Rachel Ward

Archive for April, 2012

Infinity

May 2012 is an exciting month for me. The third book in my NUMBERS trilogy, ‘Infinity’ comes out in the Germany (‘Numbers – Den Tod Im Griff), France (‘Intuitions, Tome 3: Infini’ and the US ‘Numbers – Infinity’). I’m relieved and a little bit proud that the whole series is out now, and I really hope that those who have enjoyed the first two books will like this one, too. It’s nearly a year since it came out in the UK and so it’s a good time for me to look back and share a few thoughts about ‘Infinity.’

My husband was extremely ill while I was writing the book, and I was under a lot of pressure to deliver the book and keep the series’ momentum going, and so my view of it is inevitably clouded by rather distressing memories. Even now, although my husband is much better and I know that I met my deadline in the end, I can’t think about ‘Infinity’ without anxiety tugging at my stomach. Yup, there it is now as I’m sitting writing this blog. But it’s okay to acknowledge a bad time in your life and it’s great to be able to say that you got through it and out the other side. Life doesn’t stop when you become a writer – stuff keeps happening and you have to deal with it, just like everyone else.

Although I didn’t pick it, I love the UK title, ‘Infinity’. The main hook of this book is the possibility of swapping or stealing death dates so that you could keep extending your life, maybe forever. The plot concerns Sarah’s daughter, Mia, who seems to have this gift and it explores what it would mean to live with this and what the implications are for the human spirit.

It was a difficult book to write for all sorts of reasons. For a start, there are a variety of gifts (and curses) in the book – seeing death dates, dreaming about the future, seeing auras, and healing. It was challenging keeping track of who had which ‘power’ and who knew what when. The book also offers a glimpse into a possible near future and it was tricky finding a plausible, yet dramatic, context for my characters to operate in. Towards the end of the book, things get extremely dark and frightening. On the advice of my publisher, I toned it down a little bit (only a little), but it’s still pretty disturbing. I have to tell you that this is the only book which has given me nightmares, the kind which are so scary you have to wake yourself up.

I was very mindful that this is the last in the series and so I needed to find an ending which wrapped things up in a satisfactory way, while staying true to the spirit of the other books. I’ve had quite a few emails from fans asking for a fourth book in the series, but I think that this is it. I hope that I’ve done something different with all three books and that they are all strong in their own right. I don’t want to fall into the trap of diluting the series and, frankly, after five years of thinking and writing about seeing death dates, it’s nice to think about and write about something else for a change.

In the end, I hope that the real message of this book for the reader, like the other two in the series, is about love. The love between partners and the love of a parent for their child (birth child, adopted or whatever). The book is dedicated to my parents, grandparents and all those who went before, and to my children and those that may come afterwards. And, of course, to my husband. None of us are going to live forever, but I’m glad he’s here for a while longer … xxx

 

Thursday, April 19th, 2012 (18 Comments) (Permalink) 

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