A Sinister Love follows a demon in Purgatory who is fired from her desk job and sent to Earth as a Sinister whose job is to make a human sin and condemn his soul to Hell. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

I had several inspirations which all hit at different times. One of the main ones came from a webcomic. I used to read them voraciously, and I once came across one where one of the main villains was essentially teddy-bear-Satan with two succubi at his sides at all times. Unfortunately, that’s about all I can now remember from it. But I do recall a single frame where one of the succubus girls stayed behind and looked at the main character with a blush on her face, which got my mind thinking.

A lot of the setup was influenced by C.S. Lewis, in particular “The Screwtape Letters” and “The Great Divorce.” The former was essentially written as a group of letters from a demon to his subordinate, directing him on how to properly tempt a human. When I put these two ideas together, a succubus in love and a demon rookie being shown the ropes, it led to more and more of the story forming around it.

Another inspiration was a line from a They Might Be Giants song about the singer being the “nicest of the damned.” This is where I came up with the idea of Scribble, the main character in my novel, being the demon that was closest to making it to Heaven.

I enjoyed the depth of the main character, Scribble. What was your process to bring that character to life?

I wanted all the characters to undertake a journey, to change. For the demons, I gave each an essential flaw that caused them to fall from grace, and Scribble’s flaw was cowardice. So I knew from the get-go that she had to overcome this throughout the course of the story. I also wanted her to be able to connect with both the reader and her love interest, Paul. The one thing that linked them all was reading itself, which opened up her past and helped guide her interactions with Paul. She had to know enough about humans to get by on Earth, but be ignorant of enough things that her naivety would be charming. Finally, she became a good tool for Rotworm (her mentor) and Surli (her digital assistant) to provide essential information to the reader without making it boring or expository. Beyond that, I wanted it to sound like my female lead was written the way she would want to be written.

I felt that there were a lot of great twists and turns throughout the novel. Did you plan this before writing the novel, or did the twists develop organically writing?

I’m definitely a plotter! I used a variety of methods while writing this novel before I found what really works best for me. It also underwent about a dozen revisions and has changed a lot since the first draft. I always knew, for instance, that I wanted to turn your typical romance on its head by making it so that the only way Scribble can truly love Paul is by giving up loving him, but it was only in the final draft that I realized how the story needed to end. That said, there were definitely times when the story or characters did things I hadn’t planned. But I like to say, “There are no such things as plot holes, only plot opportunities.” A lot of the fun was solving a plot hole in such a way that it ended up returning in a natural way to the plot.

When will book 2 be available? Can you give us an idea of where that book will take readers?

I have a second book, “Fate & Fortune,” with an editor right now. I am hoping to launch a Kickstarter for it in August and release it before the end of the year. It is about a young man named Alex who made a deal with Lady Luck and her sister Dame Destiny to change his fate and reverse his fortune. After years of success, though, he discovers that this means he will never be with his soul mate, Amanda, who is engaged to a malignant narcissist. So he is given the opportunity to go back and relive any point in his life in an attempt to undo this and win her back, but for every second he spends reliving life, he loses a second at the end of it. As he starts running out of time, he has to come to terms with the possibility that he can’t save her from an abusive relationship without giving her up himself.

I have a third book, “A Date with Destiny,” ready for revisions and I hope it will be out next year. It continues the story of Alex and Amanda. Alex goes missing and Amanda discovers he is in the world of Lady Luck and Destiny, being hunted by a monster. Now she has to fight to save him, but starts to learn secrets of his past that could cause Dame Destiny to be banished from their world.

However, the sequel to “A Sinister Love”, entitled, “A Sinister Hope,” has been plotted out and is currently being written. In it, we find out who Rotworm’s real master is and only Scribble and Paul can stop him from causing the end of the world, but Paul has forgotten her and Scribble is reunited with her old flame. It will lead into the third installment, “A Sinister Faith.” I hope to have them out in 2025 and 2026.

Author Interview: GoodReads | Amazon