The Path to Heaven follows an aging Parisian tour driver haunted by grief and faith, who embarks on a cross-cultural journey to reconcile loss, belief, and the idea of heaven itself. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

The seed of this story came from watching drivers and guides in Paris—people who spend their days ushering others toward beauty while quietly carrying their own lives in the background. I wondered what it might feel like to witness so many reunions, honeymoons, and celebrations when your own heart is learning to live with absence. Lucas emerged from that question: a man who knows every street in a luminous city yet is still learning the road back to himself.

I was also inspired by conversations across cultures and faiths—how a simple ride can open a door to someone’s private world. The novel began as a quiet scene in a cemetery and unfolded into a journey where each encounter gently reshapes Lucas’s understanding of loss, devotion, and what “heaven” might mean on ordinary days.

The writing in your story is very artful and creative. Was it a conscious effort to create a story in this fashion, or is this style reflective of your writing in general?

The style is both intentional and natural to me. I’m drawn to concise sentences that carry a quiet rhythm—language that leaves room for breath, like a prayer spoken softly. I wanted the prose to mirror Lucas’s inner pace: deliberate, attentive, tender. While I do adapt my voice to each project, I tend to favor imagery, musical cadence, and moments where silence speaks as loudly as dialogue.

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

For many young people, faith, religion, and even the idea of life and death can feel distant—something abstract or far away from daily life. I wanted to explore that distance and quietly bridge it. I didn’t expect this story to open so many hearts, including my own. Through Lucas’s journey, readers begin to question what faith means beyond religion, and how love and loss can lead to a more personal kind of belief. What moved me most was realizing that a simple story could make people pause and reflect on something as vast as the soul.

Were you able to achieve everything you wanted with the characters in the novel?

Lucas and his daughter came into focus exactly as I hoped—quiet, resilient, imperfect, and brave. Some side characters, like the young Chinese artist and the Russian veteran, still linger with me; I can imagine returning to them in a companion novella or stories that follow the threads they began. But for this book, I’m content with the spaces I left for readers to inhabit—places where their own memories can meet the characters halfway.

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