“When the True King’s murderers

Are allowed to roam free,

A thousand magicians arise in the land.

James Douglas Morrison

I became a fan of Jim Morrison’s poetry in high school when I discovered The American Night and The Lords and New Creatures both which collected numerous poems into one book. I had always been a fan of Morrison and The Doors and was excited to dive into the imagery that Morrison presented with his words. I was not disappointed. Along the years, I borrowed phrases from his poems for titles of my novels, including Text of the Unforgiven and Translations of the Divine.

One fateful day, around 2011, I was thumbing through his poetry and came across Awake. When I read the quote about the True King’s murderers being allowed to roam free, my mind started working. I came up with the basic premise of the next Messiah being killed and the killers being set free. The event would prompt a prophesy to be set in motion ridding the Earth of all humanity besides magicians. Thus, An Hour for Magic was born.

The more I turned it over in my mind, I wanted to create a story with a massive cast of characters to take place on a grand scale. Originally (and maybe when all is said and done) I planned on having 1000 characters total. I was told by many that this was an insane undertaking. I knew I could do it, but also knew that keeping the audiences attention was the most important part of telling the story.

I was almost halfway through writing the first draft before I went back and wrote the prologue about Houdini. The interludes throughout the book telling the journey of Houdini’s Chinese Water Torture Cell throughout it’s history came from countless hours of research into the apparatus. I began to learn of events and people surrounding the Cell and everything started falling into place. The story began to write itself.

When I finished An Hour for Magic, around 2013, I was going to leave the story alone, let the audience have their own opinions of where the characters ended up and what fate was left for Humanity. But, after it was first published in 2016, Mister Hollow and The Beast drew me back into their world forcing me to start Hollow Be Thy Name. An Hour for Maggie was written at the same time and both were at first intended to be one novel. But I listened to my publisher at the time and split them into two short novels. Looking back, I should have left them together.

I want to assure the fans out there that even though the trilogy is finished, the story is not. The fourth and final An Hour for Magic novel is in the works and I am sad to say that it will not be a happy ending for the characters. The fourth book will be titled: Hollow Beast: An Hour for Magic IV. It will be a few years down the road before it sees the light of day, so stay tuned!