The Portal to Aardon follows a sixteen-year-old boy navigating life in high school who discovers his ability to wield fire magic and that he comes from a different realm. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

The inspiration for this story stemmed from several different sources. One of those being my love for portals and alternate universes as a kid, and the other being the fantasy stories, TV shows, and movies I grew up reading and watching. Stories like Avatar: The Last Airbender, Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, and Once Upon a Time were huge influences on the inception of The Portal to Aardon and in general my love of writing fantasy.

In a lot of contemporary coming-of-age fiction novels, authors often add their own life experiences to the story. Are there any bits of you in this story?

There are definitely bits of my personal life in this story. For starters, Marko has a lot in common with myself when I was in high school–introverted, not a lot of self-confidence, not the coolest guy, but he makes it by with his perseverance and his dynamic group of friends. His best friend, Brock, also shares some similarities with a childhood best friend I had who was older than me, more confident, and more physically inclined. It’s natural to project your experiences and relationships into your writing as an author, and that’s certainly the case with The Portal to Aardon (though I’ll keep some of those examples a secret).

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

Some themes I wanted to explore in my book were the complications of growing older and navigating high school, as well as the complications of certain family dynamics. It’s pretty universally agreed that high school is a tough time in your life, going through puberty and experiencing tons of changes, figuring out who you are as a person and what you want to do with your life, dating. So I’ve always been drawn to those types of stories where you see a young individual juggling the struggles of high school, and on top of that, they have some other magical threat looming over them to deal with as well. I also wanted to showcase different family dynamics and how those can have an impact on young kids. For example, Marko grows up without his father, but he has an overly caring mother who does everything she can to fill that void. His friend Isabelle’s parents are in the midst of a divorce, while his friend Brock’s mother remarried after losing her husband. Then you have the villain, Mortis (incoming spoilers) who is father to twin characters, Sara and Damien. Damien was raised by Mortis in a very abusive environment, which made him act and do things he deeply regretted, while Sara was raised in a loving home with her mother. That dynamic between Damien and Mortis and Damien realizing he didn’t need his father’s approval to be who he truly wanted to be is a theme and subplot that will carry into the rest of the series of The Aardon Chronicles.

Will there be a follow-up novel to this story? If so, what aspects of the story will the next book cover?

Yes! Book 2, The Ashes of Ignis, is currently in the works and should be releasing in the next few months of 2024. I’m very excited to share this sequel with the world and expand more on the realm of Aardon and all these characters I’ve grown to love. Book 1 ended on a bit of a cliffhanger as all the characters entered the portal from Earth back to their home realm, so Book 2 will be continuing their stories in this brand-new world as they encounter new characters, new magic, and prepare to finish the war with Mortis once and for all. I’ll leave the rest as a surprise…

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