Have you ever had that feeling your reflection is plotting against you? Also what would you do you if you had to fight for your own survival against… YOU?
‘Double Jeopardy’ is the first book in my ‘Mirror Wars’ trilogy. An intense science fiction conspiracy thriller which follows Detective Inspector Dave Barnes as he uncovers a decades old global conspiracy originating for a parallel world.
I love the idea that there is another version of me somewhere in a mirror reality, who could be doing the same thing as me, or something completely different as me.
Growing up I always had this irrational fear of mirrors, that my reflection was a dark version of myself in a mirror universe waiting to climb out and kill me during my sleep! Although having a twin brother didn’t help too, constantly being reminded we were basically a copy of one another!
As I grew older my fears of mirrors eased, but didn’t entirely go away. I still cannot walk by a mirror and not think “Did my reflection just grin a me?”
I have always wanted to write a book that either incorporated my love and fascination with the multiverse, or something based on my childhood fear of mirrors. Over time as I began to think more and more about writing a fantasy novel, I started to think “Why not incorporate them both?” The more I thought about it, the more I realised I liked the idea and when I eventually sat down to my write down my thoughts, I realised I had the makings of what could be an interesting story.
My initial idea had been to write a one-off novel involving a creature from another dimension who used mirrors to attack and kill people. But the more I thought about that, I felt that had been done and if I wanted to write a story that grabbed people, then it needed to be something original – Something we had seen before but still had something different about it.
My mind kept drifting back to ST:TOS ‘My mind kept drifting back to ST:TOS‘s ‘Mirror Mirror’ and an idea slowly began to develop of people from a parallel reality who crossed over into “our” reality to replace their doppelgangers as a precursor to much larger invasion.
After settling on the timeframe of my story, I was able to add key points from our history that could have been the cause of “outside” interference i.e. Kennedy’s assassination, financial collapse of 2007 and COVID-19.
After I sat down and began to write I was able to develop the characters I had chosen to fit in with my story as it progressed and mould them into vivid and interesting characters.
I have learned a lot about myself during this journey, but I hope you enjoy, and have as much fun reading Double Jeopardy as I have had writing it. I am already in the process of writing the follow up – Severed Dreams – which I hope to publish later this year.
Oh, one final note…
Watch out for those strange reflections.
