Deception

Deception
Michael Davis
Davisstories.com
Author of the Year, 2008

Sometimes, the story behind how a novel came about can be interesting as well. Here's an explanation for how our new release VEIL OF DECEPTION was born and its connection between myself and co-author Candace Morehouse. Hope you enjoy it.

It was a gorgeous day in early spring and I was seating on my porch watching a brood of freshly hatched ducklings trail behind a pair of mallards in front of my dock. There were two mourning doves cooing in my cinder tree, the bass were spawning at the back of my cove, and I was sipping on a Killian’s Red in a frosty mug. Live was looking good.

On my radio, I heard a reminder of a horrifying unsolved mystery still haunting the county adjacent to where I lived. It reminded me of the evil that waits on the borders of our civilized world for the opportunity to reach out and destroy innocent lives. At that instant, there was a splash in my cove. When I turned back, where there had been a line of five sets of small paddling feet, now there were only four. Nature, with all her exacting reality had taken a life from an unsuspecting family to feed the blind hunger of another of her beasts.

The parallel between what I had heard on the radio and what was unfolding in my small cove as two parent mallards searched for an offspring they would never find, was quite moving. The juices began to flow for a new story, one based on the hidden dangers all around us, but it had to be anchored in truth and blended with a romantic core, otherwise, why write it. Then it hit me. In many relationships, deception can be the match that burns love to a cinder. Whether it’s an attempt to deceive our mate, or a lie to fool ourselves, deception can only foster pain. In the same way, evil deeds are generally carried out through a veil of deception, and the plot for a gut wrenching romantic suspense was born.

I had previously discussed the opportunity to collaborate on a novel with an author friend. The concept was that I would write from the male POV and she from the female POV. Both of us recognized the difficulty to realistically reflect what was in the mind of the opposite gender. So I offered we attack the VEIL OF DECEPTION as our first project. Problem was, she thought it was too sweet from my verbal explanation. So, I prepared a detailed outline with the finality chapter, sent it to Candace and it knocked her socks off, and we began.

We both recognized the pitfalls of two authors, especially a man and woman, hammering at the others work. Fortunately, we were professional enough to accept constructive offerings, plus didn’t hurt to establish a few rules. Bottom line was, two separate minds were more capable of spotting flaws in a script and we had a ball. We were no longer isolated in a cave visualizing some fiction world, we were there together, and it was better than writing alone. No, it was actually fun. I would write a chapter, she would read it and laugh her butt off, write a response, and I’d wet my pants reading her characters reaction to my character. And the bedroom scene, oh boy did that get hot.

Was the collaboration effective? We thought so, until the publisher submission reviewers read the script and they literally raved about the story. That was a first and validated that the experiment had worked. The romantic suspense VEIL OF DECEPTION will be released in Jan/2010. For a preview, check out the excerpts provided at Davisstories.com or CandaceMorehouse.com, and remember: Sometimes truth cuts deeper than a lie.