Carnal Knowledge
by Rachael Tamayo
on Tour July 11 - August 14, 2020
I am the author of nine books to date—four thrillers and five romances. My ninth book is Carnal Knowledge, fresh from me to you on July 11th. I’m a best seller, an award winner, mother of two, and a wife. I live in Houston, Texas and by God, it’s hot here this summer! So, here are a few things about me that you might not have known.
Yes, it’s true. I come from a hard-core southern Baptist home and was raised pretty strictly. My mother used get us up extra early and we would read the Bible daily before going to school. This happened through my high school years. As a result of this upbringing and living a pretty sheltered existence for the first half of my life, I did stay at home for an extra long time in order to keep my mother happy. Now, that’s not saying that I didn’t want to move out, because I did. But now that I can look back, knowing what I know, I might have done things a tad differently.
2. I am absolutely scared to death of flying roaches. Down here in Texas, they are knows as wood roaches, the huge ones that fly around outside at night. Spiders, meh. Snakes? Who cares? Roaches, OMG, I can’t deal. Not even a little bit. I can’t even step on them they are just so huge! And being here on the Texas Gulf Coast, the damn things are everywhere. They like the heat and moisture here (since they are also known as water roaches or tree roaches). I hate them!
3. I had three miscarriages and the doctors were unable to figure out why during the first nine years I was married.
I had PCOS- polycystic ovarian syndrome. However, when I turned thirty-five or so, it seems to have resolved itself. I spent nine years struggling to get pregnant naturally and on fertility medication, and when I did, I had a miscarriage all three times. I was tested from here to Jericho for everything under the sun and nothing was found until after my third loss. So not only did I struggle to get pregnant, when I finally did, I just lost it somewhere in the first trimester. That was when my doctor at the time tested me and I was found to have MTHFR. An unpronounceable genetic condition that prevents my body from taking on folate. So, long story short, she found out that the babies died due to lack of folic acid. I was unable to support a pregnancy until she told me to take specific vitamins and them wham-bam… now I have two healthy children. Now, even to this day, eight years later I tell people I have it and doctors don’t even know what it is. I thank God every day for my doctor!
4. I have a crazy sleep disorder known as Parasomnia—specifically sleep paralysis. Commonly called waking nightmares. Honestly this is just as awful as it sounds. It plagued me in my teens when I had no clue what it was, or that it was an honest to God sleep disorder. I had dreams of paralysis and they came so often that I learned to wake myself up. The paralysis comes with nightmares—because of course they can’t be happy dreams. Oh no, lets wake her body up and scare the living daylights out of her with dream like hallucinations!
So basically, what happens is your brain goes into REM sleep, but when you have this disorder, your body wakes up. You will find yourself awake but in a dreamlike state and feel the natural paralysis that overtakes someone when they are in REM sleep. You will have hallucination type dreams—because your mind is sleeping and dreaming—and it is scary as hell. It doesn’t bother me much anymore unless I’m very sleep deprived, or I’ve taken sleeping pills. It honestly sounds like the premise for a kick-ass thriller, but I just can’t do it, it scares me, LOL.
5. I was a dispatcher for one of the SWAT teams that responded to the Sante Fe school shooting here in Texas. I am a twelve year 911/police dispatch veteran and it was the last big call I took before I left. I have had my 911 calls played on TV and in Investigation Discovery movies too. I did not work for the Sante Fe police department; therefore I didn’t take any of those calls. I did, however, hear of the aftermath from officers who were on the scene and I cried all the way home that day. It was this call that pushed me to make the final decision to leave law enforcement.
And there you have it! Five things about me that I bet you didn’t know. Have any questions? Please hit me up on my website at http://www.RachaelTamayoWrites.com with the contact form. I’d love to hear from you.
Synopsis:
What do you do when you know you’re on a serial killer’s hit list?
Six women are dead, and Wren Addison is the next victim on the SMS Killer’s list—or so she’s been told after waking in a pool of blood with no memory of the events that have transpired.
Newly separated and struggling to start her life over after her husband’s infidelity, Wren tries to remember what happened to her, but nothing is adding up as more horrors unfold around her. With her life on a timer and the murderer taunting her, she realizes there is nothing typical about this serial killer.
