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Local authors publish novel, hold book signing April 4

Cochrane readers of Adriaan and Rebecca Brae’s new novel Chaos Bound might get an eerie sense of home. “There are some places people might recognize. It’s sort of this area with some extra bits,” Rebecca Brae admits.
Chaos Bound.
Chaos Bound.

Cochrane readers of Adriaan and Rebecca Brae’s new novel Chaos Bound might get an eerie sense of home.

“There are some places people might recognize. It’s sort of this area with some extra bits,” Rebecca Brae admits.

The town of Coldwater, the book’s setting, is loosely based on Cochrane and the surrounding area.

“It was important to us because this area’s important to us. My soul is here,” the freelance writer and artist said.

A coming-of-age story wrapped in a supernatural thriller, Chaos Bound is about 16-year-old Jessica Clarke, who, along with navigating the perils of high school as a sensitive, “geeky” outsider, has her quiet small-town Coldwater existence shattered by an evil entity that murders a classmate.

In her quest to stop the malevolent force, Clarke is supported by two close friends: Drew, a boy from an aboriginal reserve, described as a “smartass” and a tough yet compassionate character with a geeky side, and Michiru, a girl of Japanese ancestry and the “enforcer” of the three.

The book covers themes of friendship and loss, but it’s the idea of “fighting change and then realizing everything has to change,” that’s at the novel’s crux, Rebecca said.

And with that force of change comes the struggle for control, she contends.

“Because as a young adult, you’re starting to gain some control of your life, but there’s parents that have control over you; school has control over you. There are power plays all around. And she’s got the added one of these beings she has to deal with.”

Adriaan said he and Rebecca started writing within the young adult genre, but concluded they needed to tailor the book more to the protagonist’s demographic.

“As we thought about that as we wrote the book, we realized we’re geeks and we’re very much writing a book for teen girl geeks.”

The couple began working on Chaos Bound in the U.K. in 2009. What would eventually become the novel started as a short story of Adriaan’s. From there, the book evolved and went through roughly 20 drafts.

Writing the novel as a team offered the couple the ability to play off each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Rebecca described her writing as “flowery;” Adriaan on the other hand, had a more direct approach, she explained. Writing specific scenes was something Rebecca said was her focus, while her husband was better able to consider the work on a whole. Co-writing sometimes brought out the unexpected; “strange arguments” arose about certain scenes.

Rebecca recalled one time when they debated, loudly, about a scene involving where drugs would be hidden. They noticed a group of kids hanging around outside. “We thought, ‘Oh God, the police are going to come,’” she said, with a laugh.

“We definitely learned writing a book together can cause some marital discord,” Adriaan joked.

“Some really strange marital discord,” Rebecca added.

However, before the novel took shape, the couple published a number of short stories and wanted to build up their presence online. “We didn’t want to release the book and then have to think about ‘what about the website, what about social media, what about marketing,’” Adriaan explained. “It was a huge learning experience getting that first book out.”

Instead of going through the traditional publishing process, the couple opted to self-publish to maintain creative control through their company Brae Vitae. “We did query some publishers and got some interest but in the end, because it’s our baby, we wanted control over the editing of it,” Rebecca said.

“That definitely influenced our decision to say, ‘Let’s dig into that world, let’s learn how to publish,” Adriaan said.

The Braes have “six or seven” books planned for the series.

You can catch Adriaan and Rebecca and get a signed copy of Chaos Bound at Tea & Other Things, 110-2 Ave. W in Cochrane, Saturday, April 4 from 1-4 p.m.

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