Is Jaime really B.K.?

This is a question we've been asked since the publication of CHASING EDEN. The real answer--Jaime is part B.K., part Sharon, mostly herself--seems to be a hard sell. Even people who work with B.K. ask the question, which kind of makes me (Sharon) nuts. For one thing, I would NEVER write B.K. the way I write Jaime. B.K. is a much more...okay, hmm. Let's use some graphics.

←This is B.K. She has dark hair. She is shorter than Jaime. She isn't in any way driven by a tragic event in her childhood. She was a nut in her childhood--I should know, I was there. She is a terrific staff officer. She is in no way as introverted as Jaime. She is not blonde. She is not tall. She is Type A, definitely. (B.K. also thinks Jaime has a Type A personality, but I'd give Jaime a B +.) She doesn't know any rock stars (of whom I'm aware!) . She takes good care of soldiers working below her, as well as those working above her. You'd want her on your team. She's not sure if she would have gone to Eden. (Although we both agree that, until you're alone in a room with Yani, you can't really tell what you'd do!) I could write a REALLY REALLY interesting book about B.K. --but I haven't.


← ON THE OTHER HAND, this is kind of what Jaime would look like, if she ever got to sleep, which she doesn't. She is a fun, feisty person who is driven by the early death of her parents, and the murder of her husband. She is a also a good staff officer. It's probably more dangerous to be her chaplain assistant than it is to be B.K.'s.

So, yes, those of you who have read TREASURE might realize that to settle this issue once and for all, we "pulled a Cussler." (If you've ever read Clive Cussler's books, you know that from time to time he inserts himself as a character in the narrative--floating down the Amazon, handing his adrift hero a paddle, for example.) So B.K. appears as a character in TREASURE OF EDEN--Jaime's boss, CH Sherer. This was inspired by the fact that if Jaime was at Anaconda at the time she's there, B.K. would likely have been her supervising officer.

So, once and for all--B.K. is not Jaime. B.K. is Chaplain Sherer--who is apparently not only a Power Point Ranger, but can apparently swing a mean cell phone as well.