support us on Patreon

Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:

- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”
- Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License


Lilly:

Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words, too. I'm Lily.

Sara:

And I'm Sarah, and I'm so delighted to welcome Susan Palumbo back onto the podcast to talk about her new novella, Countess.

Suzan:

Hi, thank you for having me.

Sara:

Thank you for coming back on. It's a, delight to have you.

Suzan:

Oh, yeah, it's my pleasure. I'm so excited that I didn't like ruin my chances of a re invite last time.

Sara:

I mean, when, when you said queer Monte Cristo in space, I'm pretty sure that I like marked you down on the calendar immediately after that for this, so.

Lilly:

But before we talk about that, what's something great that happened recently?

Sara:

My good thing is that Countess inspired me to get delivery from a local Caribbean restaurant last night, and it was excellent. And also I have leftovers for dinner tonight, so that's going to be excellent. So good all around..

Suzan:

now you have to tell me what you got. You can't just be like, a local Caribbean restaurant, like, now I gotta know what you ordered.

Sara:

I know it's, it's true. Let me pull up my order. So. There was okra fritters, which were fantastic. There was also what did it, what did it call it?

Suzan:

Do you remember what you ate? Okay. Okay.

Sara:

I, I do remember what I ate. I'm just trying to figure out what they actually said. So it was, they called it fried dough or, or doubles, which,

Suzan:

Doubles! Okay, yes, yes,

Sara:

that's actually the name of the dish then. I wasn't sure if that was the

Suzan:

that is a very specific Trinidadian food. Yes.

Sara:

It was incredible. I loved it. I could have eaten like it was a little spicy, a little sour, just, yes. Very, very good. And then there was also oxtails. Which was also good, and that's what I have left for dinner tonight. And then my drink, which is going to be another question later on. So I will hold off on that. Raise some suspense. But, yes dinner, dinner last night was very good. I'd not eaten from this restaurant before, but I will be eating from them again.

Lilly:

I'm looking up if there's a Caribbean restaurant near me. Sorry, I got very distracted.

Suzan:

Oh.

Lilly:

Priorities.

Sara:

just, Countess has so many descriptions of food, and I got so hungry reading it. I was like, I need, I need to have, and my dishwasher is not working currently, so I didn't want to cook. So I was like, I need to get delivery anyway, or I don't need to get delivery, I'm planning on getting delivery anyway. I might as well make it tie in with what's making me hungry right now. And I have no regrets. Yeah.

Suzan:

This makes me happy.

Lilly:

I hosted family last weekend. We had a almost full family reunion. Sarah

Sara:

not there. I'm sorry.

Lilly:

It's okay. But it was nice seeing almost everybody.

Sara:

You see me every week.

Suzan:

Did You have to cook?

Lilly:

I volunteered my husband.

Suzan:

Oh, that's fantastic.

Lilly:

Yeah, it was great.

Suzan:

Did he cook a lot?

Lilly:

we only did two nights of the five total nights. It was spread out. There was everyone pitching in, so. It was really lovely just, yeah. Seeing all my aunts and uncles and some of my cousins.

Suzan:

I guess I have to go now. Okay, so we're not going to mention the obvious thing. We're going to talk about that for the rest of the time. So this is kind of, since we're all kind of talking about food or like I made you talk about food, Lily, but Sarah mentioned food. I had pate for the first time. I've never had pate before. I went out with Premi Mohammed, on Tuesday, she, she had come down for an event. She's like, let's go to this bar place. And she's like, want pate? And I was like, I've never had pate before. I liked it, but I didn't, I don't know how I feel about it. Like, I was a little bit, I'm a little bit confused. Like, I liked it. But did I love it? I don't think so. I think I would have it again. I don't know. That was the main question. Yeah, like, I'm not sure. Like, it wasn't bad, but I'm not craving it. And I wonder if different pâtés from different birds taste different. Now, like, this was chicken. Do they always make chicken pâté? Like, is it out of chicken all the time? Because I've heard of duck before. Does the duck one taste different? Maybe I need to try it. So that was a good thing, I guess. I have a new hobby.

Lilly:

Susan, the pâté expert.

Suzan:

Yeah, I'm the pâté connoisseur

Lilly:

Yeah. It's nice, Like, if you have a cheese plate or something to have some kind of meat. I think it's, like, it has its place. It's very good in that kind of thing. But I agree with you, I don't know if I ever wake up and are like, I want pâté. That's not something I experience. Curry, though. There are some days where I just wake up and I'm like, I need this in me.

Suzan:

I'm craving.

Lilly:

Yeah. What's everyone drinking? I have mint tea because it's kind of almost fall and I'm leaning in hard.

Sara:

So. As I mentioned I got takeout last night. Part of the takeout was sorrel tea and I have the remnants of that, plus a little bit of rum in it, because this is fiction fans, so.

Suzan:

And, Caribbean people, like, well, I'm not gonna make a blanket statement, but rum is popular.

Sara:

It felt like an appropriate thing to add to this drink.

Suzan:

Yes. I think you're on, you're on theme. Can I just have a Coke Zero?

Sara:

Also good.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Suzan:

Yeah. I mean, it's, it is not after nine here, but caffeine doesn't do much to me. I'll probably just be able to go to bed. So,

Lilly:

And it's that when it's just delicious. Well, we are about to discuss Countess, which, well, we've all read, I assume you've also read it, Susan. You wrote the thing.

Suzan:

No, not really.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Suzan:

I'm trying to avoid it.

Lilly:

Have you read anything else good lately?

Suzan:

A lot of my time recently has been spent reading books for blurbs. Which is not a complaint. So it's kind of a bit hard to talk about them. Because you know, they're not out yet, or, or these things. I did, I was in Scotland for Worldcon, and I went to Waterstones, and I picked up a copy of Lady Macbeth, because the cover looked really good. And I'm halfway through. I like it. I'm a kind of person who will sometimes read commentary or reviews about a book before I read them. So, I think the commentaries about the book have some valid points. The book is a retelling and they make Lady Macbeth from France

Lilly:

Interesting.

Suzan:

in the retelling. And the review That I read which is like in a magazine, it wasn't like just a, like a Goodreads review, it was somewhere else. They said like, you know, that is a choice and why did she do that? And I'm kind of thinking of that while I read through the book thinking how it affects the story and why did she do that? Why, why isn't Lady Macbeth Scottish in the book? It's an interesting choice. I think it's well written. I like the voice. But yeah, it's, it's, it's making me think. So that's what I've been reading that I can talk about. Ava Reed, she wrote it.

