What comes to your mind?
(I have to admit that this post is an expansion of an earlier one)
The arena in which my latest story takes place is archaeology. So the reason I decided to call the book BURIED TREASURE is self explanatory. It is an accurate description of what most people's view of archaeology is - the search for treasures of the past, hidden beneath the earth we walk on. But it's a simplistic definition. There is a lot more to the discipline than that.
The main players in BURIED TREASURE are two, very different, people - a conference planner and a university lecturer. Each is marked by issues from their past, but each has closed off the hurt. There is nothing in their first meeting which suggests they should expect, let alone want to connect again. But they have more in common than they could imagine. Each has an archaeological puzzle they would like to resolve.
And so begins an unlikely friendship, which develops - after many alarms and diversions - into something more profound.
To design my cover, I looked endlessly at images of treasure and of archaeological digs. Nothing I saw, though interesting and attractive in themselves, really spoke to me. My quest for the perfect image prompted me to ask the question: But what is Treasure?
There’s the cave in the desert, lit by the jewellery, gems and tumble of golden coins and artefacts which fill it. But to conjure the genii who will transport you there, you'll need a magic lamp.
To discover the location of the pirates' chest of gold you must first find a dusty old curiosity shop. Hidden in a dark corner amongst the jumble, there's bound to be a parchment scroll which, smoothed out, will reveal a map of a desert island. A dotted line leads to the spot, marked with an X.
But BURIED TREASURE is less about material treasure (or even archaeology) than it is about the damage that burying the past can inflict on the present. It is easier to suppress hurt and humiliation, and erect barriers against the world. It is only by trusting again, and exposing your mistakes to the light, that you can rediscover the best of yourself.
