Abducted follows a 16-year-old who is abducted onto an alien warship, where she must use the deadly training she knows to fight through a biological nightmare and save her best friend. Where did the idea of a living alien warship come from?

A boring answer, but it originally grew out of trying to solve a story-mechanic problem. I knew I wanted the alien ship to be in Earth’s atmosphere in present and flashback timelines, as opposed to deep space, and I needed a plausible reason for that to be a necessity. The ship being powered by Oxygen provided the answer which eventually led me to making it a living organism. Once that had unlocked, I kept finding organic ways to fold the concept into the story, eventually tying it directly to the aliens’ search for a cure. In the end I think it provided a really unique backdrop for the story and opens interesting questions about the world beyond Earth in the context of the novel.

Abigail isn’t a “chosen one” in a traditional sense of hero novels. How did you shape her personality and her character arc?

I’ve always been more interested in everyman-type heroes than in chosen ones, so I shaped Abigail in that mold. At the same time, I gave her skills and experiences from her past that provide a foundation, enabling her to confront the situation she finds herself in.

One of the central themes of the novel is the fragility of belief, which manifests in different ways for each character. Abigail’s arc centers on learning to believe in herself. Self-belief can be difficult for adults to sustain, and it’s even more challenging for teenagers. I was drawn to the idea of someone whose life seemed to be moving in a clear direction suddenly being thrown wildly off course—shattering her confidence in the process—and then struggling to gather the pieces and put herself back together.

If you look at the three main characters, this becomes the throughline of the story. Harris begins the novel fully believing his father’s story and holding, deep down, an unshakable conviction that his mother is still alive. He ends the novel with those beliefs confirmed. Abigail starts the novel having lost her self-belief, gradually regains it—albeit shakily—and finishes the story fully assured of who she is. Taylor, by contrast, begins the novel confident in himself, his worldview, and in Abigail; by the end, all of that has shattered. His arc is almost the inverse of Abigail’s, which ultimately leads him to make the decision he does. All of that feels inherently relatable to me.

The friendship between Abigail and Harris anchors the story. Why center on loyalty?

I’ve always loved the trope of best friends who are secretly in love with each other. I’m also drawn to stories in which the loyalty forged in an early bond is tested as the characters grow up and their circumstances change.

If Abigail’s father hadn’t made the choices that knocked her off course, I think her relationship with Harris would have evolved far less dramatically—because the detour with Taylor likely wouldn’t have happened. The domino effect of those decisions felt like a strong starting point for the story and something that could organically thread its way through the novel. Abigail’s pull toward her loyalty to Harris is tied to her longing for a time when her life was simpler, and perhaps to a purer version of who she once was. I believe she has been in love with him all along. At the same time, her relationship with Taylor may have changed her in fundamental ways. For Harris, loyalty lies at the heart of his struggle—torn between wanting to be with Abigail and needing closure about his mother. In that situation, where should his loyalty rest? That tension is what makes the question so compelling to me, and I’m curious how readers will feel about the decisions he makes.

Can you tell us more about where the story and characters go after book one?

Abducted ends with a ticking clock: three months to prepare for a rescue mission to the alien planet. In Infiltrated, the second book in The Beast’s Burden Chronicles, that mission finally unfolds. Readers will discover what Charlotte has been doing since Donovan’s escape—and how her actions reshape her dynamic with Harris. We’ll also get a glimpse into Phaust and Marvus’s home life, and see where they fit within the broader society of their world. Abigail and Taylor will be forced to join forces, with Abigail single-mindedly determined to rescue her best friend and Taylor striving for redemption. And it’s possible that one of the characters we glimpsed at the end of Abducted isn’t who they seem… Hopefully, it won’t take me another decade to write the next book.

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