Sara:

Oh, okay. I, I am familiar with the author name. I've not read any of her work. But I am at least,

Suzan:

kind of person.

Sara:

yeah, she wrote a book called like The Woodsman or something

Suzan:

yeah, yeah.

Sara:

my TBR. But I've not had a chance to read any, anything that she's done.

Lilly:

Sarah, have you read anything non podcast related?

Sara:

I have been reading The Hexologists by Josiah Bancroft which I was really excited to read and I think maybe was too excited because it's been a little bit of a letdown, not because it's not good but because I think that I had played it up a little bit too much in my head And I'm not entirely jiving with the prose, which is not the prose's fault necessarily. Like it's, it's very clear the author is going for a very specific style and it fits entirely with the setting of the book. It's just not working for me exactly. And I don't know if that's me at this point in time problem, or just a me problem in general so it's, I, I am enjoying it. I am planning to continue it, but it is also one of those books where I kind of have to force myself to continue to read it where I'm not just like devouring each page. Also that's kind of compounded by the fact that the main character Or the two main characters it's, it's a wife and her husband, are very madly attracted to each other, which they're great, like, married representation. I love that for them. a little, it's a little too much for, for my taste. heart. Like, I don't need to hear about how much they want to bang all the time. it's just a little much for me personally. But again, this is a me problem. That's not necessarily a book problem. And I think that as far as married couples on the page go, they're great. Like more married couples should be as obviously attracted to each other as these people are. I just don't necessarily want to. hear about it as much.

Lilly:

Understandable.

Sara:

So, that's, that's how I'm currently feeling about the book.

Lilly:

Very different vibes from what I'm reading. I'm re reading the Books of Blood by Clive Barker, which is kind of cheating because we are going to be covering it in a podcast episode soon. But,

Sara:

Yeah, you should be waiting to read them.

Lilly:

Well, I'm saving, the first one is the one we're going to cover on the podcast. I'm reading the second one. Yeah.

Sara:

It's all good then.

Lilly:

I read them last year. And I borrowed them from the library, and I was like, you know what? I need to own these. I want to reread them. So that's what I'm doing. And it's, we're approaching spooky season, so I gotta get started.

Suzan:

That's always fun when you borrow a book and then you're like, Oh, I have to buy this.

Lilly:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, speaking of spooky season, we're about to be discussing a book that has one or two content warnings, I'd say. Three or four. Four or five. You very kindly sent us over a list that I think I'm just going to use shamelessly.

Suzan:

Go ahead.

Lilly:

death, descriptions of war, violence, murder, sexual harassment, racism, self harm, suicide, birds that attack, dismemberment. We got all sorts of things going on.

Sara:

There's, there's kind of a lot in 160 pages.

Lilly:

You don't fuck around.

Suzan:

Do not.

Lilly:

When you were writing this book, were you like, I'm going to write some intense shit? Or did it, was it just the story brought you there? Took you there?

Suzan:

had gone through So this is our official first question.

Lilly:

Yes.

Suzan:

Okay. I had gone through a very, sort of, traumatic, personal situation in 2020 in the spring and it I had become very, very depressed after it, and I didn't know, like, for a couple months, I didn't do anything. I was, we already gave this, the trigger warning for the podcast. So I was suicidal at that time and went to the doctor and all of that stuff to get that under control. And when I finally sort of came out of the worst of it after a few months, I was like, all right, well, I need to occupy my time. And so that was when I started writing. One of the stories in Skin Thief Killjar, and then after I finished Killjar, and that's pretty dark I was like, all right, I was, I sent it off to an agent and Michael said, this is great, but do you have a novella or novel? And I said, well, I have a first chapter of a novella. And I sent it to him and he was like, oh, I'll read the rest, but I didn't have the rest. So I told him, okay, well, I'm going to go polish this. But I actually wasn't polishing anything. I went, I had to write it. So I sat down and all of that sort of upset edness that I had had, that, where I went from really, really sad, I had become very, very angry. at a specific person. And so I channeled that into this story. And so that's why it comes across so angry because I had moved from sadness to anger generally in the book. But the premise and the idea and all of that for the book had existed before I went through that issue. I had already sort of planned in my mind to write a Count of Monte Cristo retelling in space.

Sara:

It is definitely a very angry book and I have a question about the retelling aspect of it that is very much a spoiler, so I don't want to ask it yet, but I will ask it in the spoiler section. But What genre would you consider this story? So when we were, talking about it a little bit over email, like you said, well, it has some horror aspects, but there's also a lot of sci fi to it. It's kind of Monte Cristo in space.

Suzan:

it, it's really funny because it's got a lot of things going on there. It, it's very slippery, I think, personally. So people ask me, well, what, what is this book? Right? What is the genre? And my publisher, you know, they, they say this is a, a hard sci-fi. space opera. And I think the hard sci fi part comes from the the, the mining aspect because they're mining for iridium and, you know, there are skip gates and extra planets and stuff like that. But it's also a gothic horror novel in a way because it's got an internal sort of arc of her transforming. and going through something quite dark and coming out the other side. So it's that. But it's also a kind of pulpy when I was writing parts of it, I had the picture of Captain Kirk in the, in his chair, sitting there, and I've watched quite a bit of original Star Trek, so that is in there, and Star Wars is in there, and then there's also like a romance thing, so it's like a soap opera as well, so yeah, for official purposes, it's a, It's a space opera. It's sci fi, but I snuck horror and some other things in there and dark fantasy. Like, there's a, fantastical element in there. they go to a planet that's kind of weird, right? And it doesn't fit necessarily with the science fiction. So I stuck that in there. So yeah, it's a lot of things, but it's primarily a science fiction space opera, but I've put other stuff. It's like when you put like vegetables or vitamins in some other food and you just sneak it in and give it to people

Sara:

It's a science fiction smoothie.

Suzan:

Yeah. Verica.

Lilly:

You mentioned the transformation that the main character goes through. And when we first meet Verica, Verica, Verica. Okay. Thank you. When we first meet Verica, she has sort of this very complacent, almost like model minority type of character living in a very white society and trying her best to fit in. And we see her change quite a bit from that over the course of this book. And she really, you know, becomes her own person and stands up against the society that was so awful to her. What can you tell us about the themes of immigration and otherness that we, we get, not just from Virica's perspective, from several characters in this book?

