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Seychellois author Jennifer Toussaint-Cali publishes first novel, Shattered Glass, with bookstore giant Amazon |16 January 2020

Seychellois author Jennifer Toussaint-Cali publishes first novel, Shattered Glass, with bookstore giant Amazon

Mrs Toussaint-Cali holding a copy of her book (Photo: Jude Morel)

Love, lust, betrayal, murder and corruption are just some of the themes and topics explored in Shattered Glass, a newly published novel by Seychellois-born author Jennifer Toussaint-Cali.

Published by bookstore giant Amazon, Shattered Glass unfolds around the life of Elodie Jacobs, a young successful American lawyer who is done keeping quiet and swallowing the toxins of abuse from her cheating husband. After finding out about his double life and his affairs with Elodie’s best friend, and their plot to kill her among other things, Elodie throws her husband out of her New York townhouse. Then she heads to New Orleans to adopt 13-year-old twin brother and sister, who were abandoned at birth, from a shelter to bring them home to New York.
Meanwhile, the current national news is about the upcoming presidential election, and it looks like Senator Jackson of New Orleans, one of the nation’s tycoons, is leading the race. Little does Elodie realise that the adoption will lead to the discovery of a human trafficking ring, rape and murder orchestrated by Senator Jackson. With evidence in hand, Elodie sets out to convince the FBI to arrest the man just in time before he becomes the next president of the United States, but is she putting herself and those who know the truth in deeper danger?

Shattered Glass is Mrs Toussaint-Cali’s first published novel which took around three years to complete, before it was officially released in September last year. The author, who has previously published a series of children’s stories to accompany a line of multicultural dolls, notes that she was inspired by real-life events around the globe and the challenges of contemporary society, and that the book represents an expression of her frustration about the injustices in the world.

“It is a thriller that is based on reality. The story is inspired by real-life. I love life, I love people, I love children and I hate injustice and unfairness in the world. Every time I see some form of abuse, I get so frustrated and the book is my expression of that frustration. There are a lot of hard realities in the book, including human trafficking, sex trafficking, political abuse and more,” Mrs Toussaint-Cali told Seychelles NATION in an interview yesterday.

Since its release a few months ago on Amazon, the novel has been doing well and is getting rave reviews from customers and critics.

“America is extremely competitive but as competitive as it is, publishing has now become more accessible. Amazon publishing comes with the added advantage of digital formats allowing anyone with a device to buy a copy of the book in the format most convenient for them, and the digital version can be downloaded in any language you need. Actually I’m getting a lot of reviews on Amazon and it looks as though it is on the way to becoming a bestseller on the platform. We produced a book trailer for the book which I launched on social media and it blew up and from there, is has been positive,” she added.

“So far, I am blessed because people really like the story, the twists and surprisingly, both men and women like it. I thought it would be mainly women since the concerns are mainly that of women but men love it and I have been getting many compliments on it,” she said.

For Mrs Toussaint-Cali, writing is a passion which she has always held close to her heart but a talent which she had to cultivate through educational training. After leaving Seychelles with not even a High School certificate in hand, the young talent decided, once in the United States, to further her studies in business administration and later in creative writing. To her, crafting the perfect story takes time and patience.

“Writing I feel is part of my creative gift. I have many nieces and nephews and I want to inspire them to become more. I want to inspire them because when I left Seychelles a long time ago, I didn’t even have a high school diploma but today, I teach at university level because I decided that there is more to life. I want young people to know that anything is possible if they are self-motivated. I wrote the story for me and I didn’t intend to publish it because it was a story that was tugging at my heart and when I wrote it, I felt good. When I was undertaking my creative writing course, I was also teaching at the same time and sometimes my classes coincided and I had to compromise,” Mrs Toussaint-Cali told Seychelles NATION.

“A story cannot be rushed. Rather, there are different components that I wanted to touch on and explore in a logical and creative fashion. The idea was there but then comes the dynamic of putting the story together and crafting the story, which is the hard part. The writing process is detailed, complex and exciting and that is why I love writing and I am passionate about it. Writing is a full-time job,” Mrs Toussaint-Cali added.

Furthermore, Mrs Toussaint-Cali says she wanted to get the book published for her country and for her achievements to reflect on Seychelles. As a proud Seychelloise, she hopes to have many more opportunities to fly the Seychelles flag and have the spotlight on talented Seychellois around the globe.

“I am a product of Seychelles and it is about making my country proud and being a Seychellois with pride. My dream is that perhaps, one day, Seychelles will call all the Seychellois around the world to motivate the young generation as they are desperate for more but my message to the youths is to dream bigger. Show that there is creativity and talent coming from these small islands. I love my country, it is my first love. I love my life in Miami and no matter where I am in the world, Seychelles remains my home so do something to motivate the youth and others who follow you,” she concluded.

Mrs Toussaint-Cali is currently working on a sequel to the novel and is looking into the possibilities of making it available to local bookworms through local bookshops.

The novel is available on Amazon for US $14.99 or $2.99 for the kindle version.

 

Laura Pillay

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