Author’s Note
Okay, so I may have mentioned that sometimes I really get into a book. Well, it happened again. I read Soul Tracing: Taboo for a romance book club recently, and boy, did it upset me. I have this thing where I need the books I read to end on a good note. Happy. Optimistic. Hopeful.
I don’t willfully read books with sad, down, or ambiguous endings. Why? Because I don’t want to. Life is hard, and I want my fiction cheerful.
So when I read this one, I felt sucker-punched. This not a romance. I think it’s a suspense story, and boy, is it heavy. You can read about it in #amreading, if you don’t mind spoilers.
This is not to say Soul Tracing: Taboo is bad. Absolutely not! This is a good book about a subject that should be brought to light, particularly in light of today’s #metoo movement. Honor killings happen. They happen here in the United States. They happen in Western Europe. They happen in Pakistan.
They need to stop.
The point is, this story triggered the crap out of me. When I’m this triggered, I find the only way to deal is to story it out. I’m the kind of person who needs justice in my fiction the way fish need water. I’ve written short stories where everyone in The Handmaid’s Tale goes on trial for crimes against humanity. I’ve saved the Animal Farm horse from the glue factory, and I’ve made sure that Winston would safely ring in 1985 from the safety of a new, humane country.
I’m not even going near The Hunger Games. And I’m still scarred from the movie Brazil.
When I get really upset I watch the Chief Prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz statement against the Einsatzgruppen at the Nuremberg Trials.
He was 27 years old, BTW.
We Are All Stardust is a short story I’ve written based on the subject matter of Soul Tracings: Taboo.
Don’t worry. It ends in justice.
Liz Charnes 
Bring it, Liz, I can’t wait to read this one!
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You betcha! I’m feeling better already.
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