Author: leeharding

When a computer hack destroys the British Press in one night the nation is on high alert. The hackers known as Wreckoning demand reform or they will strike again in seven days.

Alana White is a budding young journalist whose computer is the very first to be targeted. She also receives a mysterious email with four simple words: Who was Cameron Faith?

Her dead father’s name launches her quest to discover the identity of the hacking group and along with Michael Grant of Scotland Yard’s Cyber Terrorism Unit they try to stop the next attack. As the clock ticks down will Wreckoning’s mantra hold true?

JUSTICE WILL BE SERVED.

Wreckoning, the new novel by Lee Harding, is available to buy on Amazon. View more details and cover art here.

Lee Harding’s new novel The Oracle 1.0 is now available to buy on Amazon on Kindle and paperback formats.

Global tech firm Lear Co. announces its ground-breaking new product The Oracle – a machine that can record dreams. Its inventor, Dr Sam Coote, shares his vision with the world. After the tragic loss of his pregnant wife in a car accident, The Oracle empowers him to see his family using the images saved while he sleeps.

Sam receives a call from a man who trialled the device. The subject is having horrific nightmares and when Sam visits he finds the man dead, killed by own hand. Questions arise regarding the side-effects of using The Oracle and when another trial subject commits suicide Sam tries to solve the mystery before his product launches in seven days.

Sam experiences a dream of his own. In it he enacts the killings of the five subjects himself. They reflect the order and manner of the deaths in real life. The three remaining subjects must be warned but one factor unites them – the presence of the Shadow Man.

When the lines of fact and fiction blur can Sam stop his dream from becoming reality and defeat the stuff of nightmares?

View The Oracle 1.0 page to read more, view cover art and buy from Amazon.

Lee Harding’s latest novel The Pan Piper is now available to purchase on Amazon in paperback or Kindle format.

A modern re-imagining of Robert Browning’s classic The Pied Piper poem, this dark thriller sees a mysterious stranger use his magical pipes to lure the children of Hamelyn House orphanage from their beds. FBI Agent Joanna Baron follows their trail to the foot of a cave where it ends without answers. Further north, a little girl called Melody Shepherd has the power to heal or hurt and music is the only way to control her. Her adoptive father Daniel must try to protect her from the piper as the forces of heaven and hell converge on earth.

Visit The Pan Piper page to read more, view the cover art and buy from Amazon.

In my novel ‘Wreckoning’ I attempt to confront some home truths about the state of the judicial system and the media within the United Kingdom. A cyber terrorist organization known as Wreckoning holds the country to ransom by attacking the British press. They accuse the media of ‘hiding behind a banner of freedom of speech’ to abuse the trust with which they have been given. Hounding those accused of a crime by publishing their details for the public to gawp at is a direct contradiction of the foundation of a fair legal trial – being innocent until proven guilty. The courts, solicitors and barristers, and the police are also targeted. Wreckoning asks about an accused man, ‘How can he now stand trial when the rug of impartiality has been removed from beneath him?’

I believe there is a fundamental flaw in how a democratic society like Britain conducts its justice. Why is it that a judge seems determined to broadcast the details of an ‘innocent’ man or woman to the world before a conviction is secured? And even if they are found guilty, what benefit is there to destroy that person’s life further, and not only theirs but their family and friends? Am I saying everything should be done behind closed doors? Actually, yes I am. I believe that is the only way to safeguard privacy. A court should not be a freak show where anyone can walk in off the street to be entertained. It should match the seriousness of the purported crimes and dealt with in a sensitive manner like the alleged victims should experience. Once a person’s name is announced then their life is lost. ‘Innocent’ is a misnomer as mud sticks and the plea is never ‘Innocent’ but ‘Guilty’ or ‘Not Guilty’.

‘Wreckoning’ was an attempt to examine these issues that no one seems to have the courage to discuss or perhaps they know the corruption can never be reversed. With the weight of a public fed on the gossip of others why would a country want to change its menu now? They say justice is blind. I believe it is blind to the right to be tried in a private, non-obtrusive way. Its scales have been tipped too long to the side of the public’s desire to intrude. How would they feel if the shoe was on the other foot?

Perhaps one day true justice will be served.

