OKEHAMPTON resident Allissa Oldenberg has used the covid pandemic as an opportunity to write her first novel which is published today (November 11).

If you enjoyed The Queen’s Gambit, the chances are you’ll enjoy Allissa’s offering â?? En Passant â?? a story of love and identity, shaped by the game of chess.

Set, for the greater part, in Manhattan and Nottingham, En Passant recounts two love stories, twenty years apart, connected by the life of Ian Stringfellow.

The stories are narrated by Helen Painter, a fictional author who, inspired by a holiday in New York, her academic studies and her love of chess, reflects on some big issues, including social justice, sexual identity, suicide, and the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

The narrative also takes the reader to London, Auschwitz, Paris and Israel, on a journey which will ultimately determine the romantic destinies both of Ian and Rebekah, in the first half of the novel, and of Adam and Rowan in the second half.

Ultimately, through the many different human connections in En Passant, the reader is prompted to reflect on whether it’s irony or love which underpins our universe.

Allisa said: ’I identify with the fictional author in the novel and was inspired by a trip to New York, academic studies (literary theory) and chess, not to mention the references to progressive rock in the novel.

’Like a lot of people, the pandemic / lockdown gave me the opportunity to write something I first imagined when I graduated but didn’t have the maturity or life experience to write until now.

’I have several other novels which I hope will follow this one into the public domain, if this one is received well.’