April Novel Essential Information

Novel Title: Chasing the Unknown

Time Setting: 2017

Genre: Thriller

Minimum Word Goal: 120,000

Timespan: June–January

Locations: Geneva & Lucerne, Switzerland; Modena & Sicily, Italy; Bangkok & Chiang Mai, Thailand

Main Characters: F. Hampshire "Hammy" Westley, Vera Dalca

Background Information:

The youngest of three children born to a plastic surgeon and his intellectual wife from Hampshire in England, there is some speculation as to his parentage: his parents maintain that his mother's contraceptive pill failed, but more suspicious types speculate that he was born of an affair between his mother and another man of unknown identity.

That aside, he wasn't treated too much lesser than his siblings by way of education, given the same rigorous private schooling as they, but he was treated with some disdain by his parents, both due to the rumours he generated, and the fact that he'd even been conceived in the first place.

He was considered a disruptive child in school, but not at all unintelligent, he just seemed to see no sense in trying to do things he has no interest in, although he was somewhat more disruptive otherwise in efforts to gain his parents' attentions and affections.

While attending a private boarding school away from home he ended up meeting his uncle, who was considered something of a black sheep in the family, and the two took a shine to each other at once.

As a child, he'd always had a fascination with the military, and strove to get all the school marks he needed to get into one of Britain's most prestigious military schools. His parents had no desire to see him attend, but his uncle financed it and he graduated with some of the highest honours the school had ever given out.

Since then he's been on a tour of duty before his elite skill-set got him recruited into a highly covert mission. On this mission he met a beautiful woman whom he learned was part of a secret UN-affiliated organisation called the Agency. The organisation piqued his interest and he soon joined them, quickly becoming one of their Global agents due to his skills. 

He's since been on several missions as well as using his aptitude for strategy to help in other missions and considers himself to have been born to be a spy.

Born the only child of the union between a retired civil servant and his third wife — an exotically beautiful ethnic Tatar — from Romania, she is only so due to her mother suffering a horrific miscarriage after her birth that led to further pregnancies being deemed a mortal hazard.

As such, her nearest playmates are her two brothers from her father's second wife — who died during the Romanian Revolution — thus her interests were highly masculine in nature, including guns, policing, the army, and undercover work.

In her teens, she and her brothers saw a James Bond film, and upon seeing it she became set on the idea of becoming a spy; an idea which horrified her parents — especially being as her father had endured the overthrow of the Communists and knew somewhat the sorts of things his daughter would be getting into.

However, the brother of her father's first wife — who is considered by all to be her uncle just as much as her five older siblings he's actually the uncle of — who happens to be an agent in the Agency, figured she would be able to hold her own, and so gave her recruitment forms for her nineteenth birthday.

Her parents weren't entirely thrilled, and still worry about her constantly, but are starting to adjust to the idea of her being a spy as, so far, it hasn't turned out to be as dangerous as they feared, and, on top of that, her uncle is there to keep an eye on her — or, at least, they think he is; in truth, she's actually done most of her work apart from him, not that she's been a part of any major cases to this juncture.

Novel begins on April 3.