Live With Color

"There is a string that connects us that is not visible to the eye. 
Maybe every person has more than one soul they are connected to, 
and all over the world there are those invisible strings… 
Maybe the chances that you’ll find each and every one of your soul mates is slim. 
But sometimes you’re lucky enough to stumble across one. 
And you feel a tug. 
And it’s not so much a choice to love them though their flaws and through your differences, 
but rather you love them without even trying. 
You love their flaws"

--Tarryn Fisher, Mud Vein

Genre: Adult Contemporary

Publisher: Self-Published

Pages: 292

Publication Date: March 8th, 2014

Source: Gifted by Betty for Christmas...thanks, love!!!

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Previous Books in Series: Standalone

Goodreads Description

When reclusive novelist Senna Richards wakes up on her thirty-third birthday, everything has changed. Caged behind an electrical fence, locked in a house in the middle of the snow, Senna is left to decode the clues to find out why she was taken. If she wants her freedom, she has to take a close look at her past. But, her past has a heartbeat...and her kidnapper is nowhere to be found. With her survival hanging by a thread, Senna soon realizes this is a game. A dangerous one. Only the truth can set her free.

Wow, ok. Um, well this is one of those books where my words will not begin to do justice to this book. This is my first Tarryn Fisher book. I've heard excellent things about her writing and I have to say upon finishing I immediately began her Love Me With Lies series I won from Betty. I could not get enough of the Tarryn Fisher. In hindsight, Mud Vein is very different from her Love Me With Lies series but that's a whole other story...and review. Anyways, I'm going to try to put into words how much I love this book but it's going to be difficult. Here's my college try...

If one thing stands out the most about Mud Vein it is the writing. Oh. My. Gosh. The writing. The best word I have to describe it is visceral. Tarryn Fisher makes you feel until you think you cannot feel anymore...and then she brings you back to life and you FEEL all over again. The words feel palpable on the page. They seethe emotion which is objectively hard to do when you factor in that our main character basically refuses to have any emotion whatsoever. This is not a negative, I'll get to Senna. I'm gonna give you a secret of mine that I am terrible with descriptions of spaces. Houses, room locations, layouts, I'm awful. I can't always picture it in my head the way it's supposed to be but I could picture this cabin perfectly. In fact, I felt like I was in the freaking cabin while reading. No joke, While writing this and thinking about the story, I can feel myself mentally go there and I feel transported. That's how I felt while reading. Transported into the place, into the writing, into Senna's world. But I'm still getting a little ahead of myself so let's back up.

The story is about Senna. She wakes up, alone, in a room that is not her own and come to find out that she is locked inside this cabin with no way out. Also, Isaac, a person from her past whose story we get slowly throughout the novel, is also there. Why? We have no idea. Who put them there? Zero clue. So we read on. Senna and Isaac discover that they have all the provisions to live in this cabin for months. Food, clothing, heat, supplies, everything is accounted for in order to be able to bunker down for months. The two have not seen each other in years, we eventually find out why, and what we now have are two people trying to figure out a way out of this prison and why somebody would do this to them.

This will be spoiler-free so I cannot say more about the plot except we get flashback chapters about how Isaac and Senna met and their relationship from beginning to end. Again, no spoilers so I'll just talk about the emotions I felt while reading. You guys, this book is no joke in the feels category. Remember when I talked about the writing? There are so many quotable moments and lines of intense beauty that Megan from Reading Like a Boss and I actually sat on Twitter the day after I finished trading back quotes for like...over an hour. Tarryn Fisher's writing, like I said before, is visceral. You feel it. It leaks into your blood and you feel Senna's emotions with her. Gah, I can't describe it!! It's just amazing! It hurts so good because her journey is one of pain and suffering and just agony at points and you feel with her. You want to make it better for her and then you have Isaac there trying to do that and then you feel with HIM, TOO! I just...don't know what else to say about this book except it takes you on emotional highs and lows. Like Tarryn Fisher's other novel, I felt a wide range of emotions and the conclusion to the story is intense and brilliant and epic. 

This is a shit review, I KNOW, but if I leave you with only one thing to remember about Mud Vein it is this...the writing is acutely poignant and extremely beautiful. The words live and breath off the page and I would highly recommend this book to almost anyone. It won't be for everyone but I loved this book so hard for the way it transported me into this cabin and I lived with Senna and Isaac for the duration of this novel. I was invested. I was IN. I was feeling everything they were feeling and I loved every second of it.

VIP

If you love beautiful writing, intense & emotional stories with a large side of mind fuck...this one's for you.