Coexistence – Book 1 in a trilogy Pipettes and Plows. A series within the Obsidian Rim universe.

The initial idea for the story was to write about a woman who was flawed and unapologetically myopic in her work. Coexistence is my debut book featuring scientists and farmers, where the main characters travel to unknown lands and have fun 🙂

Coexistence is available on all e-reader platforms, and the print version. Book 1 of the trilogy Pipettes and Plows.
Coexistence is available on all e-reader platforms, and the print version. Book 1 of the trilogy Pipettes and Plows.

ShaylaRam is a woman who does not stop her work obsession for anyone or anything, even if her actions ultimately end up hurting her. Unlike other scientists, she is not afraid of looking foolish to get her precious black bean work back. Some have compared her antics to an episode of ‘I Love Lucy’, which I whole-heartedly agree. It’s okay for women to be one-sided. Why, men have been doing that for eons. Her personal journey goes from being self-obsessed and looking at everything to benefit her work, to including Rahim and becoming understanding of the universe around her.

I hope that the future brings equality and equity where humans are allowed to be themselves.

Rahim is my sweet hero – a super nice guy who is not a jerk or a womanizer. And yes, he does get his deserved love. It is a happy ending after all. His pained slave past is pushed down deep into his psyche. Like many people who get out of excruciating situations, he dislikes talking about his experience and allowing it to steer other people’s perceptions of him. His goal in life is to help others and he wins Shayla’s heart because of his selflessness.

The goal of writing this book was to present a fun, light-hearted adventure while touching on new ideas and futuristic concepts.

I purposely interweaved robots and artificial intelligence in the story to provide a launching pad for a new robot series beyond the Pipettes and Plows trilogy featuring the lives of ShaylaRam and Rahim. New Adults who find themselves falling in love, slowly.

Worldbuilding and Collaborating on the Obsidian Rim.

Collaborating on the Obsidian Rim series was amazing. I got to work closely with Elsa Jade and Maggie Lynch on the development of the cosmos and the universe itself. I’ve also had the opportunity to reference Sela Carsen’s book Ace’s Odds and Jody Wallace’s Catalyst and the mining community created by Maggie and Elsa Jade in my book.

We decided to use quintessence as the basis for the Obsidian war. In physics, ‘Q’ or quintessence is a hypothetical dark energy particle that is believed to be the reason for the accelerating rate of the universe. In the Obsidian Rim, humans have used this ‘Q’ and contorted it to be a weapon. The resulting effect of a weaponized Q, deadened the Salty Way and forced the migration of humans; towards the edges of the Obsidian Rim.

Another part that I absolutely loved, was the addition of verbiage unique to the Rim. As an homage to the great Robert A. Heinlein, and using an extrapolation of present world population statistics, a lot of English would have the addition of Hindi, Spanish, Tamil words, interlaced with inimitable vocabulary that would depict the everyday life of a Rim dweller. Yes, I can predict your question – No, I didn’t add any Cantonese or Mandarin, because I don’t know these languages and couldn’t do justice to the accurate usage. So, in order to not butcher the language, I felt it might be best to leave it out.

Of course, that does not mean it cannot happen in the future.