Both losses gave me a new perspective on grief and life. While anyone my age (68) has lost relatives, parents, and friends, losing my wife was harder than all the others combined. I used that new perspective to make a different kind of hero in my book.
Seeley James – 18 November 2024
The Back Flap
When a renowned professor is found murdered, the prime suspect is a powerful Chinese executive, and the motive is a stolen equation capable of shifting global power: the Chaac Equation. The equation can produce batteries storing ten thousand times the kilowatt hours, powering airplanes, cars, and homes at a fraction of today’s cost. Tasked with recovering the equation, Stearne embarks on a deadly game of cat-and-mouse across continents, matching wits with the formidable Jackie Maura, a ruthless operative from the shadowy Remmo Nidal Corporation.
In this high-stakes game of covert operations—where ethical lines look like sine waves and loyalty is thinner than fog—the President denies Jacob’s existence while his boss pushes him to his limits. Forced to confront the physical and psychological toll of his profession, Stearne must confront his own demons and make choices that will determine the fate of nations and his own redemption.
As the mission’s demands grow, his girlfriend dumps him, his comrades lose faith, and assassins get him in their sights.
About the book
What is the book about?
The short version is summed up in the book’s tagline: “He’s a haunted hero with a dark past. She’s a stripper-turned-spy learning on the job. Together they face an enemy intending to control the future in this deadly game.” In truth, it’s a race to find the Chaac Equation, a key to green energy that could make the owner a trillionaire. Naturally, petrostates want to destroy it and oil-dependent countries want to steal it. Our hero, Jacob Stearne has been sent to save it. Along the way, he must face the consequences of his past: is he really a hero—or is he a government sanctioned serial killer?
When did you start writing the book?
I started 11-March, 2023 and released it 08-October, 2024. Much longer than usual which is explained below.
How long did it take you to write it?
Normally, it takes me six to nine months to finish a book. This one took nineteen months, an extra year. Unfortunately, a month after picking up the pen, my sister died having being diagnosed with aggressive leukemia just two months earlier. Since we were very close, I took time off to grieve and to help settle her estate.
After I got back on track and writing, and the day after I sent a solid draft to my editor, my wife died unexpectedly. That set me back almost a year. Both losses gave me a new perspective on grief and life. While anyone my age (68) has lost relatives, parents, and friends, losing my wife was harder than all the others combined. I used that new perspective to make a different kind of hero in my book. Darker and more reflective, Jacob Stearne grapples with the Hero’s Paradox: Were his heroic deeds good or bad?
Where did you get the idea from?
The concept of a dark hero has been brooding in my head since I first witnessed the rise of the super-hero genre of movies like Spider-Man (2002) and Ironman (2008) right up to the Avengers series. While watching these movies, my inner-cynic said, “Extrajudicial killings? Skyscrapers leveled? Thousands of cars destroyed as collateral damage? At what cost are we calling these people ‘Heroes?’” Which developed into: What if they did all this damage based on faulty information? (Recall the great Weapons of Mass Destruction war in 2003?) Does that make these superheroes villains?
Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?
In the beginning, I worked on a typical hero-based story: good guy is sent on a quest, encounters deadly odds stacked against him, overcomes terrifying bad guys, grabs the Golden Fleece, and returns home (with or without a beautiful damsel). Originally, I wanted to write a modernized version of Argonautica (commonly known as Jason and the Argonauts) but without the whole Medea-Creusa drama.
After the deaths of my sister and then my wife, I considered a “Dark Jacob” something of a haunted hero. But, since Jacob had always been an accidental, perhaps even hapless, hero, the change to a brooding and uncertain character filled me with concerns for my fans. So I sent out a poll with a sample chapter. They overwhelmingly approved.
What came easily?
After getting the results of the poll (above), and some great advice from my editor, Lance Charnes, the book flowed more freely. Symone, a new character from the previous book, developed into someone I really liked from the writer’s perspective. As a former stripper, she has to learn espionage and covert operations while trying desperately to fit in with the battle-hardened veterans. She gave me an opportunity to unveil some techniques and concepts of espionage that are misrepresented to an egregious degree in modern fiction (damn you, James Bond!).
More than anything else, Dark Jacob was surprisingly easier to write than glib Jacob.
Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?
Entirely fictitious. The people I know are boring. Oh, man. I hope they’re not reading this.
Do you have a target reader for this book?
My target reader is people who like to read books that are both funny and engaging.
How was writing this book different from what you’d experienced writing previous books?
Losing the two most important people in my life …
What new things did you learn about writing, publishing, and/or yourself while writing and preparing this book for publication?
I learned I can get deeper into a character’s psyche than I previously thought fans would endure. The outpouring of support my fans provided was an incredible help to me both personally and as a writer. They were with me in spirit for every written word.
End of Interview:
Get your copy of Chasm of Exiles from Amazon US or Amazon UK.