Suzan:

Like everything I write, a lot of that part of the book is actually taken from, I mean, obviously, I'm not on an alien planet, and I'm not in the military, and all of these things, but a lot of her feelings are very similar to my own. Her sort of background and history is, is my own. So, she comes over to Invicta, the capital planet of the Air Sabbat Empire when she's a child with her parents and that's exactly what I did as a child. I was younger than her, but we did the same thing and I grew up in a neighborhood that was a Caribbean neighborhood in the West End. Of Toronto, and it was all Caribbean people and it was pretty fun in that area. I had a good time. So the question was the, what did you say the question was? I got lost in thoughts of being a child in

Lilly:

I mean, it was, talk to us about that, really, so you nailed it.

Suzan:

yeah. So, I mean, her experience is what I've experienced. And I've always personally felt kind of a little bit. Off because I came to Canada when I was very, very young. I was a toddler just before like preschool age. And so I've lived here my entire life and I'm very, very Canadian in many ways. But there are parts about me or things where I feel different or off and I don't think necessarily that other people can notice them or because I've, you know, I've been here so long, but I feel different. When I meet other people from the Caribbean who were born here, they always ask me. You, you weren't born here, were you? You were born over there. And I'm like, yeah, and they're like, yeah, you can tell there's something going on with you that's not exactly as if someone would have been born here. And I think that played into the story a lot. It's really you know, writing out your thoughts on being a diasporic person and trying to assimilate and trying to. Trying to fit in, in a way that feels comfortable, and also fitting in helps you succeed. Generally, I'm not saying that's a good thing, but when, when you stand out or you're not doing things like everybody else, you tend not to be looked upon so well.

Sara:

I think one of the things that really struck out to me was that feeling of not being enough for the culture that you're trying to assimilate into, but being too much of that culture to actually fit into your, the culture that you come from.

Suzan:

100%. Yeah, 100%. She's, she's nowhere. She's like in a very liminal, she's in a very liminal space and I experience that all the time. Cause if I go to Trinidad, right? They know immediately that they're like, they can tell that I'm not, I don't live there, right? I've got this Canadian thing going, I can, I can write in a dialect and I can speak dialect, but it, it sounds different and they can tell that I, so I've got the people here being like, you weren't born here, were you? And I've got the people there telling me, you don't live here, you've left haven't you? So it's this middle ground sort of thing. And, and so you're, and I think a lot of people who are, you know, Who have who have immigrated at a young age experience this, but also people who were born here to parents from who immigrated. So they were actually born here, but their parents raised them with their culture from their home country also have that. But I don't know for. There's something, there's a different, I don't want to say it's completely different, but there's a, it's a different space almost when you've moved.

Lilly:

We see that played out in Countess with the food quite a bit. We were talking earlier how there's so many very hunger making descriptions of food in

Sara:

this book did make me hungry.

Lilly:

But the, the aspect of food as part of culture and a way of holding on to culture, even when the family, like her family has immigrated, it's one of the only aspects they're able to maintain. Because that, right, I think their, their religion is illegal. And there were probably other things too, but they were at least able to keep that.

Suzan:

Yeah, I mean, that, that again is, it's funny because when I was growing up and this, this is part of why I'm sort of, in a different state than probably other people who immigrated. My mother did. Did not really assimilate very much to Canadian sort of cultural things. Like, I mean, she wasn't like totally like, I'm denying all of Canada, but she continued to make all of the food that we, we ate and she continued, like she, she, she has never gotten rid of her accent and it's so interesting. Cause some people come over and they're like, I'm going to work on getting rid And she just, she's oblivious. So, she kept the accent, she kept the food, and all of this stuff, so, yeah, that's why that's in the book, because it was something that we were easily able to hold onto, much more so than other aspects. Like, for example, I can speak in the Trinidadian dialect, it's very much in my brain, but I speak it the way my mother did. does it and my immediate family and my extended family who are here, but the language has progressed there. It's changed. It's, it's, it's developed in different ways. And so sometimes I know words, but those words are from, you know, the eighties when I was a kid and they don't use those words there anymore because they're gone. So in this book, It's like a time capsule, you, you remain sort of static, so she, she's only allowed to have the food, they were only able to keep that, and anything else that she knows is only from up to the point where they left, and what her parents taught her, and everything else is a question, which she's not allowed to answer, or have the answer to.

Sara:

I'm, your, your comment about the language kind of reminds me a little bit of, so my grandparents are Japanese. They're born in the U. S., but they're Japanese. And the language, the little bit of it that they taught my mother is very much peasant language from a hundred years ago in Hiroshima and not Language that you hear today. It's so it's, it's very different like very old fashioned and yeah, that, that just spoke, spoke to kind of my, like, lived experience a little bit.

Suzan:

Yeah, and it's like, how do you connect with, like, how, like, wanting to connect with someone from the same background, but like, you, you're not, you're, it's like you're in the olden times. Like, I'm in, I'm, like, I'm from 30 years, like, I'm existing with the cultural knowledge from 30 years ago, firsthand. If I

Sara:

a big

Suzan:

now and I learn, yeah, yeah, that, that's, That's exactly it.

Lilly:

It was interesting that you mentioned Star Trek earlier, because I also had a moment when I was reading this book that I thought, Star Trek. But, it's not the, like, idealized future that we see in the original series, right? Where post scarcity, everything's, like, there's no money anymore, everything's great Instead, we seem to have brought a lot of our, we, humanity has brought a lot of our bullshit with us to the stars. I think your version is probably a little more likely, as much as I'd like to think it wouldn't be.

