An Excerpt from ‘The Mind Game’

Running the hot water, I washed my
hands with mandarin-scented liquid soap. As steam rose, it misted over the
mirror. I examined the duct work, admiring the aesthetic. This was my kind of
place, I decided. Urban chic. I patted my hands on a towel and squirted some of
the chamomile-scented lotion provided over my fingers, rubbing it in gently. My
skin was so dry.

Perhaps I daydreamed for a moment,
maybe realized I was hungry and thought about where we might go for snack
nearby. Anyhow, for whatever reason I lost track of time. It couldn’t have been
for more than a minute or two. Next thing I knew, someone was hammering on the
restroom door.

I walked over and unlocked the
door. Kenzie was there along with Boujee. Both wore troubled expressions.

She said, “You all right?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, why?”

Boujee flashed me a supercilious
smile and stretched out her palm. “Key.” But she didn’t need to use the room.
She just stomped away, back to the front desk.

“Sure you’re okay?” asked Kenzie.
“You can tell me, she’s gone.”

“I’m fine.”

He shook his head. “If you say
so.” He seemed reluctant to say more. He paced over to the sink and wet his
fingers, wiping his face. “Let’s go. Wait.” He pointed to the mirror-stone.
“What’s this?”

“Yeah, not much of a mirror, is
it?”

“I meant the writing.”

At first I thought I’d misheard
him. “Did you say ‘writing?’”

He gave me this quirky smile, like
he thought we were playing. “Yeah. ‘Find unicorns.’ Why’d you write that?”

“Me? I didn’t write anything.”

He continued to point directly at
the stone slab. “And yet.”

Completely baffled, I closed in
for a better look. Then I saw it. The words took a few seconds to register a
meaning. An inscription in the fine condensation was fading rapidly but still
legible. Traced, very obviously, by finger.

FIND UNICORNS.

My fingertips and nose felt
suddenly cold, as if they’d caught a sharp breeze. I swallowed, grasping for a
memory that wasn’t there.

I repeated, “I didn’t write
anything.”

Kenzie’s eyes twinkled. “Then who?
Casper the ghost?”

I grabbed his arm, not gently.
“I’m being serious, Kenzie. I did not write those words.”

He flinched, as if I’d flicked his
face. Anger flashed across his face for just a second.

He thinks I’m lying, playing a
dumb game.

YABC Q&A

1.   What gave you the inspiration to write this book?

Other than my teenage desire to be a spy, until I discovered what that entails?

For many years I’ve had in my drawer a manuscript for a Cold War era novel about teenage spies. It was under contract to my first publisher, but in the end I delivered a fifth ‘Joshua Files’ book. After that, various publishers felt the Cold War was too distant, that readers would no longer buy the idea of a Russian dictator as the Big Bad. So I shelved it, waiting until I came up with a new way into that fictional universe.

My son once told me of a nightmare he had, where he’s ripped away from his parents at Border Control. Writers hear stuff like that and our ears prick up. So with his permission, I’ve incorporated a story like that into ‘The Mind Game,’ because I’m attracted to stories that start with a search for a missing person, then lead the main character down a rabbit hole and into a hidden world of crazy.

The final component was the discovery of Roni Padilla, my protagonist. I wanted to write a curious, driven and intelligent character like Josh Garcia, the hero of ‘The Joshua Files,’ but a girl, so also quite different than him. Josh was a UFO blogger but as a teenager, my son was obsessed with cold case mystery podcasts. So I updated that and Roni became a podcaster that investigates unsolved mysteries.

2.   Who is your favorite character in the book?

Apart from the main character, who is always my favorite?

Probably Maxim Santiago. He’s pretty complicated. Is he a hero or a villain? Even I don’t know, yet.

3.   Which came first, the title or the novel?

The novel. It’s taken me a long time to find the title. Until very recently it was ‘The Mind War.’ Then we learned that Amazon’s search algorithm suppresses book titles for kids and young adults that include words associated with violence. Hence ‘The Mind Game.’ Espionage has been known for a century as ‘The Great Game’ so perhaps it’s even more appropriate.

4.   What scene in the book are you most proud of, and why?

Probably a chapter titled ‘Blindfold Driving.’ I’m often proud of action sequences because they’re difficult to write. Time slows down for the writer, it can take a day to write five minutes of action. You don’t know if it’ll work until you edit.

Other than that, there’s a scene in the rest room of an art museum that I really like. It’s a pivotal scene for the first two books, with the pay off in the second. When a payoff comes later in the series, I enjoy dropping tiny clues for readers who are really paying attention.

5.   Thinking way back to the beginning, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned as a writer from then to now?

How to edit. I’ve worked with some terrific editors over the years, Elv Moody at Scholastic Children’s Books UK, Elizabeth Law and Maria Barbo when I was with Harper Teen. It becomes like a sixth sense. Unfortunately it works a lot better when reading other people’s work than your own! That’s why I leave a manuscript for at least six months without looking at it again and write something else before I go back to edit – fresh eyes are essential.

6.   What do you like most about the cover of the book?

The ‘Mind Game’ symbol. We were going for a fascistic, totalitarian version of the ‘evil eye’ and I love what designer Gareth Stranks came up with.

