All is revealed! The Sun's Companion

Well, I’ve finally done it - found a title and a cover and sent The Sun’s Companion out into the world.  My first novel to see the light of day.  I hope you approve.

Many thanks to all those who suggested titles - some of the best ones were unfortunately already taken by other books. In the end I didn't choose any of them, but it was the suggestion, from two people, that I should sit down and brainstorm all the themes and ideas in the book that gave it to me.  I quickly realised that one of the recurring themes in the book is Fate - Nemesis - how our lives can be changed in an instant by events beyond our control.

As soon as I began to explore this, it became interesting. Nemesis was the Greek Goddess of judgement, who doled out the fates that each individual deserved and which none could escape.  At some point she has become synonymous in people’s minds with Fate.  Both are completely beyond the control of humanity. As a Roman poet put it:   "All the tangled paths of human life, by land and sea, are by the will of (Fate) hid from our eyes, and in many and devious tracks are cleft apart and in wandering mazes lost. Along them men by Fortune's dooming drift like unto leaves that drive before the wind.”  This seemed very appropriate for the plot of the novel, but I couldn’t call it Nemesis.  However, there was one entry for Nemesis on the internet that caught my eye.

Astronomers have predicted that our sun is a binary star and that its companion is a dark dwarf star on a long trajectory, swinging out into space and then in towards us again, causing cosmic catastrophes, comet storms and mass extinctions every million years or so.  The name they gave this star was Nemesis.

So, the two young female characters in the novel, Tamar and Anna, are at the mercy of Nemesis, the sun’s companion, as the nineteen thirties tick relentlessly towards a new decade and a war in Europe that will change their lives for ever.  I hope the title is going to be intriguing enough to attract readers - and the cover.  Once Neil had the title, the cover was a lot easier!  We’ve tried to give it a contemporary feel, but kept the antique suitcase for a suggestion of something historical.  The situation of the character is accurate too - Tamar does find herself in a cornfield in 1941.

The novel is up on Kindle now, although the official publication date is October 1st and by a lovely coincidence, it's reviewed by Debbie Bennett over at the Indie E-book Review Site today.  We hope to have it on Kobo soon, but Kobo Writing Life is proving rather more tricky than Amazon.  They’re having a few teething problems.  More on that soon.

You might find me a little quiet for the next week or so - the annual creative writing course at Peralta is about to begin and I have a small group of writers from all over the world - Canada to Australia - this year.  Keeping my fingers crossed that the weather stays good.  September can be fickle!