The Dream Behind The Guardians Chronicles
What stuck in my mind from the dream was a young girl who was completely trapped. She wanted to get out; she just couldn’t see how. The dream wouldn’t go away and I eventually went on to write A New Dawn from it.
That was the start of what would become The Guardians Chronicles: a girl, her situation and the question of how she was going to get out of it.
How the story became supernatural
I didn’t originally intend to write a supernatural story. Early in the writing, something I read prompted me to think more deeply about faith and its place in the world. Although it was very different from my original story, the possibilities it opened up excited me and helped the supernatural element take root.
I wanted to look closely at how people develop in adversity, what motivates them and how far they will go to protect what matters. Bringing the supernatural into the story gave me more room to explore those questions, while keeping the people and their choices at its heart.
Extraordinary abilities raise their own questions. How might power change a person’s understanding of themselves? What happens when their capabilities grow beyond their experience? And how do they decide what is real and whom to trust?
Those questions interest me because strength alone cannot settle them.
Looking beyond the immediate action
When I decided to take this on, it meant taking many aspects of human behaviour into consideration. And making it feel real. Thinking about each character and how they would react to the strange happenings they come across.
People develop through their experiences. Their fears, loyalties and hopes influence what they do, sometimes in ways they may not fully understand themselves. An action can look very different once we understand the motivation behind it.
Protecting someone, for example, can involve difficult decisions. How far would we go? What would we risk? Could our determination to keep someone safe lead us to make choices that hurt them—or change us?
These are the kinds of possibilities I wanted room to explore in A New Dawn. The danger and mystery matter, but so does what happens within a person as they face them.
Meeting Sahara
At the centre of A New Dawn is Sahara Driver.
She escapes the man who controlled her, believing she may finally be free. But the inner voice that warned her during the darkest moments of her life returns. It once helped her survive, though that came at a cost.
Now she is being hunted across Europe. Impossible abilities are awakening within her, while the world around her descends into chaos.
Sahara must try to understand what she is becoming and decide whom she can trust. The answers she receives come from people who have their own reasons for getting her involved.
For readers entering The Guardians Chronicles, her story is the starting point: a struggle for freedom that opens into a much larger mystery.
Returning to the beginning
As the story grows, its possibilities widen. Yet, the story’s beginning remains very simple.
I dreamed of a young girl who needed a way out.
Writing A New Dawn let me follow that starting point into questions about identity, motivation, trust, and the lengths people will go to protect what matters to them.
That is where The Guardians Chronicles began.
Explore A New Dawn on my Books page, including the blurb, reader reviews and news of the newly revised edition.