Suzan:

I, yeah, that is very purposeful. I mean, as I said, I love Star Trek. So I'm not knocking that kind of story, or I'm not knocking that. And Star Trek was really important for representation, right? Having, you know, a Black woman on As a communications officer, and, you know, many people of different races, that's great, and I think it was needed, and it made me watch the show, so, you know, good, I'm not saying it's wrong. But, I'm a horror dystopia writer and Star Trek is not a horror show. Generally, though, there are some scary things sometimes. Or at least trippy. That shows trippy more than scary. as I said, I don't, I don't come from a, I like sci fi, obviously, and I like to write it, but I come from a horror background. And when you're writing in horror people tend to write dark things or write about social issues that affect the here and now. And so that was one reason why I didn't want to Be like, oh, it's not post racial or it's not like, it's not we have defeated capitalism that that was 1 reason. The other reason is, and this is going to sound really pessimistic, but I have not seen anything specifically. In the history of human behavior yet, that would make me feel that the invention of a specific type of. Technology or any kind of technological advance advancement would come along with also the understanding that equality is importance that has not happens. I have not seen that, yet, and so I tend to, you know, consider what has happened in the past to help me predict what's going to happen in the future. We have a lot of technology right now, and there's a lot of racism and bias baked into it. So I'm not sure why suddenly, if we have a spaceship, that we're going to forget racism. Like, I don't see, to me, Realistically, where that's coming from generally, I mean, I would love it if it happens, like, I'm not like, no, please don't let this happen. Let's keep this. But like, so woman of color and skeptical all times. And it's for safety reasons. Like, I live with this every day. So if you tell me. We're gonna go colonize space, right? We're gonna go colonize space. Okay, so I think okay Well in the past when people said they were colonizing they took my people and put them to work on a plantation Right and made us work. So, okay. Now we're going to colonize again Okay, so what what evidence is there for me to believe that? You're using all of the concepts and language that you used before. What about it is going to be different for me? How, how is that going to turn out differently? So that's what I was working with there, sort of. Like, show me, show me the evidence where that has disappeared, and I will, I will be on board. But right now, I'm like, I don't see it. Show it to me.

Lilly:

Yeah, the, the idealized optimistic worlds like Star Trek have their place in storytelling. Sometimes it's just nice and comforting. Right? To read a book where everything's good, or to live in a world, imagine a world where everything is good. But, kind of like how you can't have dessert for every meal, right? You also need stories that deal with the harsher realities. Because how can we explore them and talk about them if we're just always imagining a world that they just disappeared?

Sara:

I mean, as, as a definitely a cozy fantasy sci fi reader, I, I would like to imagine that that ideal world as being the world that happens. But I think that unfortunately, what we see in Countess is probably a lot closer to what will actually happen should we go out into space. I mean, even.

Suzan:

Fingers frost. No, it doesn't.

Sara:

I, I don't, to be clear, I don't want it to be the reality that we, that we see but, I mean, just even, even the, the language that we use, like, like you point out, like, the term colonize, it has implications And so I think that, that your novella is probably, sadly, a lot closer to, what we would actually see than any of these fluffier things that I like to read.

Suzan:

Fluffy is wonderful. There's nothing wrong with

Sara:

that, that being said, I still enjoy, I still really enjoyed Countess. I, I,

Suzan:

second half of this where you yell at me.

Lilly:

Yeah, we're almost there.

Sara:

I do, I do have, I do have a couple of things that I want to yell at you, nicely yell at you about, but I did, I did really enjoy Countess. It was just also, A little, a little depressing at times.

Suzan:

Of course. It's a, you know what else you had asked me earlier? You had asked me earlier what, what genre this is. It's a dystopia.

Lilly:

Yeah,

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

it's so funny. In, well, the court scene, which I'll say no more about because this is the spoiler free section, my comments are just, uh oh, uh oh, oh, increasing the number of exclamation points. The empire is just, the main character says,

Sara:

Huh.

Lilly:

Oh. Mm hmm.

Suzan:

right? So, I mean, it doesn't go well for him in the original book. This is not exactly like the original book, of course. They get beers off!

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

And we do have a couple of questions about that too in the spoiler section. So.

Suzan:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm all ready. I'm so prepared for all of this. I've been preparing for months. Yay!

Lilly:

That was fun. My original comment was actually gonna be about, like, asking you about, oh, all of the, like, the words you invented for your sci fi world, and like, what was it? And then I thought maybe I should Google it. I was like, oh no, that's a, that's a real one. Womp womp.

Suzan:

Cooley is a, is a, is a slur and that it is one that is like a reclaimed one. So people will call themselves it but it, you can't. You can't, somebody else can't call you that because it's really derogatory, extremely. But it is based on the actual indentured servants being scattered all around the British Empire and that's what they were called.

Sara:

So obviously a lot of this is based on your experience in, in Canada and, and like how you feel about things. How much. research did you do for this book? Did you have to do any research for this book? The

Suzan:

in the book is actually also Caribbean history, just generally, and I kind of know that. There, like, for example, on the coin, there's a coin in the book, right? And Virika gets this coin, and on the coin, it says to dwell in unity. Right. That is a phrase. I didn't, I didn't steal it, but it's a, it's a phrase from the Bible, but it's also a phrase that was used in the mid 19th century, not 19th century. What century is it? What's the 1900s? The 1900s, not the 1800s, right? In the 1900s.

Sara:

century?

Suzan:

Yeah, that one. When the Caribbean islands were starting to try and break away from the British Empire and like, get independence, they wanted to make a federation. And so they had a little federation that they were trying to get together. And that was go that was their motto. For that federation but that federation fell apart because partially because Britain wanted to be in it, but also maybe some of the countries didn't agree with, you know, what others were doing and how the division of power was done. So, a lot of it is actual Caribbean history sort of changed over or made fictionalized or I've taken it and I've put it somewhere else. The immigrant ship that she comes on in the beginning, it's called the Zarak. Right on the 1st page or whatever. They come over on an immigrant ship called the Zirak. Well, when the people were brought over in the 1800s to work on plantations, the 1st ship that arrived in Trinidad with the Indian indentured servants was called the Razak. So I flipped the name. So, but I knew all of that already because that's just my regular history for me. So that part I didn't do too, too much history. I did do some research because I dropped in names from different islands and different cities. The main research I had to do was the science part. About iridium and how, how does it work and how can you use it on a spaceship or that sort of thing. So the social stuff, I didn't do too much on, but the science stuff I had to learn.

Lilly:

Well, we have some very spoilery questions for you that we're going to get to in just a minute. But first, Sarah, who should read this book?

Sara:

You should read this book if you want a an intense sci fi novella that explores racism in space, basically.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Suzan:

Yeah you okay? I

Lilly:

it's hard to say, oh, if you, if you love racism, that's, for some reason that sentence comes out weird. If you're really into that,

Suzan:

think, can I, can I add to that

Lilly:

please do, yeah. Yeah.

