Bookish Brews Snapshot
Twin Tides by Hien Nguyen
In a small town plagued by a vengeful ghost, long-lost identical twins Aria and Caliste investigate their mother’s murder, wade through the betrayal that ultimately separated them, and must outsmart someone (or something) watching their every move.
💫 Atmospheric 💀 Dark Content ✒️ Debut Author 🧭 Diaspora Experience
- Genre: Horror, Speculative Fiction
Interview with Hien Nguyen
Amanda: I’ve been following your journey for what feels like forever. I can’t believe it’s finally happening. What has your writing journey been like? What inspires you to pick up the pen (so to speak) every day and fight to tell your story?
Hien Nguyen: I’m one of those folks who has been a creative writer since childhood. In ancient times I remember roleplaying on Neopets forums and Avidgamers (hello my fellow generation who used the words ‘orbs’ instead of ‘eyes’ for some inexplicable reason). That evolved into writing poems and short fiction in middle and high school before I simply fell out of it, believing (falsely) that I just wasn’t cut out for creative writing.
However, in 2020, like many in lockdown, I returned to writing and have fallen in love with the process all over again. I found a creative community and became part of the 2021 Avengers of Colour cohort, workshopped my stories, and attended writing retreats. I’m grateful for the amazing creative voices of those I’m lucky to also call my friends.
My writing journey is also inherently connected to my grief journey after losing my mother in 2021. It’s the stories she told me as a child, from Viet folklore and fairytales, that I find myself constantly returning to. It’s story that connects me to the past and to her, even in her absence. This connection, I think, is the driving force for my inspiration.
Stories connect us to different times, different people, and sometimes different universes. Stories make us human, and in a time when being human feels tenuous, I can’t help but continue to pick up the pen to remind myself of that humanity.
Amanda: How does it feel to finally be revealing your cover and adding your story to our small but mighty collection of Vietnamese American published authors? Can you tell me what you’re most proud of and what you’re most excited for?
Hien: When I think about pride, I think about two distinct memories. Once, when I was in high school and excelled in language arts and writing, my mother asked me, “What good is writing for?” I know she didn’t mean this maliciously, but asked as a parent worried about what future career would sustain her child.
Years later, I heard Judge Jacqueline Nguyen speak at a college event. She referenced majoring in English, and that her parents’ response to this was surprise. Why would you attempt to major in a language you are not native in? A language in which you are not primed to succeed?
My experience is very different—I was born in this country and speak English with native proficiency (while my Vietnamese is at best grade-school level). However, as I embark on my writing career I think about this concept a lot. The story of diaspora is a story of assimilation and having to succeed based on metrics established by someone else. It’s complex and messy.
Being able to reveal my cover and join the many Vietnamese American authors who have grappled with similar questions is an honor. And to answer my mom’s question over a decade later: What good is writing for? This. This book, written by your daughter, in a language you watched her learn with trepidation, hopeful that she would make a safe home for herself in this foreign country.
Excerpt
When he shuts the driver’s side door, the force kicks up wet dirt and a splatter of snow. Aria coughs, dragging her suitcase behind her as she heads over to the police station’s entrance. When Aria enters the station, the pale and otherwise uninteresting face of a young, smiling clerk appears. The woman opens her mouth as if to greet Aria, but the smile falls almost immediately.
“Miss, uh. Miss Aria Nguyen . . .” The girl stammers.
“Yes. Aren’t you expecting me?” Aria asks, too tired to put on an act. “I’m here to talk to Officer Badiou about Xuân, my m— I mean my aunt.”
“R-right. To see your aunt. Your cousin? Wait . . . Oh my god . . .”
“Cousin? What are you talking about?” Aria asks. She pulls back the hood of her jacket and turns away from the stammering clerk.
Then she notices what—or rather, who—is causing this woman to act like she’s seen a ghost.
Seated on a dingy green loveseat in the lobby’s corner is a nondescript brunette man who Aria assumes is Officer Badiou. And seated next to him is a girl. A girl Aria recognizes instantly as an uncanny Valley girl version of herself. If Aria weren’t still standing near the clerk, she’d think she was sitting next to Officer Badiou.
After several stinging seconds of silence, the man stands and finally speaks.
“You . . . do know each other, don’t you? You’re . . . cousins?”
“No. I don’t. She’s not my cousin. What the hell is going on?” Not-Aria says loudly, her eyes—Aria’s eyes—staring directly at Aria.
“This makes things complicated,” Officer Badiou mutters, and his clerk quips a helpful “Ya think?”
Not-Aria stands, striding toward Aria without breaking eye contact. This girl is a version of Aria, one she’s pictured in her dreams, a version who exercises, who has nice skin and shiny hair. A version of Aria that must be a maladaptive daydream taunting her. But, no, this girl is very real and nearing. Aria can’t begin to comprehend how, though.
Aria can hear her own heart beating clearly, a ringing thump in her ears. Wait—is it her heart? Or this stranger’s? As Aria freezes, working through the tenuous net of confusion in her mind, Not-Aria finally reaches her.
“You. You . . .” she whispers. Then Aria’s lookalike hugs her, her long manicured fingernails piercing Aria’s sides. Not-Aria is crying, and now so is the real Aria.
Twins. We are twins.
Cover Reveal