Wren is pushed to the edge as she dances between knowing she's likely to die and fighting to be the first to survive. As the truth starts to emerge, she rises to the challenge and decides not to go down without a fight.
Someone is going to die, and she’s determined it won’t be her.
Book Details:
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Published by: Tangled Tree Publishing
Publication Date: July 11th 2020
Number of Pages: 301
ISBN: 9781922359124
Series: A Deadly Sins Novel, #2 || Stands Alone
Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
Read an excerpt:
You really don’t know how you feel about some things until they happen to you. You can guess. You can pretend you’d be strong, that you’d stand on the rooftops and shout your indignation as you shake your fist to the skies, but those are only guesses. Hopes. What we think we know about ourselves. They say no one ever really knows anyone. I think it’d be a safe bet to say that we don’t really know ourselves either. You think you do. The “Oh, I’d never do that! Look at how she’s acting. If I were in her shoes….” but you don’t. No one does.
I said the same things to myself when I walked out on my husband, Ricky, months ago. Those thoughts went through my head as I closed the door behind me for what I told myself was the last time. I wouldn’t let myself cry as I said goodbye to him, only feeling the first tears fall when I heard the click behind me, the locking of the door to what used to be our home together. When he didn’t chase me and beg me to stay.
I wept in that moment, wondering how much pain a person could take.
Over the days that followed, it faded into something more akin to numbness as I found an apartment and got a new checking account. As I arranged to find movers to get my things while he was at work, all while thanking God that we had no children.
Now I find myself in that place once more, though for an altogether different reason. Something has happened to me, something that leaves my body sore and my head feeling as if I have a hangover. These are the moments that tell you who you really are, leaving you exposed to your own darkness.
I found that out about myself. No one ever imagines themselves in this position. You’re not prepared. No amount of self-defense can prepare you for the shock that is the next morning, waking up in a bloody mess, knowing you’ve been sexually assaulted.
I can’t even say it out loud. I won’t. I refuse to do it. It makes it real, and I don’t want it to be real. I want it to be some horrible nightmare that I can wake up from.
But it’s not.
It’s the middle of the night. I’m sitting on the floor of my shower, the water finally not running pink anymore. My face feels puffy from crying as I carefully wash the wounds, the soap burning. I wince and then stand up before the water turns cold. Sitting here won’t accomplish anything.
I look down at the mark on my left breast, swollen and purple. The definite outline of teeth, broken skin, tender to touch. It’s not the only place I’m hurting, but it’s the only one I can easily see. The only one I can’t really hide from. It’s a slap in the face, a calling card from someone I can’t remember. A face that won’t ever haunt my dreams.
So, what do I do now? It’s about 4:00 a.m. Do I call someone? The police? My friend Lily? My husband? Maybe Alex? Surely she would believe me.
I blink away tears, dipping my head back into the hot spray to wash the blood out of my hair.
No, I won’t tell anyone. It’s too embarrassing. Too humiliating. This big foreboding thing happened to me. What they warned us all about. My drink was tampered with, and someone hurt me. I broke the rules, and I got this for it.
I should have listened, I suppose.
I feel sick knowing what someone did to me while I was asleep. Or was I? Maybe I did fight and just can’t remember. I’d fight, surely. I wouldn’t just lie there and take it, right? The thought gives me some minimal sliver of peace, like passing through the eye of the hurricane—you know it’s not real, not the end, but you relish it just the same.
By the time I get out of the shower, I realize I haven’t really slept. My alarm will go off at seven for work so I can catch the bus and be on time for the morning meeting. I could get three hours of sleep before that, maybe.
I shut off the water, suddenly a bit afraid. Knowing someone was here gives me the creeps. Makes me wish I’d gotten that gun Ricky tried so hard to get me to agree to, the one I refused. I wouldn’t give in, fearing some horrible accident. He kept his locked up, and I never bothered to learn to shoot. He begged to teach me, tried to get me to hold his Glock to “get the feel of it.” Nope. Now I regret it.
In the months I’ve lived here, I haven’t been afraid to be on my own until now. Someone got to me. I’m without defense in my own home.
