Soul Scepter: Time Marauders follows two friends from Idaho who are transported through time to medieval England and have to stop history from being changed. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

I grew up in Idaho near the area where the book begins and toured the Idaho National Laboratory when studying physics in college. I’ve always loved all things medieval and have been to all of the historical locations in England referenced in the book. The book is the product of a series of daydreams and the desire to provide young adults with inspirational fiction to help foster confidence and emotional resilience.

Did you plan the tone and direction of the novel before writing or did it come out organically as you were writing?

The tone evolved since the first draft. Some of the combat scenes started out as too mature for a younger audience and some of the teen interactions were probably too juvenile for an adult audience. I was fortunate to have many adult and teen beta readers which helped in striking a maturity balance that satisfied me and readers across an age spectrum.

The middle of the book changed from draft to draft, while the beginning and ending stayed consistent. An aspect that didn’t change was the importance of never giving up on yourself or the people you care about.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

I sought to incorporate elements of characters digging deep to pull through desperate circumstances and sprinkle in nuggets of ways to find hope and resist self-harm. Some reasons this is important to me is that I’m an Air Force veteran, and a veteran commits suicide in the US every 65 minutes. Someone commits suicide in the US every 11 minutes, and a study estimated that there is a suicide attempt every 31 seconds. I wanted to be a part of the solution as much as I could. Most individuals taking their lives probably weren’t reading dry textbooks on techniques for overcoming suicidal ideations—but many people do turn to fictional entertainment when they want to escape.

Can you tell us where the book goes and where we’ll see the characters in the next book?

In the next book, the characters need to time travel to the future to find the solution to the havoc that the Dreizack has unleashed on the world. When they arrive in the future, they discover a Dreizack-ruled dystopian world where they struggle to survive as they search for answers.

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