EATON — In addition to being a popular doctor in the Preble County area, Dr. Jill Vosler is also working on her book series entitled “The Sons of Jacob.”
While she has 11 of the 12 books already written, her first entitled “The Shadow of the Phoenix” just released this past May.
Vosler held a book signing for her newest novel at the Eaton Country Club on Thursday, Dec. 20.
“The Shadow of the Phoenix” is available for purchase on Amazon.com. The following blurb is posted there, “This is a contemporary psychological thriller about dark obsessions, and the fathers who pass them to their sons. Rife with international glamour, romance and intrigue, the story captures four patriarchal families in a generational conflict where the pursuit of global power at any price makes them the unwitting pawns of a hidden psychotic mastermind.
“Here is a contest to the death between two men, both driven by obsessive love: one for a woman; one, for power. One man is scarred by fire; one, by insanity. From the banks of the Potomac River to the cliffs above the Baltic Sea, these men fight each other with such ferocity that one endangers the woman he adores, and the other betrays the country he has sworn to protect.
“Edward Morningstar is the child of a cruel father, captivated by his Oedipal yearnings for his mentally fragile mother, who rises above his tortured beginnings to become a high-ranking Pentagon official. He dreams of winning his father’s respect by restoring America to her former glory in a political coup that will bring him global power.
“Delusional that he is the God-guided Jacob of old, Morningstar seeks men of extraordinary gifts to serve as his heirs. As Joseph, the favorite of his twelve “sons,” he chooses Martin Henderson, a wealthy insurance magnate and Latvian Freedom Fighter. Mirroring the tragedy of the murdered, the reader will struggle to discern the fine line between victim and predator. The Sons Of Jacob is the first book in a series of twelve edge-of-the-seat novels.”
According to Vosler, the series is an exploration of good versus evil. It explores the atrocities and miracles that humankind is capable of, while testing the characters’ moral standing.
“Is an evil man capable of good? Is a good man capable of evil? The saga asks those questions. When you look at a predator, sometimes it is hard to tell who is the predator and who is the prey. My hero isn’t perfect and my antagonist isn’t completely flawed. We tackle redemption and that kind of stuff. That would be the overarching theme of the saga,” Vosler said.
“I pull in a serial killer in book four and that is very fun. Books four through seven are very much involved with the serial killer and I just love him. Book 11, which I’m working on now, I’m pulling back in the serial killer. There is a little bit of everything, I guess.”
As for comparable works and inspirations, Vosler says her work has been inspired by Diana Gabaldon and compared to Dan Brown. Vosler is also inspired by Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe.
It is not only other authors that inspire Vosler and her work, but also her everyday life as a DO in Eaton, Ohio.
“If you think about it, whatever you write is an accumulation of everything. In my practice, I meet the most wonderful people — characters if you will. I almost hate to say that, because some of the characters are terrible, but the people that are good are inspired by the people that I’ve met in my practice and in my life,” she said.
“I was a psych major to start, that had always been my interest. I was a Freudian kind of psychology person. It began then. I deal with a lot of mental illness here, so I have a working knowledge of a lot of things. I did a lot of studying of Schizophrenia in school. I have an appreciation for that and what the world probably feels like for somebody with a mental illness, but as far as serial killers, I haven’t dealt with that in my every day life. That is some dark stuff.”
Writing a novel is time consuming enough — let alone writing 12 — but Vosler is also a doctor with her own practice. While it may seem impossible to juggle both, Vosler says that she loves both of her jobs and makes time for them.
“I think my gift is time management. I get up really early, I don’t require a lot of sleep. I’m often up at 4 a.m. and that is when I do my best work. A day off is spent writing pretty consistently. It is a lot of time management. I will say, one counter acts the other perfectly,” she said.
“Work at the practice is very real. I’m very connected to a lot of people here. My books, they are just this wonderful world. It has nothing to do with reality, that is pretty fun too. I just balance my time pretty well. “
Vosler intends to release a new book of the series every spring. The next, entitled “The Maker’s Prophecy” has a tentative release date of May 1, 2019.
“We start to appreciate the true value of the Son’s of Jacob. What is happening is, my megalomaniac has acquired sons. Of course, they are named appropriately — you have Levi, Judah, Dan, and all the 12 sons. He has them do certain things. At the end of book one, we are introduced to the first Son of Jacob, the one that was first adopted. He opens up book two and we begin to appreciate what his plot is,” Vosler said.
She also has a subsequent series planned called “A Child of the Son,” which takes place 21 years after “The Sons of Jacob.” These books will be released once the entirety of the first series have debuted. At press time, Vosler said the subsequent series was planned to only be three or four books long.
For more information on the series, stay tuned to “The Sons of Jacob, saga by J.B. Vosler” Facebook page.
