This is one of those books that comes out of me watching science specials on the Discovery Channel. The particular episode detailed what would happen if the Cumbre Vieja Volcano on the Canary Island of La Palma were ever to erupt. The tsunami that would hit the United States would be hundreds of times more devastating than the one that destroyed so much of Indonesia and Thailand. The highest point on the Florida peninsula would be at least a hundred feet under water and every coastal city would be wiped off the map. Nearly every living thing in the Caribbean would perish.
So I have this earth shaking event that Mercer has to prevent but there was a slight problem. Who wants to read about a guy battling a volcano? Mountains don’t make good villains. You know from the beginning Mercer’s going to save the world so where’s the tension? I needed something more. I needed a group that had advanced knowledge of the event and either wanted to accelerate it or at least prevent Mercer from stopping it. Thus The Order was born. And to throw in an additional wrinkle I had one member so overcome by the enormity of the coming catastrophe that she wants to send out a warning.
In the first draft Tisa Nguyen had a secret crush on Mercer because she’d followed his career though she’d never met him, an idea my editor strongly advise I change but I thought fit better with the plot. Instead she approaches Mercer because he is the best in the world at what he does.
The event that brings them together, an experiment in teleportation that goes awry, is the most science-fictional element I’d ever put in a book and I was afraid fans would rebel at the notion. Same goes with the machine The Order uses to predict seismic events. I was relieved that few had a problem with either. The most common negative comments I received were about the last line. Readers hate it when the hero doesn’t get the girl in the end but sometimes fate isn’t that accommodating. Even though I knew it was coming I was actually teary-eyed when I typed out the last couple of paragraphs.