Sara:

please do.

Suzan:

I don't, I don't think it's promoting racism

Lilly:

it's not. I was making a dumb joke. I'm sorry. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, no.

Suzan:

Why I wrote the book the way it, it's written, right? Is it, I wanted to make it anti-colonial because like it's anti-colonial. It's right in the front. Right. And it's because it's supposed to show the horror. of Empire. And in the beginning of the book it says there's horror here. This is a horror, there's a lot of horror in the, in my what's that called, epigram? In the Finnish version it says there is horror here. So yeah, it has a lot of racism in it. But it's supposed to be in a way that's sort of exposing and being like, no, we're not going to look away. We are going to look at this. I'm not going to let you, I'm not going to let you close your eyes. I'm not saying you, you generally, I'm saying the reader, we're going, we're going on this thing and this is what we're going to talk about. But yeah, not, not yay racism.

Lilly:

No. Not at all. Ha, ha,

Sara:

absolutely not yay racism.

Suzan:

mean that.

Sara:

No, but, but you're right, like it, it definitely, one of the main themes of this book is, is that exploration of racism and how it affects Virika in basically everything she does and how it has shaped her life, her career, her, her trajectory after her career so it, it's,

Lilly:

And other mysterious things.

Sara:

and other mysterious things that I don't want to talk about because this is still technically the non spoiler section.

Lilly:

Should we jump on over there?

Suzan:

Yeah, I think we,

Lilly:

I think we're trying to talk around stuff. This episode of Fiction Fans is brought to you by Fiction Fans.

Sara:

That's us! We really appreciate our patrons, because otherwise we fund this podcast entirely ourselves.

Lilly:

Patrons can find weekly bonus content, monthly exclusive episodes, and they have free access to our biannual zine, Solstitia.

Sara:

You can find all of that and more at patreon. com slash fictionfanspod. Thank you for all of your support.

Lilly:

The remainder of this episode contains spoilers.

Sara:

Susan, you had, you had mentioned earlier that This book does follow The Count of Monte Cristo pretty closely until it stops following it closely. Can you talk a little bit about like when in the process you knew that the story that you wanted to tell diverged from this original basis?

Suzan:

Immediately. I know, I am prepared for this question because this is the, this, this is what gets people. I, I knew what I was doing when I did it.

Sara:

Hmm.

Suzan:

And I, I knew I was going to get in trouble for it. So, I really like the Count of Monte Cristo. The reason why I chose to sort of use it is because I love it. I don't know, I don't know if everybody knows this, but Alexander Dumas has Caribbean ancestry. He's his father was part Haitian. So the, I feel Even the Count of Monte Cristo itself has this sort of it's upset about injustice, that book. And I think that's what spoke to me about it, too, in a way that I really connected with. And so, and I think it's the Caribbean connection in there somewhere with him. And I love the Count of Monte Cristo, but there were a couple of concerns I had, and the concerns were this. I wanted the story to reflect the character. And when you look at the character in The Count of Monte Cristo, he is a white guy who is young. He's not been, like, there is the war going on and Napoleon is, you know, Jail on the island and there's letters being passed and all that stuff. But he's not a brown woman. He is not queer. And all of these things. And so he, he does suffer injustice. But it's a different person. It's, and so character and who you are and your background shapes the story and the trajectory of the story. So she has a similar trajectory, she moves up. But in the society that she's moving up in, she's very different than everybody else. And so that's where the anger comes from. With him, it's more, they're really jealous of him. Like, his friends and everyone around him are like, oh, why do you have that, right? it's the same idea, but with her it's like, why do you have that and you don't deserve that and you shouldn't even be here, why, sort of. And then there's the woman dynamic. So, that part, to me, I could not write an exact beat for beat story because she's not. That specific person. The other issue is, is that I said that the book was anti colonial and the Count of Monte Cristo, there is a section later on in the Count of Monte Cristo, and at the end where he meets a woman who is a slave and Becomes a former slave. So that is addressed in the book, but the book isn't necessarily taking on society. Count of Monte Cristo isn't necessarily taking on society as a structural obstacle for people. He's very intent on destroying people who have destroyed him and he uses those. societal institutions such as the banking system and the courts and other things to infiltrate people's lives and destroy those specific people. He doesn't destroy the bank or he doesn't destroy the courts. And Verica's problem Is not necessarily specifically lyric, or it's not necessarily specifically Alba, it's the system that is the, the, the antagonist in the book, and all of these people are participating in it. So, with the count of Monte Cristo, he's mad at specific people, right? Specifically with Verica, her problem is the system. And so that's why it veers off. If that makes sense.

Sara:

Yeah, absolutely. That, that definitely makes sense, and it, it felt like this, this question was not intended as like any kind of gotcha, because it, it feels, the way that the story happens for Virica feels very true to what would happen to her. But it is, as, as you say, it is different from the original. But it is, as, as you say, it is different from the original.

Suzan:

I have a question. Okay. Let's say there's this guy, okay. And he's super rich, right? And he comes into town and he starts destroying everyone's life, right? He's like in the bank. He's in this, he's in that he's able to talk to everybody. He's, he's accomplished. he's doing everything. And everyone is just sitting there, letting him destroy their life. No one is like, yo, let's not go to this guy's party. Like, shouldn't we shun him from society? They don't. He gets away with a lot.

Sara:

It's, it's the face eating leopards meme. No one thought he would eat my face.

Suzan:

no, right? I mean, I'm not knocking it. I'm not knocking it. But like he He's incredible, the amount he gets to do, without somebody just going and, and hitting him with a brick in the face and being like, Yo, you ruined my family. Like, sorry.

Lilly:

Well, it's, Verica's approach is a much more constructive one, right? Like if she's actually, her version of revenge, and it's not exactly revenge, is to like dismantle the system that made it possible for all of these injustices to happen at all. That's a very Like, humanitarian almost. Like, she's trying to help other people, not just get revenge for herself.