Empathy can be defined as the willingness to feel and face others’ emotions. Have you ever read a book and cried when something bad happens to a character? An affinity with a person – whether they are make believe or not – grows the more one examines their lives and shares in their trials. It is a defining trait that makes us human and the more empathy we have the more, it seems, we have a soul. Those devoid of understanding another’s plight are often labelled a sociopath or at worst a psychopath if the absence of empathy can lead to the desire to kill. We all have different levels of empathy depending on the person we empathise about. Someone in physical pain can easily be identified with because we know what it’s like to be sore or injured. Those suffering loss or rejection can gain our empathy as we have all been in that position at one time or another.

Sympathy is not the same as empathy, although it is often a natural consequence. Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone but not necessarily putting oneself in their shoes. The difference, I suppose, is the desire to understand. It’s all too easy to just feel but to process that feeling and comprehend it is a step further most are unwilling to take. When emotions are raw, in an injustice, for an example, we tend to dwell on the pain caused by the action and do not try to understand why that action has occurred in the first place. For the person who is suffering we can sympathize and possibly empathize but for the one who has caused the sorrow?

As I write I try to listen to all the voices. Those who are suffering often cry the loudest but it is those with the still, small voice that an effort should be made to hear especially. In ‘Dead Eye: Redemption’ Ed Couper is a big man with a small voice. His is the life of multi-faceted pain, pain which cannot be tolerated by his own mind so it breaks apart until it is heard. I found myself weeping at Ed’s dilemmas especially his perceived loss of his child Lous. I knew the truth, that Lous was alive and well, but Ed’s conscious mind could not handle what had happened to him with the divorce of his wife and subsequent removal of their son from the family home. Dead Eye was set loose because Ed could not handle his pain. It took Dr Mal Veere to intervene and try to reconcile Ed to reality. Projections of Ed’s mind, Dead Eye and Veere were an attempt to set Ed free but he could not do that until he conquered his fear of facing his emotions. Being brave enough to step back and examine not just other people but yourself is at the heart of empathy, and something we all tend to avoid.

In ‘The Oracle 1.0’ Sam Coote was a character I felt for especially regarding what happened at the end of the novel. When the life you live is suddenly whisked away to be replaced by something unreal the mind tries its best to cope. With everything once loved removed a conclusion can be reached which is neither right nor wrong: end it. None of us desires to be in pain but for Sam his loss was too devastating to cope with, or so he concluded. Suicide is the ultimate action which empathy has to deal with. It is the ‘thing we don’t talk about’ and if we do not talk then we do not think and if we do not think we cannot empathize. All the sympathy goes to the family who are left behind but what about the person who ‘commits’ self-murder? I am not an advocate for taking one’s own life but I can empathize with the act. Pain in its most tender form can lead a person to extinguish their own light before their time.

If you believe no one is listening, understands, or that they don’t really care, take the time to examine why. Do you empathize as they ought to? Do I? Are our ears open to the cries of those in need or are our minds shut fast to suffering? We can sympathize but why bother when we can empathize.

‘What’s your name?’

It’s one of the first questions a person may ask and the answer rattles off our tongues as easily as saying hello. Yet the label that identifies us and helps distinguish us from the other X billions around the planet is something that is mostly taken for granted. A name may have a meaning handed down through history. For example, Jacob means ‘heel’ or ‘deceiver’, Peter ‘rock’ or ‘stone’. To those who have bestowed the title, perhaps the meaning is more personal; a grandparent’s name, a famous film or music star, a celebrated man or woman from the past. We hear it from birth and it infuses with our identity so that to slander the name is to slander its owner. But do we ever fully own our name?

A name is a gift. It is a privilege also but who has ever earned it? When I create a character in a novel much time is taken to choose the right name. Some have a special significance and offer a clue as to their role or destiny as the story unfolds. Others are personal to me alone. Some deserve their names through the trials they face, some are tarred by the decisions they make.

My own name fell from an unanswered cry. It was neither desired nor despised but came as a result of a lack of mercy. The people who gave me my name are ignorant of their actions. It was not born out of love but loss. Silence was my father and to have a voice my mother gave me this name. Because of it I can now declare my soul. The name has set me free from a prison of forced solitude and ensures balance has the chance to be redeemed.

Never dismiss your name. Regardless of what it means or who has given it to you take it as your own and shape it to your will. After all, it now belongs to you and that means everything.