The New Novel

OK folks, here it is. A basic summary of my new novel.

Firstly, I should record that I came up with the idea some time ago in June this year whilst at a Speculators meeting, sitting under a tree in the Quakers' garden. Originally, I had the idea of a girl who could control nature, and anything connected to that. Trees, plants, animals, the weather, earthquakes, the Earth's rotation. All that stuff. Then I decided to give her a sister, an opposite almost, and so she has power over humanity - she can heal or destroy the human body. She can read and manipulate minds. She can create life, just as she can extinguish it. My protagonist and antagonist were born.

And yet, I decided that I liked my "antagonist" more, and so decided to write the story mainly from her point of view. Matti is the "evil" one to Eva's "good" one, but what makes Matti so interesting is that she doesn't consider herself to be evil at all.

Currently, the story is being told via a series of chapters which relates to a particular year of the sisters' lives. As they are potentially immortal, in this story it spans almost 70 years. It starts with the sisters as children. Eva was born with her powers to control nature, and has always been special as a result. Matti, the older sibling, discovers her powers after an accident that should have killed her. Suddenly the dynamics of the family are changed. This is the seed for the resentment and bitterness that lead to the sisters' war against each other. But despite the decades of fighting, they are still sisters, still drawn together because of family ties (and burdens), and an ongoing moral argument.

It's not going to be one of those stories that ends happily. And it's as much about coping with death and the consequences of your actions, as it is about immortality and (for want of a better word) superpowers.

More updates will follow. For now, I'm still working on chapter one - which, because it includes a lot of flashback, will probably get cut somewhere later along the line. Hey ho!

(Picture: "Storm Goddess" by Firnadi Iqbal http://www.advancedphotoshop.co.uk/show_image.php?imageID=15928)