Suzan:

Yeah, her realization is, she's not special. Like, that's the big thing. thing about the book. In the Count of Monte Cristo, he, by the end, he's special. He goes off and he, he, he does this thing in jail and he learns all this stuff from the, the old guy, the, the friar, I think he's called. In the jail and he gets rich and he goes off to the East and he learns everything and then he comes back and he is exceptional. And Virga is that because she was able to, to, you know, rise up in the ranks and, and learn all these things. But while she's in jail, she learns that she's not exceptional. She's not the chosen one, because the problem is, is that this could happen to anyone. There are lots of people she meets along the way who get thrown in jail too, or get treated badly, or who die. And so the book veers off radically because of that, because she's like, the Count of Monte Cristo, he, he really doesn't care if this ever happens to anyone else again, right? She's like, this could happen to anyone again, and I am not special. I actually don't matter. In the end, so yeah, that, that's why that happened that way.

Lilly:

And she does get help. The, the character of Kalima was so fascinating to me, especially for where Virica is in her journey when she meets her. Because this is another person who is sort of participating within the oppressive system, right? Kalima is a prison guard. And they, they have some conversations that I think Virick, well obviously Virick, really needed to have.

Sara:

Well, I, I also think it's really interesting the way that Virica points out in the narrative, like, they can't really be friends. That's, that's kind of the relationship that Kalima is trying to take, but they can't be friends because Kalima has all of the power. She is literally, like, everything. Virica's jailer. She controls the, like, whether she gets food. She, she controls all of these things. And so there's this huge power dynamic that can't be ignored, but also she works to get Virica freedom. And, and it's, Virica has this really complicated feeling, these really complicated feelings about her. And Which I did too as a reader.

Suzan:

Yeah,

Sara:

That's not a question, I'm sorry.

Suzan:

no, I just, yeah,

Lilly:

But you caused us to have emotions and we need to talk about them.

Suzan:

I love, but that, that was a hard part for me to write. And I really, I told you when I wrote that part, like you said, this is really depressing, right? Well, you hit on it. I was depressed. Before that, right? I was, I was quite down. And so it came out at that, in that part of the book. It was really pathartic for me. Sorry.

Lilly:

No, it's good, it's good to feel feelings. That's not a complaint

Sara:

Yeah, I, I mean it's, it's a, it's a very effective portion of, of the novella. How dare you make me feel things as I read this book.

Suzan:

I'm sorry. Next time, no feelings.

Lilly:

Oh man, I will admit, as a huge romance fan, I feel like you were teasing me a little bit because it kept

Suzan:

Oh, yeah.

Lilly:

there was romance! And I was like, I was so ready for that to be the rest of the book, and obviously it wasn't. I knew that. But.

Suzan:

I, I, that was done on purpose. There was a lot of romance done on purpose. That is a trope, though, that exists like, you know, colonizer romance, or, like, jailor romance.

Lilly:

Mmhmm.

Suzan:

And, I mean, it's, it's kind of hard, because you're in this situation with one other person, and it's the only person you are allowed to talk to. So, you know. I can see the setup for it. I'm not

Lilly:

Well that, and we have other relationships also. So, I guess. I just kept, I was really ready for Verica to just not necessarily settle down. I was very invested in her love life. And I could have read like three books just about her dating people.

Suzan:

Mean, I could do that.

Lilly:

yeah, I would love it. Very different a very different story than the one we, we do get though. So,

Sara:

I, I loved Verica and Dominique. They were very sweet, and I, like, I really appreciated the way that they supported each other. But you did kind of stab me in the heart with Alba's betrayal.

Suzan:

Yeah, I knew, also yeah, I knew that was gonna make people very angry with me. There are the, the very nuance and the making Alba in the end be the one who actually We're, we're doing spoilers now,

Sara:

But this is, this is spoilers, you can go all out, yeah.

Suzan:

making Alva be the one to stab her at the end, I knew that that was going to make people very, very upset. But I had thought originally when I, when I was mapping out the book, Dominique was going to die. Yeah, I

Sara:

No,

Suzan:

get her killed.

Sara:

no,

Suzan:

I was going to, I was going, she was the one who was going to die. And I thought, okay, if Dominique dies, then, and this was going to be a novella. I have never planned anything further. The book was supposed to end. And No matter what happened. And I thought, well, if she dies Then What is, what happens next? And what would ha I don't know if you've read Traitor Beru.

Sara:

No, no, no, I've, I've not, but it's on, like, very many things. It's on my TBR. I've heard really good things about it.

Suzan:

The ending of Traitor Beru made me very angry, too. Like, you know how you were upset? Like, I was extremely upset because the character at the end of that book has her lover killed. It's a spoiler, so it's spoilers for Traitor Beru, too. Don't yell at me. She has her lover killed. In order to prove to the Empire that she cannot be manipulated and she, it's devastating to her because she loves this woman, but she's like, you have to be executed. And so I had read that book several years ago and it made me mad. But and so I wanted to do something similar to make people mad, but also to sort of, you know, The problems that they're facing cannot be solved in the span of a novella, and it cannot be solved by one person. And so I felt that Virica dying Would show that that one person is not going to be able to be like, yes We're going to overthrow this empire and this is my plan and I will lead all of it I mean there have been some instances in the real world where that has happened but a lot of things have to work out really well for the revolutionary to remain alive at the end most revolutionaries get murdered in real life and so, to your point about Alba, I want to say that Alba is also, she's a little bit not great, but she is also a victim of the system. Like, they're telling her you have to do this and she is like, okay, well, if I don't do it, what will happen? She's in a very, very bad position.

Sara:

I mean, I, like, you're right. I felt bad for Alba, and I, I do think that she was a victim, and you're also right in that, in that, Revolutionaries, well she's not great either, but revolutionaries don't tend to have a long lifespan they tend to, to come to bad ends and so none of this felt bad for the story, like,

Suzan:

It felt bad for you.

Sara:

yeah, like it, it felt right for the story, you were telling, I just didn't like it, I wanted a happy ending.

Suzan:

Can I tell you something? Like, obviously I don't want to cause you pain, right? But this distress I knew it was coming.

Lilly:

Mm hmm.

Suzan:

Like,

Sara:

I'm not surprised by it, like, you did kind of imply that there's going to be a lot of, a lot of distress for me

Suzan:

yeah, no, that it is 100 percent intentional. Like, it wasn't like I wanted people to feel happy at the end of this. We

Sara:

it's very obviously intentional, like, and I think you did a great job with it. And, and so

Suzan:

don't like it. It's

Sara:

my, yeah, yeah, my, my, my distress is, is kind of emphatically proving that you did a good job.

