Character Interview! Sadie Larcen . . . Reluctant Heroine of The Tethered World.

Today I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to visit with Sadie Larcen, from Orchards, Washington. Sadie has written a book about last summer’s memoirs called The Tethered World. The book is due out this spring and will give an account of the dangers she faced while trying to track down her kidnapped parents.

HF: Welcome, Sadie! Thanks for coming by to chat about your up coming book. Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?

Sadie: Thank you for inviting me here today. I’m not very comfortable talking about myself but, I guess that’s how this book promoting stuff works so I better get used to it. I turned 17 in the fall, and I’m a senior in school. I’m homeschooled, which translates to going to a lot of co-op classes, and doing dual credits at Clark County Community College. I plan to major in literature, as you might guess by my contribution to the subject with The Tethered World.

HF: Yes, that’s what I would’ve guessed. So, tell me how you ended up in this place to begin with? Are you the sort of girl that looks for adventure, if it doesn’t find you first?

Sadie: Oh, no! Not at all. My little sister, Sophie, is that way (which I find annoying). I would much rather read or write about adventures, than actually have one myself. If my parents hadn’t been nabbed and dragged to this place, I would never willingly have gone.

HF: I see. Well, aside from the horrific circumstance your parents found themselves in, what is so terrible about the Tethered World, in general? Can you give our readers a feel for the place?

Sadie: Sure, I’ll just toss that minor detail aside and talk it up for future tourists.

HF: I’m sorry! That must’ve sounded so calloused. I only wanted to get a feel for the setting in your story.

Sadie: Yeah, well, I suppose that’s a question that will come up a lot. The Tethered World is pretty ginormous. I couldn’t get over that a world that size could be tucked away into pockets of the earth, and it’s presence be kept a secret. My parents were one of the few that knew of its existence and you can see where that got them!

Anyway, there’s a bunch of creatures down there that people have talked about through centuries of folklore and even the Bible. Gnomes, Leprechauns, Faeries, Nephilum. Even some creatures that I’ve never heard of in any sort of literature. They’re all down in this place, settled in their own towns and villages, trying to get along with each other like we are up here. It’s mind blowing.

HF: So, you’re saying you actually visited a place where things like Gnomes and Faeries live? I didn’t think those things existed.

Sadie: Unfortunately, they’re as real as you and me. It took me awhile to wrap my brain around it but, once you meet a Leprechaun with a bad temper, or dine with Dwarves, it’s hard to act like it’s all a fairytale. Why do you think so many cultures have similar creatures in their folklore? It’s not like a bunch of made up stories that went viral or something. No. These creatures have wandered up here on occasion and people have seen them and talked about it. Just like some of us have gone down to where they live.

HF: Wow. That’s just bizarre! I can’t believe you’ve really seen these things. Incredible!

Sadie: Yeah, lucky me, not. There are a lot of things I wish I’d never seen. I don’t even like talking about it right now. Can we just change the subject?

HF: Uh, sure. It’s your book, and your story, so . . . what would you like readers to know?

Sadie: I’d like them to know what’s in my book—which they can find out by reading it. I had to write down what happened because I couldn’t live with keeping it a secret. It ate away at me and made me feel crazy because I couldn’t talk about it with anyone outside of my family.

Now it’s going to be published for the world to see, and they may decide I’m crazy anyway. I mean, the publisher is labeling it as a “fiction” story after all, so who’s going to believe me? I’m sorry to ruin the interview by getting so emotional but what happened down there is still fresh and raw. Maybe I’ll get better at this with time. I think it’s too soon for me and this interview was a mistake.

Thanks for wanting to do this interview but I need to go. Sorry.

HF: Whoa. Sadie Larcen just up and walked out. I’d say she has a lot of emotions to work through, poor thing. Sorry that this was cut short but hopefully we talked enough to get you curious about her story and what happened to her and her family.

Sadie gave me a link for readers to get the first chapter of her book The Tethered World right now. Once you sign up on the link, you’ll be the first to know about how to get the book when it comes out. Though it seems like it’ll be awhile before Sadie will be willing to really discuss the details of her story with one on one, we can read for ourselves what happened in this strange and dangerous place that left Sadie so vulnerable and scarred.

Please keep Sadie in your prayers as she works through the traumatic memories. Hopefully her book, and having to discuss it, will become therapeutic and healing for her over time.