***
Excerpt from Carnal Knowledge by Rachael Tamayo. Copyright 2020 by Rachael Tamayo. Reproduced with permission from Tangled Tree Publishing. All rights reserved.
I said the same things to myself when I walked out on my husband, Ricky, months ago. Those thoughts went through my head as I closed the door behind me for what I told myself was the last time. I wouldn’t let myself cry as I said goodbye to him, only feeling the first tears fall when I heard the click behind me, the locking of the door to what used to be our home together. When he didn’t chase me and beg me to stay.
I wept in that moment, wondering how much pain a person could take.
Over the days that followed, it faded into something more akin to numbness as I found an apartment and got a new checking account. As I arranged to find movers to get my things while he was at work, all while thanking God that we had no children.
Now I find myself in that place once more, though for an altogether different reason. Something has happened to me, something that leaves my body sore and my head feeling as if I have a hangover. These are the moments that tell you who you really are, leaving you exposed to your own darkness.
I found that out about myself. No one ever imagines themselves in this position. You’re not prepared. No amount of self-defense can prepare you for the shock that is the next morning, waking up in a bloody mess, knowing you’ve been sexually assaulted.
I can’t even say it out loud. I won’t. I refuse to do it. It makes it real, and I don’t want it to be real. I want it to be some horrible nightmare that I can wake up from.
But it’s not.
It’s the middle of the night. I’m sitting on the floor of my shower, the water finally not running pink anymore. My face feels puffy from crying as I carefully wash the wounds, the soap burning. I wince and then stand up before the water turns cold. Sitting here won’t accomplish anything.
I look down at the mark on my left breast, swollen and purple. The definite outline of teeth, broken skin, tender to touch. It’s not the only place I’m hurting, but it’s the only one I can easily see. The only one I can’t really hide from. It’s a slap in the face, a calling card from someone I can’t remember. A face that won’t ever haunt my dreams.
So, what do I do now? It’s about 4:00 a.m. Do I call someone? The police? My friend Lily? My husband? Maybe Alex? Surely she would believe me.
I blink away tears, dipping my head back into the hot spray to wash the blood out of my hair.
No, I won’t tell anyone. It’s too embarrassing. Too humiliating. This big foreboding thing happened to me. What they warned us all about. My drink was tampered with, and someone hurt me. I broke the rules, and I got this for it.
I should have listened, I suppose.
I feel sick knowing what someone did to me while I was asleep. Or was I? Maybe I did fight and just can’t remember. I’d fight, surely. I wouldn’t just lie there and take it, right? The thought gives me some minimal sliver of peace, like passing through the eye of the hurricane—you know it’s not real, not the end, but you relish it just the same.
By the time I get out of the shower, I realize I haven’t really slept. My alarm will go off at seven for work so I can catch the bus and be on time for the morning meeting. I could get three hours of sleep before that, maybe.
I shut off the water, suddenly a bit afraid. Knowing someone was here gives me the creeps. Makes me wish I’d gotten that gun Ricky tried so hard to get me to agree to, the one I refused. I wouldn’t give in, fearing some horrible accident. He kept his locked up, and I never bothered to learn to shoot. He begged to teach me, tried to get me to hold his Glock to “get the feel of it.” Nope. Now I regret it.
In the months I’ve lived here, I haven’t been afraid to be on my own until now. Someone got to me. I’m without defense in my own home.
***
Excerpt from Carnal Knowledge by Rachael Tamayo. Copyright 2020 by Rachael Tamayo. Reproduced with permission from Tangled Tree Publishing. All rights reserved.
Author Bio:
International Amazon bestselling author Rachael Tamayo is a former 911 emergency operator and police dispatcher. After twelve years in those dark depths, she’s gained a unique insight into mental illness, human behaviour, and the general darkness of humanity that she likes to weave into her books. A formerly exclusive romance author tried her hand at thrillers in her award-winning novel, “Crazy Love,” and loved it so much that she decided not to turn back. Born and raised in Texas, Rachael lives in the Houston area with her husband of almost fifteen years, and their two young children.
Loved this post because I like learning about the author behind the book.
ReplyDelete