Suzan:

You know,

Sara:

did good.

Suzan:

Yeah, thank you. I, I, like, I'm sorry for the distress, in a way, partly. Not completely, because that's what I set out to do. But I, I do, like, I cried while I wrote the book. So, like, I was distressed too. I, I know what I did. I'm very aware when I was looking at the phone earlier, when you guys were saying to introduce myself, I have a friend who read it, like, just read it right now, and she started yelling at me. And I was like, I'm sorry. It's

Lilly:

I mean, I was also upset, but, maybe outraged is better. But I think I mostly felt bad for Verica in that moment, because she was betrayed by someone who she cared quite a bit for. But I actually feel like Alba, by killing her, like you said, one person isn't going to solve colonialism. But by killing Verica, Alba has made her kind of a martyr figure, and I think that's going to go much farther for the movement in general, overall, than if Verica had survived. So it was almost like, I don't want to call it a blessing in disguise because that feels really bad.

Suzan:

No, but it is, it is, no, that is exactly it. I mean, and that is foreshadowed in. In the book, because there are, there are two other revolutionaries that have died and things have gone bad, right? Like, the Tussard started a revolution and it got crushed, right? And everybody on that, on that planet, Bequia, which is an actual island in the Caribbean, Bequia Is all terrified of doing anything because they've been smashed before. But people remember him and they've kept this kind of resistance alive. And I think this is a very, very dark book, right? But small things or memories or people's actions keep hope alive. And so that's what she ends up being in the end.

Lilly:

As dark as this book gets, it does feel ultimately hopeful to me.

Suzan:

Sarah?

Sara:

I, I, no, I, I, I would agree with that. Like, it is an incredibly difficult job. dark book in the things that happen to Virica. But it does end on a kind of hopeful note. Obviously not hopeful for Virica personally, because she's dead, because you killed her, because you ripped out my heart. But, but yes, I, I do, I do think that it ends on a kind of hopeful note. And it's not Like I said, I've really enjoyed this book. It has some horror aspects to it. It has some very dark aspects to it, but not not in a way that made me dread reading each page, if that makes sense.

Suzan:

It's not supposed to be scary. It's, yeah, it's not supposed to be scary. It's, it's oppressive.

Sara:

yeah,

Lilly:

it's an existential horror of, it sucks that the world is like this.

Sara:

it's, it's it's hard to read. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's, it's very, it's very heavy, but also very good. I mean, like, so

Suzan:

does have some, some good times. Like they do like tell a little bit of jokes on the, on the pirate ship. And, and

Sara:

I, she eats a lot of really good food,

Suzan:

she eats a lot of food. So, you

Sara:

but only after like a decade in prison where she's eating slop.

Suzan:

Yeah,

Sara:

You win some, you lose some, I guess.

Lilly:

Okay, I have a very silly question and I'm not going to apologize for it. But at the end, or near the end, when Virica is blackmailing a captain to get

Suzan:

Horatio Yorkton.

Lilly:

back to the Empire, yeah, him.

Suzan:

Yorkton. Yeah,

Lilly:

The way she does it is by sleeping with some sex workers, who he also patroned, to find out his illicit secret kink. that he didn't want people to find out

Suzan:

You're gonna ask me what

Lilly:

yes! What is

Suzan:

telling you that! I'll have to die if I

Lilly:

Fine.

Suzan:

that! Like, that's the information for the next revolution!

Lilly:

But I do, but reading that whole section I was like, is she gonna tell me? And you didn't, you didn't tell

Suzan:

so you know what's interesting? I have said that I would like to write a romance novel with no dying, like, none, right? And I think I will write you a romance novel, both of You

Lilly:

You just

Suzan:

be people who are banging all the time, like, remember how we were talking earlier about that you don't need to see that?

Sara:

mean, like, if you get me really invested in the characters. They can bang all the time. And it's, it's fine. It's fine. They need a lot of sexual tension first. This the hexologist doesn't have a lot of sexual tension, it just has a lot of them Yeah, they're married. There's no sexual tension there. They're just really happily banging. We don't see the banging a lot, we're just told about it.

Suzan:

Love that question.

Sara:

But please, please write us a romance novel.

Suzan:

Oh

Sara:

you, you

Suzan:

I really want to write

Sara:

you have a standing invitation onto the podcast, but like, definitely if you write the romance novel, you'll have to come on to talk about it with us.

Suzan:

Like, no, no dismemberment, no. No.

Lilly:

could be a little dismemberment.

Sara:

There can be just a little bit, you know, a dismemberment of bunk friends, that's fine.

Suzan:

That guy, that scene was really funny because he thinks she's old and he thinks he's really hot stuff and she's laughing at him. It's kind of funny.

Sara:

I mean, as she should be.

Suzan:

He's so ridiculous.

Sara:

It was a great scene. I don't

Suzan:

really glad that you guys felt emotional because One of the critiques of the book is that the pace is too fast and like you don't have to disagree or whatever and so it's interesting to see people's reaction to that because some people say I didn't feel anything, or like, it's so fast that it didn't give me a moment to feel, and other people are screaming at me, so it's interesting to see the different amount of time and pacing that people need to feel something.

Sara:

necessarily think that, that those are two contradictory statements. Like it, yes, it can be fast, but that doesn't mean that you aren't going to feel stuff. And as we have, I think, made very clear during this recording. Yeah, we, we felt stuff. I mean, but, but yes, it's fast because it's a novella. There's a hundred and I think it's 164 pages or something. Like that's not a lot of time to cover quite a lot of ground. But yeah, I, I mean, you, you, you did stab my heart in, in multiple, multiple places.

Lilly:

Just like how Alba stabbed Verica. Mhm.

Sara:

Verica. Yep.

Suzan:

what happens to her. I don't know.

Sara:

I don't know, but she deserves whatever she gets. I feel.

Suzan:

So Like, I mean, obviously, also, too, like, the Empire doesn't completely fall apart after, like, they are having problems with trade and all of these things, but I wouldn't, I My editor, when we were talking about this, the ending, she's like, let's, let's be realistic about the scope. Like, they're not going to completely fall apart at the end. And, and that's true. I, that's why it's sort of left on this. There is going to be a long time of turmoil, because obviously it's not over, sort of thing, so who, I don't know,

Sara:

And I think, I think, that's one of the things that I found both realistic and frustrating about the novel. And I say frustrating in a like a, I mean that very neutrally. Like, It felt very, very realistic that these people do horrible things and they have essentially very few consequences that happen to them. And that's frustrating from a human perspective, but it's very realistic from a world events perspective.

