Introducing the Hybrid Trilogy
For a long time, I was told that I had a vivid imagination. My mother would laugh at my ideas and because I was interested in discovering new things; she must have thought I was a little weird. This, however, has always spurred me on to learn and seek out new worlds, and pull them into my reality. Sounds a bit weird, but I have grown in love with the world around me since early childhood. At the age of twelve, saving the money I earned from my paper round, I bought my first set of binoculars. Tramping through the local woods and plantations, I further developed this curiosity about nature and all things growing.
This fascination with nature has continued through my life, having always supported the likes of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, highlighting the destructive nature of our compulsion to control nature rather than live with it. When the youth of today began to take up the banner and make it mainstream news, I was excited that a new generation was serious about change. Greta and many lesser-known teenagers are pressing for the world to understand that we cannot keep on living at the pace and rate of habitat destruction we have experienced to date.
So, the idea was formed; teenagers who could do more than just protest and march. I wanted to bring a story that would empower more young people to join this voice of warning and engage them with the growing dissatisfaction with the way governments and companies exploit the world's resources. In my research into the invasion of the Americas by the Spanish, Portuguese, British and all the other nations, I was amazed to find out how similar the problems of then are to todays. The destruction of the environment; pandemics (I started writing this before the current one!); exploitation of the Indigenous peoples; the lack of understanding of other cultures.
‘Hybrid Rebel,’ is based on these times and explores aspects of the history and present-day struggles of those who recognise that our world is an amazing multifaceted, interconnected, valuable and irreplaceable part of our lives. We are made of the same stuff as trees, plants, animals, birds. In our arrogance, we have overlooked that we belong here, and are not designed to be apart from it. So, because this connection has been severely broken since the industrial revolution, we have built our own constructs around us, separating us from all that is good in the natural world. It is great that schools and doctors’ surgeries are finding out that time in nature is soothing and restorative. It is my hope, as young (and older) people read the Hybrid Trilogy, that they too will want to reconnect and appreciate that the tree outside their window is more than a piece of wood to make furniture or toilet paper, but it is a companion helping us to breath and enjoy this fabulous world.
Now part two of the trilogy is published, charting Rachael and Michael's relationship, leading them into further peril along with Rachael's community. The testing of their love and resilience will have worldwide repercussions.