Island of Time Q&A with Davis Bunn

Jyoti Guptara: Davis, you have fans in multiple genres. Who will enjoy Island of Time?
Davis Bunn: This story has much in keeping with the novels published under my pen-name, Thomas Locke (fantasy & science fiction). I have also found myself returning time and again to my own favorite near-time fantasy, World War Z.

How does I.o.T. differ from your other mind-bending work?
Davis Bunn: I’d like to think this is a deeper, richer, and more complex story than anything I’ve written before. But really this is something the readers need to decide for themselves. I’d love to hear whether they think I’ve succeeded.

What inspired Island of Time?
It started as a long-held desire to adapt a fantasy concept to a contemporary setting. I designed it as an international mystery centred upon the illegal use of magic.

For the first time ever, my earliest discussions about the story took place with a film producer – the Oscar-winning team behind the Life of Pi. It was their enthusiasm for the project that led me to writing the novel.

 

 

Island of Time is set in France and Switzerland. What inspired the Setting?
I lived in Switzerland for four years – first near Geneva, then in Ticino, the southernmost province. I have wanted to set a story there for years.

Your favourite moment in the book (to write or to read)?
Jackson Burnett, the Interpol agent, retreated to the small-time Geneva office after his wife dies while he is on assignment. He is a wounded soul, a man who at thirty-one years of age basically thinks his life is over.
His awakening to a new course – really, an entirely new life – comes through a series of events that are so unexpected he has no idea what is happening until…
There is a moment he shares with Krys, in a field outside the French city of Strasbourg. It begins with a series of questions neither of them can answer. And it results in Jackson coming face to face with the fact that he is a…
Wizard.

How did you research I.o.T.?
The magical concepts came in a fairly straightforward manner. I’ve been reading fantasy since my early childhood – Tolkein’s stories literally fell apart in my sweaty little hands.
The research was all about international police work. What is Interpol. How do they work alongside local police – specifically in Switzerland and France. How is a murder investigation handled when there are global repercussions. Like that.

Can you introduce us to the main characters? What characterises or drives them?
The story’s theme centers upon life choices, and how so often what we view as a burden can in time become the source of our greatest opportunity.
Luca Tami is a consultant to the CIA, a specialist in the dark arts. Jackson Burnett is a senior agent with Interpol, the group responsible for monitoring and policing magic on a global scale. Krys Duprey is the newest agent assigned to Jackson’s Geneva office. She arrives carrying a black mark on her record that no one will discuss.
All three enter the story severely wounded by past mistakes. They wish for little more than a chance to hide away, hoping time will heal their self-inflicted wounds.
Then a series of events sweep them up. What first appears as a multiple homicide by magic gradually becomes a mystery centred upon events that no one except them even recalls having happened.
Gradually the fragments of these lives fit together in a fashion as powerful as it is unexpected. But before they can ever hope to move forward, they must first cast aside all the reasons they’ve built up within themselves to fail.

How did you come up with the characters? Any favourites?
Over the course of writing this story, all three of these main characters – along with Simeon Baehr, a Geneva detective – became quite close friends. Towards the end I began dreaming about them, crowding into my night hours, talking among themselves, drawing me into their lives and mysteries. Like I was there with them.
I suppose if I had to choose one favorite, it would be Krys. She discovered magical abilities in her early teens – old enough to know her father would have cast her out if he’d learned of her gifts. So she kept her abilities secret from everyone for nine long years…Until she was old enough to present herself at Interpol’s recruitement office, and reveal herself as a secret wizard. For the first time. To anyone.