Awakening follows a former quarterguard who turned killer-for-hire in an underwater nation filled with class violence and magic, who is forced into the Bishop’s rebellion. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

I’ve been building the world of Atlamaria and eventually writing the Goremage story for over nine years. It originally started as a completely different novel idea that came about from a short story in a high school creative writing class. I shelved that and ended up expanding the world into a homebrew Dungeons and Dragons campaign a few years later, which only got two sessions in. I really liked the world I had started building, and kept working on the lore and world, until I had built up the entire world of Atlamaria and Aurelithia. I’ve always loved fantasy novels and movies, and have written multiple in the past, so the finished product of the Goremage series was a sort of love-child of the years of worldbuilding I had done and some abandoned characters I wasn’t ready to let go of.

What challenges came with designing a believable underwater civilization?

I had a pretty soft science system when it comes to the sci-fi side and kind of leave a lot of it up to the reader’s imagination, which I think helps. I’ve done a lot of research on it and how it would actually be built in the world, but I think writing out the nitty gritty of that would be boring, and lose a lot of the whimsy, so it feels more believable for the reader to have a ‘less is more’ approach. I think the biggest challenge was reminding myself that they were underwater, meaning there were limitations to where they could go and what they could do (though this is a bigger issue with books two and three). Because I enjoy epic fantasy, I like the idea of grand battles and long journeys, but the entirety of Atlamaria is smaller than the state of Texas, so I had to have them travel with that in mind.

How did you balance horror elements with fantasy adventure and political intrigue?

Book one definitely focuses a lot more on the fantasy and horror elements, whereas book two leans a lot more into the political intrigue and horror. Since my goal wasn’t to write a traditional fantasy, I think it was easier to just focus on what I wanted the story to be, rather than what it ‘should’ be.

Can you give us a glimpse inside Book 2 of the Goremage series? Where will it take readers?

Book two is a much deeper dive into the politics of Atlamaria and the relationship between Pearl and Elio. Returning to Atlamaria, Pearl and Elio find the Triarch has already started their push for total control — and will stop at nothing to get it. As they struggle with their interpersonal relationship, the grieving process, and the ongoing political upheaval, they must also face just how far they’ll go for the greater good.

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