Author Merlin Nichols has travelled the world. Originally growing up in rural Avon, Illinois (USA), his real-life adventures have taken him to far away lands including South Korea, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and finally, Australia, where he lives today with his wife.

While exploring a remote cave on an island off the north coast of the Indonesian Province of Irian Jaya, I came across a relic of Japanese occupation during the Second World War. The remains of a melted boot sat glued to a large piece of rubble, its canvas sides almost completely rotted away, the rubber soul running down the sides of the rock in a congealed mass. A second boot sat wedged firmly in a nearby crevasse, trapping the soldier where he died. While contemplating the force necessary to melt the sole of a boot, something in that cave spoke to me, urging me to find a way to tell the soldiers story. The Same Sun fills, in part, the promise made to a lost spirit who spoke to me in the darkness and asked if I could portray his side of events in an impartial manner.

Set on a remote tropical island still haunted by the ghosts of human conflict, past, present, and future, The Same Sun captures a moment in the wanderings of another very human spirit, another casualty of war. As the story unfolds, we watch as the Spirit of the Island turns one lost soul’s gaze from death’s shadow, back towards the land of the living, and explores the resilience and depth of the human spirit. In effect an anti war novel, The Same Sun is a work of literary fiction written in a refreshing departure from the traditional novel’s form with the story told in a series of closely related narratives that explore the regions history and daily life through a series of colourful characters. The reader may enjoy this book as a simple tale, or explore the work at a more complex level.