Although conceived by him, Sam Triplet was no longer the father of Donna's unborn child. The baby she carried now belonged to Jared Thundercloud, a man she hadn't seen for months. When the discovery was made, Donna was just as shocked as everyone else, but it had been genetically proven.On the quest, the alien Dine'é Yá had intervened. They gave Donna a choice. To save her from explaining the change they'd made to her baby, the Dine'é Yá would wipe Sam's memory, and that of everyone else who helped rescue her from the hostile 'Others'. Sam would not remember being in love with Donna, and whatever experiences they'd shared, or how their relationship had changed Sam's character, would be lost too. The part that bothered Donna most? Sam would be given no choice in the matter. Sam had been unfaithful to Donna, but did two wrongs make a right?How much would Donna risk to be with Jared? How many lives was she willing to change in order to keep the extraordinary gift she'd been given? What would be the consequences of her choice? The Dine'é Yá had warned her, they would make no further changes, nor would they interfere if she made the wrong choice. We started the 'A Vested Interest' series in 2007 and it took over a year before I came up with an ending we were happy with. At 170,000 words A Vested Interest was too long though for a printed book. We cut it heavily but still ended with a 140,000 word book. There was no alternative, we had to split it into a two book series. Doing that, we thought, would allow us to put back some of the content we had cut and expand the second book (Dark Secrets) a little.Well that was the plan. We ended up splitting the second book and making a trilogy by adding 'No Secrets'. The original ending didn't quite fit now so we moved it into a fourth book - Stones, Stars and Solutions.And so it goes on. We are now writing book 10 and 11 of the series. Shelia has written a spin-off 'Blood of the Rainbow' trilogy. Altogether it's 2 million words so far! In terms of time, we've only covered a few months. There is an end in sight but not for another 5,000 years. Maybe I'll get to use my original ending then?About the AuthorsJohn and Shelia Chapman are a husband and wife team who met on Internet and crossed the Atlantic to be together. John, an English ex-science and computer teacher contributed the technology and 'nasty' bits while Shelia drew on her medical experience in the USA and produced the romance. The humour? That came from real life.
