Published in Blood + Honey literary magazine. December 9, 2025
"A mass?” Bryn immediately understands. “Is that why I felt the liquid contrast in Vaginia? That’s my name for down there. Probably why I have a low sex drive. It's not post-menopause, then."
The woman's eyebrow raises astonishingly high.
Bryn looks her up and down, as she does with almost everyone she meets, except with this new, very troubling finding, she's attempting to assess whether this healthcare professional is legit. The woman wears civilian clothing––no white jacket or scrubs like those of a doctor or a nurse. She smells faintly of smoked bacon mixed with Chanel No. 5, and her open burgundy silk blouse reveals a yellow-gold pendant shaped like a teardrop encasing a pink stone, reminiscent of Kay Jewelers. Her trousers are unfortunately pleated.
"This isn't cancer or anything, is it?" Bryn hasn’t experienced any vaginal cramping or bleeding recently.
"The mass is in your brain," the woman says.
Bryn bursts out laughing because that surely can't be right. "My husband and I are on a flight to Cabo tomorrow morning," she says as if maybe this woman could put in a good word with the mass. “Our anniversary.” And a great excuse for vacation sex since menopause has sucked the libido right out of Bryn.
The woman smiles kindly and lets out a little puff of air through her nostrils. "The trip will need to be postponed, I'm afraid." She takes Bryn's arm and moves her toward the door as if this new information suddenly makes Bryn unable to walk on her own.
Momentarily, they're both standing inside a small office, but the door remains wide open. A narrow window covers the back wall facing the side street, where, in the foreground, a beat-up orange bird of paradise pokes in and out of view in the increasingly violent Santa Ana winds. Bryn tries to imagine the warmth she'll feel once she leaves this freezer of an imaging center, but starts to shiver anyway.
“I've called ahead to the emergency department at Cedars and left a message on Dr. Jeong's voicemail. He's one of the best neurosurgeons in the country and a personal friend. You'll be in good hands. They're expecting you."
"Neurosurgeon?" Bryn repeats back, and up to this moment, Bryn hasn't recalled ever saying the word "neurosurgeon" before. The word carries weight. The joke, "It's not brain surgery," is no longer funny and can only be used unironically going forward.
"Are you okay?"
"Sorry, yes." Bryn's legs shake. The tremor moves up her torso, causing the paper gown to rustle loudly. “I’ll go now.”
Bryn’s feet seem to float off the ground as she walks to the locker, removes the gown, pulls on her marine blue, ultra-fine cashmere t-shirt and matching yoga pants, stuffs her bra into her tote, feeling her heavy boobs shelved on her upper stomach (to hell with her nipples poking through the material–– downturned, tired. Bryn can’t even use nursing a baby as an excuse) and heads out to the elevator, where she retrieves her car from the valet. Her face feels frozen in one expression. No clue what the expression is, but she senses her lips are open to accommodate the buzzing teeth and gums. She may have handed the valet a fifty. It doesn't matter.
Driving down Wilshire in her Tesla Model S with the heat on full blast, Bryn feels queasy. She can sense a stowaway in her head. Is it growing as she passes La Cienega? Was it there a month ago when she was a guest in the VIP box for Beyonce at Sofi? Did it form when she and her brother got into it (again) when she told him he was letting himself go? Maybe the mass was already there, and that's why she'd said it. She's comforted by the thought that perhaps the mass is the reason for her callousness. She could use this as an opening to her brother––she'll text him.
As Bryn passes Crescent Heights, a large piece of fabric blows onto her windshield and becomes caught on the wiper. She pulls over. From the passenger side mirror, she sees a homeless encampment. One of the inhabitants comes toward the window, pointing, his shirtless body barely holding up a pair of filthy jeans.
Bryn panics. She peels out, her view almost entirely blocked by whatever is attached to her windshield, violently flapping in the wind. Somehow, she manages to drive forward to the next side street. She gets out and rips off the dirty, tattered material from her wiper, noticing illustrations of various tropical fruits and the Mexican flag. Vaginia leaks as she vomits into the street. A gust of hot wind blows whatever is exiting her mouth onto her brand-new, limited-edition Valentino-collab Birkenstocks.
In TASTE, readers meet Byronic hero, Master Sommelier Jason Frazier. He’s hot, single, and one of Wine Observer’s “40 under 40.” A legendary blind taster with uncanny talent, Jason sets his sights on TV stardom. He plans to build an empire and finally put to rest his family’s belief that he merely “drinks for a living” by winning the most elite, nationally televised wine competition in Vegas and getting a three-show network deal.
Jason is publicly set up with an A-list actress who could catapult him to the top of the Hollywood machine. For Jason, real romance is a hard pass––until he meets a lowly wine rep who is far from his type. Yet, for the first time, a woman challenges him. It’s inconvenient and irritating, but he can’t shake her.
Then, he loses his sense of taste.
Complicated family dynamics amp up when his wealthy father dies. Jason suddenly becomes his alcoholic mother’s conservator. She moves to LA to be near him, eroding his perfectly ordered life. Jason’s taste is not returning; his inheritance is at risk, his romantic life is in shambles, and he spirals down. Will he devise a way to win in Vegas without his superpower, receiving the success he’s set his sights on? Will he choose love over selling out to Hollywood?
TASTE is a fast-paced page-turner powered by an antagonistic protagonist readers will root for, complete with suspenseful romance similar to Joe Goldberg in Caroline Kepnes’s You, or Connor O’Toole in Teddy Wayne’s The Winner, with an arch of character reminiscent of Jennifer Weiner’s Sebastian in The Breakaway.
LA celebrity stylist Bryn Blanchard is navigating a shrunken post-menopausal libido, but she’s hungry to reignite the romance with her dashing, Hollywood director husband, Errol, and plans a sexy getaway. Except that a scheduled MRI for chronic headaches reveals a brain tumor, sending Bryn on an awfully different journey.
Six months to five years. That’s the prognosis for stage 4 metastatic malignant melanoma of the brain and lung––longer, if Bryn responds well to the treatment she must undergo for the rest of her life (however long that is).
Home from the hospital after brain surgery, Bryn senses Errol’s distance. The chemistry they once shared has flat-lined. She chalks it up to the stress of caring for a partner with cancer, but it feels like more than that.
With Errol disappearing into work, and her BFF, Aditi, shooting a TV series on location, Bryn finds herself solo at her first immunotherapy session. She’s floored when Errol invites her estranged brother, Mike, to play caregiver. But Mike’s not who Bryn thought he was.
At the Bel Air Cancer Clinic, Bryn meets Robin, a charismatic retired studio musician with the same diagnosis. Despite the unattractive side effects of cancer, Robin makes her feel beautiful and seen. His kind, spiritual philosophy prompts Bryn to question whether she’s been focusing on the wrong things. As her connection with Robin deepens, Errol remains MIA, her brother discloses a secret about his identity, and Aditi’s surprise visit further shakes up Bryn’s world. Will her marriage and friendship survive? Will Bryn?
Long Monday is a 91k-word commercial women’s fiction novel. Readers will explore a comedic view of friendship, illness and betrayal as in Katie Yee’s Maggie; or, a Man and a Woman Walk into a Bar, finding love in an unlikely place as in Perfect Distraction by Allison Ashley, and the life-affirming, heartbreaking, coming of (a new) age journey as in The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.
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