I’m 47 and live in Connecticut with my wife and three sons. We have three dogs and a bearded dragon. When I’m not working or writing or being a husband/dad, I like to play D&D, go flyfishing, read, and watch movies.

Yes. I have been a professional investor for 24 years. I work as a Portfolio Manager for an investment firm.

My favorite current writers are Mark Lawrence, Joe Abercrombie, and Brandon Sanderson.

In terms of influences, I was introduced to fantasy at a fairly young age through JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis. My love for reading really dates to finding a box of my father’s old books in our basement when I was in middle school. He had a few Kurt Vonnegut books that I just fell in love with.

I’ve been enamored by the craft for a long time, but always had an excuse to not write a story of my own. Too busy with so many other things. A few years ago, I felt the need to find a new way to relieve stress and thought I would give writing a try with no aspirations of publishing a book. I fell down the rabbit hole and, about 18 months later, Paladin Unbound was “finished”. The first draft was a total disaster. I did a lot of HEAVY editing and eventually had something I thought was decent. I shared it with an author friend of mine and he really liked it and encouraged me to try to get published. My skill set and process as a writer continues to evolve. With Paladin Unbound I just sat down and started writing. Since, I’ve started adding some outlining to my process. I’m constantly trying new things to see if they work for me.

I write in a very visual manner, meaning I see the scene in my head like I’m watching a movie and try to get all of that out onto paper. I use multiple POV as a result. Early on, this caused a lot of POV issues for me which I’ve worked to refine but also results in a somewhat cinematic feel to the story.

We can do amazing things when we are true to ourselves. Umhra learns this the hard way and then takes the weight of the world upon his shoulders.

Evelium began as a D&D campaign setting for teaching my sons how to play a game I’ve loved for a very long time. I did way too much world building and character development for three young boys to appreciate and decided to do more with what I had. I had a world and some characters and then created Umhra and knew he had a story I wanted to write. I knew where I wanted him to start and where I wanted him to finish and started writing.

I love this question. Like I said earlier, my writing style lends itself to multiple points of view because I write based on how I see a scene in my head. I had to rein that in within individual scenes, but always knew there would be multiple perspectives involved. I think the advantages are that you can sometimes get more descriptive for the reader if a certain scene is observing the main character rather than viewing it from their perspective. I also think with a complex fantasy it can help to be in more places than just in the MC’s mind. The disadvantages are keeping that mess organized and maybe not diving as deeply into the MC’s emotions because you aren’t always with them in that capacity. With some of the characters acted out in a D&D setting earlier, I was able to get my arms around their voices pretty quickly. I already knew many of them before I started writing.

Adventurous, action-packed, and … I don’t know … effulgent.

There’s a scene relatively early in the book where Umhra finds himself physically bound and in great peril. The scene is a major turning point for him as a character, as he not only struggles to attain physical freedom but the freedom to show his true self. He is both literally and figuratively unbound in that moment.

Great people make mistakes and fall to depths they never imagined for themselves. It’s truly what they do after…how they respond to the adversity…that defines them. Umhra screwed up by hiding who he really was and it cost him dearly. The guilt he harbors for having made that mistake wills him forward throughout the story.

I have thousands of years of history to play with in Evelium and multiple continents in Tyveriel (the planet). The current story arc will be a trilogy. I’ve finished writing book two. I’m editing that now and getting ready to send it over to my publisher for a first look. I’ve also outlined book 3 and am in the early stages of writing that. I hope The Archives of Evelium will have a lot more than three books, but I need to finish what I’ve started here first.

Umhra the Peacebreaker is the main protagonist. He’s a wandering half-Orc mercenary who is generally looked down upon because of his lineage. Unlike so many MC’s you read in today’s fantasy, Umhra is NOT morally compromised. He has a very strict ethos that isn’t quite understood until we find out more about him. He’s an imposing figure with a tough exterior and a heart of gold.

The antagonist is a cult called the Brothers of Resurrection who has dedicated its entire history to returning a banished god back to Evelium to bring about a new world order. They’ve figured out how to do it and have enlisted some unsavory characters to help them out. They are led by an absolute zealot named Evron Alabaster who will stop at nothing to succeed.

Many are just off the top of my head, like Umhra the Peacebreaker. Some didn’t come to me until I had the characters hashed out and gave some thought to a name that would be fitting of the individual. I keep a list of fun names as they come to me or as I come across interesting names in every-day life.

Yes. The main form of magic in Tyveriel is based on a process called Suffusion. Basically, if you are chosen by a god, they can impart a mote of their powers into a piece of precious metal that will grant you abilities, etc. The closer your relationship with that god, the more-precious the metal they will allow you to suffuse and the more powerful you become. Copper, silver, gold, platinum, and rhodium. There are magic users that learn their skills (wizards) but they are a thing of the past as they were considered heretics by the Kormaic church that dominates the developed continents. Some are born with innate skills (sorcerers), but they are very rare, with only a few instances recorded in history.

I wanted to show a pivotal moment in Umhra’s arc without giving away too much of the book. I knew for quite some time that this cover was what I wanted. The original artist was not able to deliver the cover, so I had to go on a last-minute hunt for an artist or settle on something less impactful. I wasn’t willing to make that concession and was lucky to have found Ömer Burak Önal to create what came out to be a better cover than I could have ever hoped for. There’s also an amazing map inside by Thomas Rey who is a phenomenal fantasy cartographer. I owe them both a great deal of thanks.

Well, I wrote it with myself in mind. I think it’s important for writers to write the stories they want to tell. The rest will kind of figure itself out. In terms of an audience, I think that Paladin Unbound is a very accessible fantasy. It is geared toward an adult audience and particularly fans of classic epic fantasy and roll playing games.

There are a number of messages throughout the book. I’m interested to find out what people take away from it. At a superficial level, there are some fun characters on an exciting journey. Diving a little deeper, it’s a story of self-discovery and overcoming adversity.

Launch Paladin Unbound on July 1st. I’m nearly ready to submit the sequel to my publisher. Hopefully, that will be out sometime in 2022. The goal would be to have the trilogy wrapped up in 2023. Seems daunting.

Readers have more options today than ever before, and likely less free time. I hope to earn their trust as a new author and would love for them to join me in exploring Evelium. Thank you for the thoughtful questions. This has been a blast.

NOTE: Many thanks to Justine, Timy & the Storytellers On Tours for giving us an opportunity to take part in this tour. Here's the tour's full schedule.