The Mystery Unfolds: Leaping into the Abyss Hits the Shelves
The highly anticipated novel Leaping into the Abyss has officially been released, marking an exciting new chapter in the world of mystery and thrillers. Spanning 87,000 words, this gripping story launches the Leap series and is geared toward adult readers aged 18 to 55.
At the heart of the novel is Nadonis Sebastian, a woman who reappears after being missing for four years and officially declared dead—only to become the prime suspect in the murder of her former lover, Mitchell Gardner. As she fights to clear her name, Nadonis finds herself caught in a web of corruption and deceit, with explosive secrets implicating her former boss, District Attorney Christian Phillips, and her ex-husband, City Planner Cecil Sebastian, who is embroiled in a hush money scandal.
Set in the lush, uptown-funk valleys of Southwest Ohio, the novel explores themes of rebirth, survival, and truth through the lens of an educated, ambitious, and successful Black mother of three. The revitalizing power of water is a recurring motif, symbolizing both cleansing and danger in Nadonis’s journey to reclaim her life and expose the conspiracy threatening her very existence.
Leaping into the Abyss offers a compelling experience for both women and men, combining thrilling suspense with emotional depth and a powerful narrative.
The setting is deeply rooted in the author's personal history, featuring both familiar and evocative locations such as the Antioch President’s House in Yellow Springs, Ohio; the Huffman Dam in Dayton; and the towering Jeremiah Morrow Bridge over the Little Miami River, where the author once canoed as a teenager, dreaming up the kind of tales now brought to life in this novel.
Inspired by immersive and atmospheric crime fiction, Leaping into the Abyss is reminiscent of Stieg Larsson’s Millenniumseries and James Patterson’s Alex Cross books, with added touches of magical realism and cultural nuance in the spirit of Virginia Hamilton’s The House of Dies Drear.
The author is an accomplished self-published writer with three previous novels to his name: the action/drama titles Roadkill Pathfinder Pt. I and Roadkill Crossroads Pt. II, along with the family drama Eat@Zeke’s. His books are available through Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, Thriftbooks.com, Saxon.com, and at Dark Star Books in Yellow Springs, Ohio, as well as for borrowing at the Greene and Montgomery County libraries. His publishing journey began at the age of fourteen with self-produced periodicals in his hometown of Yellow Springs.
Check out Author Christopher Joseph here.
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