Thursday, July 28, 2011

OMN Welcomes Suspense Novelist Christopher Kokoski

Omnimystery News: Authors on Tour

Omnimystery News is pleased to welcome Christopher Kokoski, author of the suspense novel Past Lives (BlackWyrm Publishing, July 2011 Trade Paperback, 978-1-61318-109-6).

Today Christopher writes about the background to the plot of his new book.

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My novel, Past Lives, is about a man who discovers under hypnosis that he is a reincarnated serial killer. As crazy as it may seem, the overall story is actually grounded in a degree of reality, based on actual real life events.

The seeds of the story go all the way back to the early 1900's, when an ordinary man named Edgar Cayce discovered an uncanny and quite extraordinary ability to recall past lives, traverse space and time to answer seemingly impossible questions, provide succinct and powerful medical advice (although he wasn't a doctor) while in a deep state of self-hypnosis. His remarkable life and "readings", as his trance-state uttering came to be called, are captured in several nonfiction books.

Although I can't pinpoint the exact moment or reason, I became fascinated with hypnosis sometime in college. In the years following, I gobbled up every morsel on the subject I could find in bookstores, and especially online. It was my captivation with hypnosis that led me to the idea of reincarnation. One of the most controversial uses of hypnosis, I discovered, was to recall previous lives.

As a Christian myself, I don't subscribe to the belief in reincarnation, but I do find the subject intriguing. Over the years, the two ideas – hypnosis and reincarnation – simmered in the dark recesses of my subconscious, merged with other ideas, and the resulting concoction became the beginning of my first novel.

Most people who seek out past lives seem to discover that they were kings, knights, royalty, or otherwise famous. I wondered, What would happen if a man discovered he was a reincarnated serial killer? How would someone deal with that revelation? How would it affect their relationships, job, family, sanity? These questions prickled my curiosity, eventually generating further complications, the lifeblood of good fiction.

What if the man (who became Eric Shooter) not only found out that he was a vicious monster, but also was pulled into a modern day murder mystery? He would be conflicted by the past, present and future. Add to the mix an attractive hypnotherapist dealing with her own demons, a famous detective bent on pinning the crime on Eric, and a separate cunning killer lurking in the background, and I thought I had a pretty good base of conflict upon which to build an engaging storyline.

The novel also draws on themes very personal to me. The largest of these themes is "overcoming the darkness within." The main character, Eric Shooter, struggles with a growing and troubling darkness throughout the novel, one we learn in the story has been a lifelong challenge, a veritable thorn in his side. Eric's darkness threatens to destroy everything and everyone he loves. Perhaps we all wrestle with some kind of "darkness," some painful flaw that we keep hidden from the outside world, tucked away in the dusty corner of our private lives.

Does Eric succeed in overcoming his personal darkness, proving his innocence, and changing his endless cycle of death and rebirth as a serial killer? I hope you'll read the book to find out!

Special Offer: Once you order Past Lives, email me at bestsellerwritingsecrets@yahoo.com with a proof of purchase (no attachments), and I will send you a "bonus package" with a $50.00 value for free. The bonus material includes 3 short stories, 3 author interviews, a self-quiz, secrets of hypnosis and reincarnation, an in-depth author commentary and much more!

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Past Lives by Christopher Kokoski

About Past Lives: Plunged into the center of a high-profile murder investigation, Eric Shooter discovers under hypnosis that he is a reincarnated serial killer. The only way to clear his name is to track down the most elusive and cunning predator in history, a methodical assassin with whom he shares a shocking connection.

If he fails, he is doomed to repeat the endless cycle of death and rebirth, placing thousands of innocent lives in danger. As the mounting darkness within him threatens to destroy everything and everyone he loves, as the real killer closes in, Eric is forced to confront an ageless and unimaginable evil. As past and present lives collide, Eric must catch the serial killer to prove his innocence, and alter his destiny to save it.

Past Lives is available in Trade Paperback from Barnes&Noble and Blackwyrm Publishing.

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