Butterfly and Serpent

Butterfly and Serpent is about isolation, the isolation others impose on us and that we impose on ourselves. Whenever we feel worthless, often wrongly, we sometimes have an overwhelming feeling that we're alone. We've always been alone and maybe it's something we deserve. But that's not really true. We're not alone; we don't have to be alone. Jamai Dlamini has lived a life of isolation in her own community. She has a gift she doesn't understand and can't control. Other forces with sinister intentions have set their sights on her, including a disembodied spirit from another dimension who understands her situation all too well. Details of her story emerge slowly as she is interviewed (by whom we don't know). Jamai fights to discover her own background, beginning with her birth and loss of her mother, who she feels watches over her, keeping her safe. But she soon learns of family connections that disturb her and she seeks answers to what is expected of her. Time plays a strong role in her confusion, her birth post-dating the year 2025 by 500 years. As she grows, she discovers strange powers that cause further confusion. Characters both good and evil wind their way into her life as she struggles to understand. As events in her life spin out of control, even her best friend Youssou is drawn into the net tightening around her. Along the way, she will find that she has unexpected allies among the living...and the dead. The author worked on developing this character work by unlearning everything he thought he knew about Africa. He never wanted Jamai to be a bitch-in-britches like Tasha Yar, or the space marines in the Alien movies. He wanted her to be a strong capable person; He wanted readers to see their own possibilities. This novel is the first step in her journey, which begins like this: My first memories were of water, all warm and clingy, and a steady thrum-thrum as of a drum. I also remember a song whispered by an angel. What the words were I couldn't recall, other than one which was repeated over and over: e-ay-as. No, that wasn't exactly what it was. Time blurs all things.