WE ARE DIFFERENT – you and I, everyone and everything.

No two minds ever run in the same direction very long.

You go left.

I go right.

Everyone else finds his or her own fork in the road.

I have often said that you could give a dozen writers the same theme or idea, and you would wind up with a dozen different stories.

I said it.

I couldn’t prove it.

Now I can.

This week, I was checking out Dark Pursuit, a novel written by a good friend of mine, Jennifer Chase.

Then I looked a little harder and, on Amazon, I stumbled across four more novels all bearing the same title.

Jennifer has written this version of Dark Pursuit: Vigilante detective Emily Stone has covertly hunted down killers and closed more serial cases than most seasoned homicide cops combined. Her exceptional profiling skills and forensic techniques, along with deductive crime scene investigations, have made her a compelling force that cannot be beat.

She has reached her ultimate breaking point and now must face her toughest opponent yet – her biggest fears.

With preciseness, the Tick-Tock Killer has taken his next child victim and promised to dump the body precisely four days later, mocking police and the community. Stone struggles to balance her inner demons and ghosts from the past, against the wits of a brutal and cunning serial killer in an all-out battle of psychological warfare.

Dark Pursuit, an anthology written by Jarman Johnson, Bronwyn Green, Kris Norris, and Paige Prince, takes us into a strange world populated by vampires and vampire hunters. There’s a little danger, a little romance, a little sex, most of it steamy, and even a few evil vampires banding together the rob a witch of her powers. It’s a world I seldom enter. So many others do. The pursuit is the theme of the anthology, and all of it is indeed dark.

Brandilyn Collins’s version of Dark Pursuit asks the age-old question: “Ever hear the dead knocking?”

In her story, novelist Darell Brooke had gained the title of King of Suspense – until an auto accident left him unable to concentrate. Two years later, reclusive and bitter, he wants one thing; to plot a new novel and regain his reputation. Kaitlan Sering, his twenty-two-year-old granddaughter, once lived for drugs. After she stole from Darell, he cut her off. Now she’s rebuilding her life.

But in Kaitlan’s town two women have been murdered, and she is about to discover a third. She’s even more shocked to realize the culprit is her boyfriend, Craig, the police chief’s son. Desperate, Kaitlan flees to her estranged grandfather. For over forty years, Darell Brooke has lived suspense. Surely he’ll devise a plan to trap the cunning Craig.

Can Darell’s muddled mind do it? And – if he tries – with what motivation? For Kaitlan’s plight may be the stunning answer to the elusive plot he seeks…

Charlotte Lamb’s Dark Pursuit is a Harlequin romance. But it, too, is a little different, and the difference didn’t make one reviewer too happy.

She said: “Unusual for romances, the heroine has a very sordid back story. So when a thoroughly decent guy asks her to be his wife, instead of being just a teensy bit happy about her good luck, she basically treats him like dirt. Poor schmuck. And she completely relies on the hero to sort out the ghastly mess of her former life. Does she say thank you? No. She asks for a divorce! Horrible Caitlin.”

What happened to a good, old-fashioned, dreamy-eyed Harlequin love story?

 

Ann Gimpel’s Dark Pursuit is crowded by demons coming across the veil to invade Earth. There is widespread rioting, plus shortages of fuel, food, and electricity.

Drawn by anarchy, they’re out of control, drunk on their own power, and growing stronger by the day. With her life crumbling around her, Dr. Lara McInnis is reluctantly roped into channeling her unpredictable psychic talents to help a detective who saved her from a psychopathic killer.

Problem is, she’s still quite the neophyte in terms of either summoning her magic, or bending it to do much of anything. Her lack of skill strands her in the murky underbelly of a world inhabited by dark forces. Trevor Denoble may not be psychic, but his old blood gives him gifts as well. After years of uncertainty, Lara is really and truly finally his.

He’s determined to keep her by his side, but she refuses to cooperate. The detective’s daughter is trapped in darkness, and Lara insists on going after her—to a place barred to Trevor. Not to be denied, he latches onto his Celtic blood and uncovers latent power. No stranger to violence, more blood on his hands is a small price to pay to keep the woman he loves safe.

There you have it.

Same title.

Same pursuit.

Different minds on different paths with different stories to tell.

That’s what makes this writing game so fascinating.

You never know what will be written next or who will write it.