Seychellois author releases new book, ‘The Gate Keeper’ |01 August 2023

Mr Sinon  

Author and aspiring lawyer, Jules Sinon, also known by his pen name Jules Gabriel, recently released a book titled ‘The Gate Keeper’. 

‘The Gate Keeper’ was officially released on July 14, through the publication company of Xlibris Publishing UK. 

Seychelles NATION had the chance to walk with Mr Gabriel through his inspiring journey from the British Army, to becoming a writer and lawyer. 

The author, who grew up in the 1980s and 90s where he learned to escape into the fiction world of the brilliant minds of different authors, also served in the British Army, and worked for Amazon United Kingdom Corporation as a junior manager. He is a keen reader of books by Mark Gimenez and Dan Brown. 

The creative decision to write ‘The Gate Keeper’ in the first person and to create the character Phil Smith, the central protagonist of the novel, was because he wanted to tap into the market for books with teenagers in it, targeted towards young adults. 

“We have a problem when it comes to young adults; there are not many books for them and then at the same time, when I was looking at the market, there was a demand for those types of books,” he said.

In addition, the chosen genre, science fiction, mixed with action and adventure, further allows Mr Sinon to not only widen the audience, but play according to what the market desires at present. 

Mr Sinon added that for someone who loves fictional novels, they will get their money’s worth out of his book.

“This is a story that has never been told in that particular way and it has a little bit of everything in it. In my opinion this is something new and has not been done before, again though it all depends on the market,” he pitched.

Because of his time in the British Army, Mr Sinon was able to create more realistic action scenes due to his personal experience and from his time of training martial arts such as ju-jitsu and Kyokushin. He is able to create a perfect symmetry between realism and fun action sequences, explaining that it is about putting the right words at the right particular time and getting it at the right moment that will engage the reader. 

Furthermore, the novel has an evenly split pacing for 220 pages, focusing on character development in the first half and saving the more prominent action scenes in the middle heading towards the end, so as to prevent a burnout from the reader.

“I make sure that there is a good story behind it before getting into things like that.” There will be a balance between sword action sequences and gun fights. 

However, he keeps the audience on edge and keeps them guessing to be able to set up the penultimate conclusion in the first book of a planned trilogy. 

The main antagonist of the novel is set up so that Phil himself does not know who the main villain is due to the abundance of people around him.

“For spoilers I will not reveal who it is but for people who say that they are not happy with the ending, I can assure you that it will be explained in the future books.” 

For the artistic decision behind the front cover of the book, Mr Sinon said that once the reader concludes the novel and looks back on the front, all will make sense and be revealed. 

Mr Sinon said he started the novel way back in 2013 and completed everything within 6 months to a year, in 2014. He published the novel himself but unfortunately it did not do well because there were so many things that needed to be considered in terms of advertising. He realised that he could not do everything on his own so he made the commitment that he always worked on the novel after his daytime job.

“It is a lot of consistency, that is what is vital, sometimes when I come from work, I have a shower and eat first then I take 5-6 hours and deal with the novel. You have to play around with time, it is very precious.” 

When asked if he had to choose between becoming a lawyer or a writer, he laughingly admitted that he loves both equally and will not be able to choose.

“At present, I feel like there is more money in being a lawyer but if the book does pick up I feel like I could be writing for the next ten years.” 

Unfortunately, due to the nature of the market, writing a novel is not always a profitable path and therefore Mr Sinon occasionally has to set his priorities to focus more on being a lawyer. When the publishing company asked him to write a sequel, he was unable to do so as he wanted to commit more time to his studies.

“They pleaded with me to write a sequel but I told them I cannot, I am a lawyer, I am working as well.” 

However, he is thinking about taking six months next year, the amount of time to write a book, to begin the sequel.

“If I get six months to concentrate on it, away from work, I will think about it and try to come up with something. However, I am thinking that before I move on to a sequel, I write something fresh and something new.” 

Mr Sinon received psychological support and motivation from his family and from the army, and physical support as well, which allowed him to be more disciplined in all his endeavours. “They also helped me get the job with Amazon by introducing me to the Job Fair. But when it comes to being an author, nobody can really help you with that one. I was lucky that a publisher found my work online and they came to me and gave me an offer.” 

‘The Gate Keeper’ can be bought in the United States, United Kingdom and soon Canada along with Australia and New Zealand. For Seychelles, Mr Sinon is planning on bringing some hard copies to test the waters and see if there is a market for that type of book in the country. 

There will be future audiobook versions released soon, read by a paid actor by Xlibris themselves, revealed Mr Sinon. 

The book can be purchased in three different formats, hardcover which retails for £32.99, softcover which is £17.99 from Xlibris themselves and the Kindle version which is £3.99 from Amazon UK. Other countries may vary when it comes to rates as Xlibris are the ones in charge of the price. “In the long run, I know that they are going to bring the prices down,” he stated. 

Should the market be in Mr Sinon’s favour, he stated that there is a plan for translations of the book for different countries to reach a wider audience. Currently, there are no reviews on the novel yet as it is still brand new. 

Sunny Esparon