Finally I can share details of my new novella, Paused. Published via Silver Shamrock Publishing, it is out on January 11th 2022 and is available for pre-order here. With a wonderful cover by Kealan Patrick Burke and some editing mastery from Kenneth W. Cain, I hope everyone enjoys it.
I’ve been a lifelong fan of disaster movies – I grew up in an age when films such as Airport, The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure seemed to be on repeat on Sunday afternoons and which in a strange way have become my comfort viewing. These days, The Day After Tomorrow and its kind have replaced those earlier offerings but the genre still draws me, I think it’s probably why I like zombies as well – the end of the world is nigh! I wanted to write something that was an homage to this love of doom as well as explore the idea of ‘locked-in’ syndrome which I’d been reading about in the newspapers. What must it be like to be in that position, to be aware of the world but unable to communicate. I could think of nothing worse – well, actually I could – what if this happened when you were going about your daily routine and not safely tucked up in a hospital bed. The sheer vulnerability and terror of that would be horrendous. And so Paused was born:
Dr Alex Griffiths heads a research department in a university hospital. As more and more succumb to this strange affliction—including his own family—it becomes a race against time for his team to find an answer before they too are affected.
People are stopping, bodies halting regardless of situation or location. They are still alive but completely unresponsive, vulnerable statues utterly at the mercy of their environment. Unable to run from fire, some burn. Unable to return to shore, some drown. Unable to move from the path of a truck, some are crushed. Nor are you safe at home—unable to move, you starve.
Humanity has been put on pause. Will it ever restart?
Stephanie Ellis 
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