All Battles End at Sunset is the tale of a young orphan who sets sail with a legendary sea captain, their mission to provide refuge for those in need, and the challenges they face along the way. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

This story has been waiting 500 years to be told, and that’s because it’s not an easy egg to crack. We’re dealing with the French Wars of Religion here, with Christian against Christian, Protestant against Catholic. That’s not just a tough egg, that’s a very awkward egg for a lot of people. How I cracked it, what inspired me, was I asked if both sides of this conflict are God’s people, then how does Papa God feel about them? He doesn’t see any side as right or wrong, he sees them as human. That was the inspiration. So I took the focus off of religious and political differences and I focused on the differences in character. That’s where I got the idea for the protoganist, Marcel. He’s this orphan Catholic boy taken in by a band of Protestant freedom fighters, because at the end of the day, they’re all human. This boy needs a family and he wants to learn to become a man, and these men are willing to provide that for him, despite their differences.

With such rich roots in history, I imagine this book required extensive research. Can you tell us a little about your research process?

I hit the jackpot with Florida, where much of the story takes place. Florida has done a commendable job in preserving its own past. I got to see reenactments. I got to stand in the places where the story really happened, where blood was spilled. I experienced two hurricanes and all the challenges and beauty of Florida’s natural environment. My favorite thing though was walking through a recreated Native Timucuan village and seeing just how they really lived. But the most incredible privilege of all was I got to read the journals left behind by those who lived through the events of my story, and that was unlike any experience I’ve ever known. For me, it made it all the more important to tell this story right.

What were some goals you set for yourself as a writer in this book?

I wanted to stay 100% true to the facts. I didn’t want any shortcuts in taking liberties just for plot flow. What you’ll see sometimes is writers creating inaccuracies for the needs of the story. They’ll say the real history wasn’t narratively functional. Now I agree with that line of thinking. I understand it, but I didn’t want to do that even though the true story was very convoluted. The real history has a lot of coming and going, back and forth, and people and places dropping off and going nowhere. Things that don’t make for a great book. So I got creative. I didn’t want to alter the facts, so what I did was I put the historical timeline into the background instead of the foreground. That’s part of the reason why we get to spend so much time with the boys living with the Natives. It’s a highlight of the novel and it’s most people’s favorite part. But a little behind-the-scenes secret is that chunks of the story like that were actually developed solely for the purpose of getting away from the real timeline. While the boys are living with the Natives and having linear, forward adventures, a whole lot of boring, convoluted things are going on with everybody else, the real-life people, and we basically get those things out of the way off-page, leaving the boys to catch up with them all later when things start to make sense. This approach allowed me to have complete creative freedom while still honoring what really happened, and that was my goal.

Can readers expect to see more from you soon? What are you currently working on?

The Bronze Age! The story is a completely made-up one, and I’ve already breathed a huge sigh of relief in not having to carry the burden of a true historical event. This last book was very heavy for me to carry in safegurading a big sacrifice that these real people had paid. This next one is gonna be just as well researched, however. I can’t promise it’ll have really happened, but I can promise it won’t be boring and I can promise it’ll be a lot of fun. Because that’s what I believe history should always be.

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