Hi! :) Is it too early to ask you about your new book, Best Womenâs Erotica of the Year Vol. 4? Could you tell us a bit about your story?
Hi! Not too early at all! BWE 4 is coming out December 11 - thatâs in four weeks! AAAaaaah Iâm so excited!!!!
For a number of reasons, my story âAftershockâ is a very personal story, even though Tessa, the heroine, is quite different from myself (apart from the fact that weâre both German). Tessa is in a long distance relationship with Hector, a Mexican doctor, and arrives in Mexico for a visit just as the earthquake hits Mexico City in September 2017. Her flight is redirected, leaving her stranded far away from her lover in a country she doesnât know and of which she doesnât speak the language, and with no possibility to reach him. So what is she going to do? Take a flight home, like the airline offers, or embark on a risky journey to find Hector?
Iâve never been in a long distance relationship, and I donât know what I would have done in Tessaâs situation. Iâm too scared to bord an airplane to begin with. So, why is this story so personal if pretty much everything is so different from my own life?
While I was writing Tessaâs story, my sister was living with me. Sheâs the most important person in my life, my person, to put it in Christina Yangâs words. Sheâs also a German woman married to a Mexican man, who just had her first baby in a long distance relationship. She lived with my family for three months, waiting to return to Mexico City with my baby niece. Tessaâs story was born one morning when we sat in the kitchen, remembering the fear and impotence we (both, but she more than I, of course) felt when the 2017 earthquake hit while she was an ocean away from her husband. And we laughed when she told me that he had slept through it, because his apartment building is built on different substrate and barely shook at all.
Itâs weird to have personal stakes in a catastrophe happening on the other side of the world, and being unable to do ANYTHING - besides feeling guilty for also being glad you (and your person) werenât there when it happened. But we wondered: what would my sister have done, had she arrived for the first time just as it happened? Mexico City Airport was closed and evacuated, flights were redirected. And when my sister visited her then boyfriend for the first time, she had nothing but a mobile number - and there was no cellular network directly after the earthquake, so how would she have reached him? And how would I reach my sister if another strong earthquake were to happen now, while sheâs there? I hope I would be like Tessa, who finds the strength to go on a quest in search of her lover.
Tessaâs story is one of romantic love, but itâs not that different from the deep, absolute love I have for my sister. In the end, itâs love that offers us the strength to cross into the unknown, to take risks and get out to help the people who need us, and save the ones we can. âAftershockâ is such a personal story because I, too, would move heaven and earth to find my sister.
You can preorder Best Womenâs Erotica of the Year Vol. 4 here:
Kindle:http://mybook.to/bwe4ebook
Print:http://mybook.to/bwe4print
https://www.bweoftheyear.com/bwe-of-the-year-4 (Universal buy links)