7.   What new release book are you looking most forward to in 2024?

Apart from the English translation of Haruki Murakami’s latest, ‘The City And The Its Uncertain Walls’?

I’ve been waiting for the audiobook of ‘The Peacock And The Sparrow’ by I.S. Berry. The author is a former CIA case officer, and this is her debut. It won the Edgar Award, and two other former intelligence officers who have also written acclaimed espionage thrillers, recommended it to me.

8.   What was your favorite book in 2023?

That would be ‘Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow’ by Gabrielle Zevin. Just blew me away, what a great novel. (It was published in 2022 but I read it in 2023 so I’m counting it!)

As a former small business owner, I’m a real sucker for dramas set in growing businesses, startups etc. ‘Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow’ blends a tech startup story with a wonderful friendship story and an exploration of fictional video games, all of which I want to play!

9.   What’s up next for you?

Well, I recently finished the draft of a third book of ‘The Mind Game’ series, so now I’m starting on the fourth. It’ll be a prequel, a revision of the manuscript I’ve had in the drawer for all these years. Set two years before ‘The Mind Game,’ ‘Jaguar’s Realm’ tells the story of how Maxim Santiago, his brother and Atlanta escaped from a sinister camp in Cuba.

10.                     Is there anything that you would like to add?

After having 12 books published by traditional publishers, I’ve decided to go indie, like a few author friends. While it’s fun to be across the entire process of cover design editing, type setting etc, one disadvantage is the high cost of getting a human narrator for an audiobook.

I really love audio books, love the fact that you can listen while doing housework or gardening or just walking and staying fit. And I often use speech-to-text narration so that I can also listen to articles while moving around. So I really wanted to provide audio as an option for readers who prefer that.

However, good quality human narration represents a significant investment, especially across a new series. We weren’t planning to produce audiobooks, but when I read that traditional publishers are signing up to Elevenlabs, a new platform for AI voices, I decided to take a look at the service.

Long story short, we plan to release ‘The Mind Game’ in audiobooks too, using one of the cloned voices from the Elevenlabs library. If the series sells well, further down the line we’ll look at replacing the original audio editions with new ones voiced by a professional narrator.

11.                     Which was the most difficult or emotional scene to narrate?

My main character, Roni Padilla, is pretty conflicted about her feelings for her long lost childhood friend, Maxim Santiago. She recognizes that it’s dangerous to allow herself to fall under his spell. Meantime she’s aware that her best friend / adoptive brother Kenzie maybe feels for her the way she feels for Maxim. It’s not a love triangle, more of an emotional Mexican standoff. Getting the balance in any scene that touches on those relationships is tricky, because I am slowly ratcheting up the emotional tension over the series. That means leaving myself somewhere higher to go, rather than dialing it up to eleven, every time.

12.                     Which character gave you the most trouble when writing your latest book?

It’d be spoilerish if I answered that, because something happens in ‘False Flag’ (book two of ‘The Mind Game’ series), which causes this particular character to become difficult to write. Let’s just say that in book one, I found Atlanta relatively difficult to write, because I am intentionally keeping them quite vague for now. They deserve more time and attention than they have had thus far. Our protagonist, Roni, doesn’t know yet whether to trust Atlanta, who like Maxim, has lived much of their life in a mysterious camp in Cuba. So it’s another tension to balance. And when you are withholding important information from the reader about a character, it’s always a bit trickier to write.

13.                     Which part of the writing process do you enjoy more: Drafting or Revising?

Drafting. It’s always most fun to see the story emerge from almost nothing, for the first time. I also plot pretty carefully before I write, so I don’t need to revise as much as writers who fly by the seat of their pants.

14.                     What would you say is your superpower?

Currently it is getting my granddaughter to sleep! I’ve been singing to her since she was a few days old. She’s 5 months old now and all I have to do is get her into my arms with her little pacifier, then she looks into my eyes and waits for me to start singing. I have a karaoke playlist on YouTube, but she’s usually asleep by the third track.

15.                     Is there an organization or cause that is close to your heart?

UNITED24, the Ukrainian government’s official fund for helping Ukraine survive the invasion by Russia and to rebuild their country. Celebrities like Mark Hamill have promoted UNITED24, but what persuaded me to become a regular donor was its support from Professor Timothy Snyder, an American historian of the Soviet Union and the Holocaust who has also written about the defense of democracy in the USA.

Like most people in Europe and the USA, I believe that the defense of Ukraine is critical to the future stability of the democratic world.

About M.G. Harris:

M.G. Harris was born in Mexico City and raised in Manchester,
England. She studied Biochemistry at St Catherine’s College Oxford and stuck
around for even more at St Cross College.

To this day she lives in Oxford. It’s not an easy place to leave.

The first job M.G. Harris was ever aware of wanting to do, aged six, was to
write children’s books. Then, aged eight and inspired by Doctor Who, she tried
to make Wirrn slime with a friend’s Chemistry Set 4, discovered chemistry, and
writing went out of the window.

But in 2004, a skiing accident changed everything…

You can find out more about how MG became an author at her website.

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Giveaway Details:

5 winners will receive a finished copy of the second edition paperback of THE MIND GAME, US Only.

Ends October 29th, midnight EST.

Tour Schedule:

Week One:

Week Two: