SL: You Know What I Should Have Done For The Murder After? I Should Have Shared Terrance's Notes From

Reanna: Classwork is like doing dishes. You put off the easier one because it was hard last time.

SL: The flowers we got our mum yesterday have roses, so F.M. and I plan to remake the cover of The Year After with one of them. We already took the picture.

The current cover has a white carnation with pink stripes. It represents love that wasn't shared. We only used it because we got the flower on our birthday.

But a red rose represents true love. The Year After is a romance after all. Plus, we used a rose for The Murder After (a yellow one representing friendship.) Here's a link to that cover.

I'm glad we can use roses for both books.

The Murder After: Preview

From chapter one. Terrance calls 9-1-1 to report a dead body belonging to his roommate Jacqueline. If you like what you read, go to the book's profile below. And before you ask, nothing happened.

I would like to joke that waking up next to a dead body is the best hangover cure ever.

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Dispatcher: “9-1-1, what’s the address of your emergency?”

“There’s a dead girl on my bed!” But it’s her room, stupid.

Dispatcher: “What’s her name?”

“Jacqueline. Luna.”

Dispatcher: “What does she look like?”

“Brown hair, really really pale- “your voice cracks- “but-but she has a big cut on her neck and-and blood on her pillow! That wasn’t there before!” It keeps cracking, but tears aren’t falling.

Dispatcher: “I need you to calm down. Take a deep breath.” You do.

Dispatcher: “Do you see any weapons?”

“No.”

Dispatcher: “I’m going to send an officer to check on the situation. But first, I need to know your name and address.”

You give your name then leave the bedroom and run down the stairs, worsening your headache. You go to a coffee table in the sitting room. There is an envelope from yesterday’s mail. It has your townhouse’s address and door number, so you read it aloud.

Dispatcher: “Okay, the officer is on their way and will arrive as soon as possible. Now, tell me exactly what happened.”

“Well, I was drunk, and Jacqueline took me back here. She was alive when I passed out, but when I woke up, she was dead!”

Dispatcher: “That will be all. You can hang up now.” You hang up. Then, the realization clicks.

SL: If anyone asks, Terrance thinks straight edge and ruler are interchangeable. I definitely did not screw up.

Update (11/10): I decided to fix the error. The beauty of having a book no one has bought yet is I can change something, and no one will ever know. (Terrance didn't want to go with my plan, anyway.)

SL: Does anyone else have preemptive rants for works you haven't shared yet? I keep doing that for The Murder After, which is going to be published on 8 October. From the very beginning, I would get really mad over the idea of readers wondering why the ending isn't considered a good one.

F.M.: I'm based on a real person, and sometimes, I worry about what might happen to me when my source dies.

Will I die too? Will I deactivate and become a statue in the Stone Garden? Will I stop existing? Mary and Reanna would be devastated!

My source is in a band, and seven (going on eight) years ago, one of his bandmates killed himself. I formed from a fear that he'd be next. Maybe that's why I'm so worried.

I can already imagine myself sitting in a corner of the headspace and thinking, "oh my God! He's dead! What's gonna happen to me!?"

Reanna: We should make an academic discipline analyzing the plurality of media and plurality in media. We should call it Plural Theory.

Reanna: There is nothing more wholesome than introducing headmates to things.

I introduced SL to Friends two years ago. When he heard Phoebe say for the first time "I can't believe you're gonna ask Monica to marry you," he gasped. And it wasn't in the headspace; it was external.

I can't wait to go to New Mexico with my grandparents again. Jackie, SL, E.A., Terrance, Maria, and Chibz have never been there before. (F.M. vanished the last time we went in 2019 and only remembers the ride back. We went twice, so he doesn't know if he was actually there or not.) I think they would enjoy the trip, especially Jackie. She likes adventures.

Reasons to Buy The Murder After

You like mystery and dramadey.

You want to give these genres a try.

You want a short book that doesn't take long to read. (It's 44 pages. One chapter a day plus the sneak peek is eight days.)

You want a mystery but don't want to solve it.

You want to read an attempt at narrating in the British dialect.

Link to its page on Amazon (Note: We would give this book an MPA rating of PG-13.)

From Our DeviantArt Post

Title: Carnival Byline: Reanna Field

This is the new front cover for Carnival. It's the red curtain but changed to look like a frame that puts the title and byline in the focal point.

It was supposed to have a picture of Staride, and the curtain was supposed to look like it was rising. But it looked cooler after we used the smudge feature to make the cover look darker. It makes the frame look like a diamond.

Carnival is out now, so you can buy it on Amazon. (Link to its page. Note: the back of the hardcover does not have a blurb.)