Redemption is the 2nd in my three volume set Catching Cold series. Here’s the PR blurb.
Redemption is the continuing story of these characters using a backdrop of science and corporate intrigue. As Dr. DeLeon continues to develop new and exciting theories in immunology, he changes the way that virus vaccines can be produced. His team accomplishes this by changing the very structure of the antibody itself, adding an additional “arm” and demonstrating how to reproduce it synthetically. In the meantime, Jon continues his emotional trajectory that we saw in Breakthrough as he falls in love with a colleague, who herself is undergoing tremendous stress at home.
Cassie Rhodes, whose emotional breakdown was complete at the end of volume one, begins Redemption tragically with being fired by a boss who cared deeply for her, but realized that the job would destroy her. Cassie, adrift and staggering through life, reacquaints with Breanna Vaughn, her victim in Breakthrough. This relationship sustains Cassie, and, as she begins counseling, she began to connect with the remnant of the best of herself, and is therefore able to help the CiliCold group as they embark on Jon’s new antibody work.
When the Triple S drug company lawyers finally catch up to CiliCold, now located in Arizona, the attorneys begin to twist the legal system so that it can wring CiliCold’s secrets for the vaccine production from them. Their backs now against the wall, the CiliCold group agrees to release its scientific secret, not to Triple-S, but to the world. They forego any financial profit from their work, as they release it to major health organization such as the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, and the major health institutes of every country. This generates a worldwide ground swell of support for CiliCold, undermining SSS’s attack.
The third main story of Redemption is about the CEO of Triple-S, Meredith Doucette. Meredith, intensely Catholic, has lost both her family in 911, and her way as she was asked to and agreed to replace her husband as CEO of Triple S Pharmaceuticals. However, the longer she remains at Triple-S, the greater her concern about the ethics that govern Triple-S’s actions. These concerns crescendo when Triple-S begins to develop a drug that looks like it cures autism, but also kills some of the children who take the drug. The company, desperate for money, failing to retain its standing in the pharmaceutical industry, works hard to develop this potential block buster drug. Yet, Meredith makes a formidable and unsettling argument against the use of this new therapeutic, to the point where she will not allow it to go forward to the Federal Drug Administration for approval. The book ends calamitously, setting the stage for Volume Three.
This is my third novel and, trying to apply the many lessons that I learned from the first two, was the smoothest to write and publish. I insisted on spending two months just on character development. Then I invested more time, fleshing out and sequencing scenes, with special emphasis on ensuring I have time markers on the scenes so that the reader was able to clearly follow the timing of events. I realized that I was ready to begin to write the book when the characters themselves were clamoring that their stories be put down on page. At that point, writing Redemption was less an exercise in writing and more an exercise in taking my characters’ dictation. So the first draft was straightforward, and subsequent drafts were predictably smooth.
Writing about sex
Redemption is actually the first and only time I’ve written about sex. Several character trajectories demanded this. One was a lesbian relationship between Breanna and Cassie. The other was a heterosexual relationship between Rayiko and Jon. The character trajectory, and the development of their interactions from Breakthrough to Redemption all suggested that consensual sex was the next natural step in their relationships.
It turns out that writing about sex (at least for me) pulls me to an extreme. The maximum, is to make the sex so hot that the reader is jumping off the chair. The other is to temper it so much that the reader would rather chew wet cardboard than read it.
The tack I decided upon was based on the recognition that like every other scene, I had to provide an emotional experience. So I began with writing as hot a sex scene as I could. Then, as I came back to edit the scene, with each review I withdrew some of the scene’s physicality. So in the end, the sex wound up being more of an emotional experience than a physical one. This permitted me to avoid a dreaded X rating but also allowed the scene to be an emotional experience that moves the reader through the feelings of the characters who needed each other.
The Pharmaceutical Industry
Another development in this book is the internal discussions at a pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical industries conduct wide ranging activities; not every pharmaceutical company is nefarious. There are two forces that direct a company. The first is the universe of internal influences, consisting of the personalities of the people who make up its teams and the characters of its leaders, There is conflict here as philosophies clash. Some people in leadership are interested in simply making money. Other people in leadership see a role of the company as providing a public good i.e., meeting an unmet need in a time of criticality. Others have a more scientific philosophy, applying state of the art tools to the forefront of scientific knowledge. These vie for control of the company’s direction.
There are also important external factors. One of the most important is competition from other drug companies who are always looking for the very best molecule and are not above taking a molecule that another company develops. This is litigious and profligate.
Another concern is the relentless undertow created by shareholders who provide operating money for drug companies. Their responsibility for drug company operations and the traction that they exert as they demand higher dividends is formidable. Yet they exert no moral influence on the company. In fact it is possible that shareholders may not even know all of the companies in which they invest. And as pharmaceutical companies profits grow and their influence over regulators deepen, the defensive cry “We have to keep our shareholders happy” becomes ever more plaintive. I weaved this concept into Breakthrough and it is more fully developed in both Redemption, and its sequel Judgment.
The end of the book was much easier to write than the beginning. This is because I had a clear view of what the ending was going to be early on, and therefore could write the book in a way that all the forces that were driving the characters could join in the end. This was one of the chapters I had the most fun writing.