Chimera

Chimera

How can a brilliant autistic boy share a body with an articulate and talented girl rumoured to save the world? Not without gnashing of teeth and sparks flying.

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Hardcover & Paperback: Amazon
eBook: Smashwords - Kindle
Hardcover & Paperback: Amazon
eBook: Smashwords - Kindle
Hardcover & Paperback: Amazon
eBook: Smashwords, Kindle
Hardcover & Paperback: Amazon
eBook: Smashwords - Kindle
Hardcover & Paperback: Amazon FR, DE, ES, IT If you live in Switzerland, use FR, DE, IT or ES.
eBook: Smashwords - Kindle INFR, DE, ES, IT, JP

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A chimera is an organism containing two or more distinct sets of genes and, potentially, several beings in one. Sami and Sam are a chimera. Sami is used to the strange position she finds herself in as she is the latest incarnation of a long line of chimera come to set things right in the world. She has powerful gifts and far-reaching insights, but that doesn’t lighten the burden she has to bear, particularly the knowledge of past failures and the immensity of future challenges. Sam, however, is totally unnerved by discovering he is not alone in his body. Who wouldn’t be? To make things worse, being autistic, he has long barricaded himself against the world surrounding himself with a clumsy persona that reveals nothing of his mental brilliance. With the awakening of Sami, he has to contend with an intruder who's quite the opposite of him. Whether or not they can learn to live together and whether Sami can fulfil her mission in a world falling apart is the subject of this story.

Note, the unusual nature of the first and third chapters, aimed at giving voice to Sam and his condition, does not necessarily reflect the way the rest of this book is written…

Chapter 1 - :: tiny squiggles of silver light worm their way through the darkness and hiss nonsense – squirming messages spawned by kids dashing in senseless circles – their agitation addles my brain ...

Chapter 2 - A scream shattered the silence. Jon broke into a run, the pounding of his boots echoing off the unadorned walls. At the only door not obstructed by wooden panels he halted, uncertain. The lesson was not yet over ...

Chapter 3 - :: bumps, battles ‘nd bruises – cease your bleating oversized lump – is that all you can do, moan and groan – whinger – is it not enough that my stomach growls and my ears roar and my head throbs and my lips smart and my hands sting – wise the fool that keeps his eyes closed in the dark ...

Chimera our now! Imagine you awake to find yourself sharing the body of a twelve-year-old boy. It’s bad enough that you are a girl, but, what’s more, he is autistic, cut off from the world, unable to coordinate many of the simplest movements, let alone express himself...

Girls can and will save the world - Such was the conviction that inspired Chimera, a tale unfolding against the real-life backdrop of anxiety about the disastrous impact of increasingly unhealthy industrial food and the rampant abuse of pharmaceuticals (...)