Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Body Jump

In 2004, I sat down to write a novel, my third. Body Jump is a thriller, with a supernatural twist, which if you've read my work, is my trade mark. Murder, mayhem, sex and violence weave a web through the pages of this fast paced human drama. As any author will tell you we love all our stories, but Body Jump has taken me on a ride that is and always will be unforgettable. The characters were back then and are today so real and compelling, especially Susan Claw.

Susan is the main protagonist, who was never in the story to start with. She came to this story when I was wrestling with the first chapter and I had already sorted out my characters, (so I thought). Even back then our first meeting was auspicious. She was not kind or even gracious, but she was certainly tenacious, forthright and extremely complex. My most complex character to date. She turned this story into her own, she is smart, sexy, and street savvy.

Believe it or not I actually conceived this story when I was around four, or five years old. I used to sit on the upper floor of an English double decker bus and look down on the people below walking by. I used to wonder where they were going? What they were doing, or who they were meeting? What if you had that ability, effectively projecting yourself into them? Through line of sight you could Body Jump someone. This means you could use their senses, see, hear, smell, touch, taste. Listen to their thoughts and go through their innermost desires. You could take from them whatever you wanted and they would never even know you were there, dangerous people indeed.

As I got older I asked myself the same questions. Where are they going, what are they doing etc. Until one day I asked myself. (Hey! what if that guy over there, is on his way to commit a murder?) What would you if you was a Body Jumper and you knew what was about to happen? Would you go to the cops? Would you follow him? Or could you go home and forget about it? Well the moral implications are huge and the book Body Jump was born.

I can tell you now it's a lot more complicated than that. These characters are in a league of their own. Even now they fascinate me, each and every one of them. For most of you it will be available on Amazon soon, so keep your eyes open. Let me know what you think, because I can't Body Jump.