What happens if you get an email from a fictional character?

 

My novel ‘The Woman Who Is Not His Wife’ is science fiction. the male protagonist is an alien so what can be more scary than receiving an email from him.

I was happily writing away – or playing cards – one or the other but my mind was not on emails when I was notified of a message from a Deryn.  My protagonist is named Deryn. (Okay, it’s Welsh and the Welsh aren’t alien but I liked it.)

While seeing a glowing box in the dark late one night did not particularly scare me the email did.

I could avoid a ravenous box. I could hit it with a hammer if needs be. (Not that that did much good in the story.)

What if I was living in a nightmare of my own making? Had I inadvertently created a new life form?  New life forms are usually up to no good. Its the main plot of all the sci-fi/horror films I’ve ever seen.

Was he coming to take his revenge, angry with what I’d put him through in the book? He didn’t have much luck, come to think of it.

Scary was beginning to be replaced by a sense of adventure until I opened the email. I help out with the local parish magazine and it was from someone with the same name enquiring about placing an advert.

The adventure was over before it had even started.