New Trails follows a man from Earth who is drawn into a mystical world of magic where his fate is intertwined with a Guardian from this world. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

New Trails actually grew out of a much older story I’d written about two young men who lived in different worlds. I knew the story itself wasn’t written particularly well, but I remained fascinated by its central premise: the crossing between realities, the connection and love between two people who didn’t yet truly know one another, and the irreversible nature of the choices they made. There was something beneath their conscious decisions as well—a connection that already existed, but that they still had to choose how to respond to.

When I returned to the story years later, intending a major revision, that premise became the seed for something much larger. I had spent decades reading and thinking about cosmology, quantum physics, systems thinking, and the nature of reality, and much of that found its way into the worldbuilding—not as a theory I set out to illustrate, but as part of how I imagined reality itself: intricate, interconnected, and shaped by relationships and choices. The revision eventually became an entirely new novel and world. I spent about four years writing and worldbuilding New Trails before beginning the equally unfamiliar process of learning how to publish it.

Troy and Kieran are an unlikely pair and discovering their lives are intertwined is a shock to both of them. What was the inspiration for the relationship that developed between the characters?

Troy and Kieran’s relationship grew out of my interest in the difference between connection and relationship. There is a connection between them that neither man consciously chose, but that doesn’t give them trust, intimacy, or love. Those things have to be built.

Both men come to that process with very different wounds. Troy has learned to equate independence with strength. Trusting someone, accepting help, or allowing himself to need another person make him vulnerable in ways he’s spent much of his life avoiding. Kieran has experienced the catastrophic loss of his family and community, and later grows up surrounded by people who often distrust him or see what they expect him to be rather than who he actually is. He learns not to expect a place where he belongs.

That gave me two men who need very different things from each other. Troy has to learn that needing someone doesn’t make him weak, while Kieran has to risk letting himself belong to someone—and letting someone belong to him. Their underlying connection brings them together, but it can’t create the relationship for them. They have to learn each other, lower their defenses, build trust, and ultimately choose what that connection will mean. For me, that distinction became central to their relationship: the connection is given, but the relationship is chosen.

I find the world you created in this novel brimming with possibilities. Where did the inspiration for the setting come from, and how did it change as you were writing?

The characters came first, but I usually need a setting I can stand in before I can really begin to create. I was living in Colorado at the time, so mountains and wilderness came easily. I could see Troy and Kieran walking side by side through that wilderness, with room for their relationship to develop. I also knew from experience how difficult it could be to travel through mountains without a trail; the terrain itself starts to dictate what you can do and where you can go. I wanted them to experience the wilderness—to notice it, respond to it, and talk to each other—without an arduous landscape driving every decision. That led to the idea of calling the trails. Trails have always fascinated me, so it was an easy idea to follow.

From there, the world grew organically. I didn’t begin with a completed plan for Abhaile and then fit the story into it. One piece required another, and every answer raised new questions. If trails could be called, what made that possible? What else did that imply about the world, the people living there, and their relationship with the energies around them? As I followed these and similar questions, the geography, cultures, communities, and larger structures of Abhaile began to develop together.

The world became richer not because I kept adding items to it, but because I kept discovering how the things already there affected one another. I tend to understand a world through relationships—between people, places, systems, cultures, and ideas—so as those relationships became clearer to me, Abhaile became more detailed and coherent. I still feel that I’m discovering Abhaile rather than simply inventing it. I make decisions, certainly, but sometimes the world or characters push back, and I have to follow what feels right for them rather than what I consciously intended.

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

Hidden Trails, the second book in the Trails Universe, is available now. Troy and Kieran’s story continues there, opening up much more of the world around them. Their relationship deepens, the other members of their team become increasingly important, and readers see more of Abhaile, the Guardians, and the larger forces shaping the Balance.

At its heart, though, Hidden Trails asks a question dear to me: What does coming home really mean? Home isn’t simply a place. Our understanding of it changes as we grow, as we build relationships, and as the people and places we encounter change us.New Trails begins with the experience of crossing into another world. Hidden Trails explores what happens when that crossing changes you—and changes how you understand belonging, responsibility, relationship, and your place in the worlds around you.

Author Links: GoodReads | BlueSky | Website | StoryGraph