Suzan:

I mean, I'm not gonna get into the world situation right now, but I mean, certain places do things, and like, you know, like, what one person, you know, thinks should be persecuted in a, or prosecuted, if another person doesn't, it doesn't get treated the same way. Like, to me, I've said continually, I'm I'm trying to write what I think is the truth rather than a, than a, a nice story.

Sara:

Yeah, this felt like the truth. It's

Suzan:

like that, that's what I was going for, and I think a lot of people, and I'm not saying this about you specifically, but I think a lot of people when they sit down to write a novella, right, or read a novella, they're expecting to be taken on a journey that's like, you know, a story of a character, and, you know, the story will have the proper pacing, and it will change at this point, and these things will happen, and, you know, Their, their expectations are. It's fiction. So they, they're expecting something else and I did not go there. I, I went the other way. I went, no, we're not going to do any of those things. But that's the anti colonial part of the book. This is not a Western story book. This is, this is a very Caribbean book. Anybody. Showing up, being like, I expected, you know, the hero to win in the end, and I expected the chosen one to, to, to make it through, or I expected the very, very clever minority, clever, more smart than all of the other minority people who, you know, Are his friends and family to be able to infiltrate the system and blow it up from the inside and then they are free like you're not getting that here. That's not what I did. I mean, those are lovely because I've read book. I just mentioned trader Peru. That is that book, like, that's what that book is and I love that book, but I didn't write that book. I wrote a different book.

Lilly:

Well, Susan, thank you so much for joining us to talk about your new novella, Countess. Can you tell us a little bit about that romance novel you're going to write for me? Or whatever you might be working on. Yeah,

Suzan:

I am working on an Edwardian Gothic novel, but, but, okay.

Sara:

so that sounds like perfectly for Lily.

Suzan:

No, no, no, but hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Okay, there's a little bit of colonialism in it, just a little bit, okay? Like, and you know me, I don't like colonialism, so colonialism, bad, in that book. But, but, the romance people characters, So far, at the end, they're not dead, and they end up together. And

Sara:

Okay, not, not dead is for me. That's true.

Suzan:

yeah, they're not dead, and there's like the romance, and, and, there's like the gothic romance that happens. And like, they will be together. That's not the romance I'm writing, this is the gothic one. I've become happier since writing this book.

Lilly:

well, that's good. I'm glad for that.

Suzan:

The romance. Romance is gonna be another sci-Fi, and it's gonna be like a reincarnation story, but it's gonna go not forward in reincarnation. It's gonna go backwards. It's it's hope. Hopefully no one will stab anyone.

Sara:

I mean, you, you can't go wrong with a little bit of stabbing.

Suzan:

You get to jump back in time and then go forward. Like if you stab somebody, but then they come back in time and you fix them, it doesn't count. Right,

Sara:

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, it's like the stabbing never happened. It's fine.

Suzan:

yeah. So that's, that's what's next. But I gotta finish this book yet. I've never written a novel, and the Edwardian thing is the first novel, so we'll see how it goes. We'll see if anybody wants to publish it.

Sara:

Well, I am excited for both of those things. I hope that someone publishes all of them because I want to read them.

Suzan:

Yeah, I'm, I'm gonna try not to hurt you so much.

Sara:

That's, I, I kind of, I kind of have come to expect it by now, it's okay. I'm, I'm doing okay.

Lilly:

Poor Sarah.

Sara:

It's okay, it's a good kind of hurt, sometimes.

Lilly:

good to be outraged. Sometimes we should be outraged. A lot of times we should be outraged.

Sara:

we should be outraged, it's true. Susan, can you tell us where you can be found on the internet, where people can buy your books where they can keep up with you so that they know when you have new and hurtful things coming out?

Suzan:

I have a really You know what? I have a story for you. I have a story coming out. And then, I haven't had a short story out in a long time that is not, like, behind a paywall. It sounds bad, okay? It's called Bleeding Hearts, right? And there is a knife! But! But! It's kinda cozy! And,

Sara:

Okay.

Suzan:

it's like a little bit romance! Next week, Monday, it comes out from Haven Spec. I'm gonna send you the link, just

Sara:

Okay,

Suzan:

then if it's, and then we can judge if it's too hurtful, and then if that's too hurtful, we can like, reduce the hurtfulness. It's like pepper, you know, like when you order your pepper on your food, and you're like, do you want the super hot pepper, or the medium pepper, or the whatever,

Sara:

We can we can figure out what my spicy tolerance is for, for hurt.

Suzan:

you're hurt, you're hurt tolerance. But, generally, I'm still on that horror site, Twitter, but I I'm also at Silly Syntax, but I'm also at Blue Sky, and Blue Sky was very active this last week as Gothic Syntax, and I'm on Instagram being ridiculous as Gothic Syntax as well. And the book, this book is available everywhere. So you should be able to get it at your local stores or order it at your local stores. It's at, like, you can order it on Barnes and Noble and independent stores and all of that. It's also in audio and the audio narrator did all the accents and dialect and everything and she did a fantastic job.

Sara:

So people should definitely get the audiobook then.

Suzan:

Yeah, they should. If you're wondering how everyone's voice sounds, she, she's part Indo Caribbean, so she, she nailed it.

Lilly:

Awesome, I'm gonna have to go buy the audiobook then because that sounds like a very cool reading experience, listening experience.

Sara:

Listening and reading

Lilly:

Yeah. Well, thank you again, it's been so much fun to talk to you, and I can't wait for Bleeding Hearts to come out on Monday.

Sara:

And the romance novel that you're, you're gonna write and we'll have you on for that too.

Suzan:

You guys are lovely. I love, because you look distressed, but you're all like, but come back!

Sara:

It's, it's distressed in a good way, if that can be a thing.

Lilly:

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.

Sara:

Come disagree with us! We are on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok at FictionFansPod. You can also email us at FictionFansPod at gmail dot com.

Lilly:

If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and follow us wherever your podcasts live.

Sara:

We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find our show notes and a lot of other nonsense.

Lilly:

Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated.

Sara:

Bye!