The Adventures of Milla Carter trilogy Part A – Body Holiday
ADULT Format: Paperback
A Time To Prey (book #3) – Lethal is rarely this lovely
SURREY LIFE: "Pearson’s galactic-sized imagination delivers a compelling image of a chic, high-tech society infused with a toxic strain that feeds on extreme violence. It’s a disturbingly twisted vision of the future and Pearson’s tough, unflinching narrative almost dares the reader to look away from the monstrousness. Don’t, because Milla Carter, his feisty, sexy heroine, is the weapon of retribution.
Global showdown. Milla is on a mission and the story, which shifts between Japan, a Tibetan hotel, an Antarctic ice dome and a London sky tower, is the stage through which the final showdown against the creepy Body Holiday Foundation will be played out. Yet Milla knows that a business which generates dollars from selling extreme pornography and murder as ‘quality entertainment’, won’t roll over easily. She’ll have to use her lightening quickness and enhanced senses like never before if she’s to outwit and annihilate both the Foundation and its hired assassin, Su-Nami. Part human/part machine, the sleekly-beautiful Su-Nami is the ultimate operator, for whom killing is a game and the spoils an edible feast.
The story skilfully charges its way towards a brutal, edge-of-the-seat climax with a rollercoaster rapidity and intense blasts of high powered energy.
There is blood, sweat, panic, rage and fear! Can Milla’s telepathic powers win her the fight of her life? Will the Body Holiday Foundation survive the threat to its existence? Is there another potentially more dangerous enemy hiding in the shadows?
A Time To Prey is a gripping read that boldly and intelligently explores the vision of an ugly, amoral future in which goodness must fight for survival. In this dystopian nightmare, privacy is non-existent, life is cheap, killers have fan clubs, while the only individuals who count for something are those with money. Milla’s crusade has a biblical quality in which she is elevated as a force of hope against the corporate anti-Christ of the Body Holiday Foundation. Good will survive, but at what cost?
For anyone offended by swearing, violence and explicit sex then A Time To Prey won’t be an easy read. Yet it’s worth remembering that nothing about the content is gratuitous. Pearson is simply encouraging us to think about the type of future we could end up getting. The blunt ‘in your face’ tone of the narrative may be crude, but it works.
Do we want to live in a world built on mutual respect, or one where compassion and dignity, the qualities that make us human, are meaningless? I know which one I’d like."
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Shadow Players (book #2) – Revenge needs no salt to taste this good!
SURREY LIFE: "Milla Carter, the sexy, all-action heroine of Derek E Pearson's 2014 novel Body Holiday, is back in the eagerly-awaited sequel Shadow Players.
This time, Milla's war against the sinister Body Holiday Foundation and its twisted founder is more than just personal. She's out to destroy them both and, quite frankly, who can blame her? This outfit makes big bucks from normalising some of the most depraved forms of human behaviour. Nothing is off-limits where these creeps are concerned and they deserve every bit of what's coming.
One thing you can say about Pearson is that he's the possessor of an extraordinary imagination that brilliantly assaults every variant of the sci-fi genre. His writing is vivid, urban and unflinching in its descriptions, taking the reader on a breathtaking journey through Saturn's rings, outer-world "constructs", altered perceptions and a glorious African landscape smouldering with sexual heat and the odour of violence.
This is hard hitting storytelling with full-on language and a brutally splendid plot twist, which, if you make it to the end, will leave you crossing your legs! "
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Body Holiday (book #1) – "It's damn near impossible to put down!"
SURREY LIFE : "When Milla Carter is taken on holiday by her boyfriend Franklyn, their “dream break” turns into the kind of nightmare that makes the Titanic’s last voyage look like a collision between a toy boat and an ice cube. Maybe they were too easily taken in by the glossy brochure and oily sales patter, but their trip to die for looks in danger of becoming just that.
Their ill-fated vacation is the focal point of Body Holiday, the debut science-fiction novel of Derek E Pearson. This imaginative, sexually explicit book has more swear words in it than a Gordon Ramsay show, yet its edgy, “in your face” writing and tightly structured plot are so addictive that it’s damn near impossible to put down.
It grips from the first to the last page as Pearson skillfully draws the reader into a future that’s dysfunctional, cold and frighteningly voyeuristic. This is a world that has no respect for privacy, where corporate power wields a big, ugly fist and which is so saturated with hard core pornography that it’s lost the power to even be offended. A refusal to condone murder is one of its few saving graces! No wonder Milla and Franklyn need a break, although they’re not the ones looking to re-charge their batteries.
Ex-glamour model Ruth (who is 62 but looks 30) and her rich 86-year-old husband Pearce (who’s just as ageless) also want some time out. Swapping bodies and lifestyles with Milla and Franklyn through a process called ‘Transition’ should be a breeze; after all, there’s no better way of getting reacquainted with a partner than through the body of a younger stranger.
Unfortunately, though, something goes horribly wrong. The dream vacation descends into a brutal game of survival in which the couples are pitched against a malevolent force that has the knack of always being one step ahead. Can Milla/Franklyn/Ruth/Pearce escape the nightmare, or are they destined to spend the rest of their lives on the run trapped in each other’s bodies.
Grand Theft Auto. The car chases, small but chilling amounts of gore and explosions of Armageddon proportions give the story the adrenalin-coated rush of a Grand Theft Auto game. Yet there’s also a quasi gallows humour running through the narrative, neatly alleviating the underlying tension. Pearson’s characters are convincingly drawn – warts and all – but it’s Milla who really stands out. She’s a woman of action, the shining light in the darkness, which is why her anger is palpable when a shocking plot twist exposes a terrible betrayal. Yet Milla’s integrity is a contradiction. By rights, it shouldn’t exist in a world that disparages decency, yet somehow it stays intact.
Body Holiday is a novel that entertains and raises questions: could an out-of-hand relationship with technology fray our moral compass? How much privacy should we surrender to a constantly changing world and what guarantees are there that what’s thrown into cyberspace will be used responsibly? Pearson doesn’t provide the answers, but then why should he? Good science fiction is as much about encouraging readers to discover the truth themselves as it is about providing the answers."