The inspiration for his debut novel, Dance of the Sacred and the Damned, came in one of the most unexpected places, a hospital bed. While recovering from a serious illness, Brian read a news article about the discovery of a massive Maya metropolis buried deep in the jungles of Guatemala. That single article sent his imagination racing. He began to wonder who the people were that once lived there, what their lives were like, and what it would mean to meet someone from that world today. From that wondering, Cassandra Sanchez was born.

The other half of the story came just as personally. Brian’s grandfather lied about his age at sixteen to enlist in the military and fight in World War II. He went on to become a decorated paratrooper and Army Ranger and by Brian’s account, the toughest man he has ever known. That legacy lived in him long before it lived on the page. When he asked himself what would happen if Cassandra met a larger-than-life hero cut from that same cloth, Jack Ramsay stepped forward. Both characters emerged within ten minutes, fully formed, from that hospital room.

Brian draws his literary influences from the noir fiction masters of the 1930s and 1940s, particularly Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, writers who believed that great stories lived in moral complexity, sharp dialogue, and characters who carried the weight of the world in silence. His favorite book is Hammett’s The Thin Man, and his favorite film is The Last of the Mohicans, both of which speak to his deep appreciation for stories where history, identity, and survival converge.

His superpower, by his own admission, is Introverted Intuition, the quiet ability to see connections others miss, and to sit with a single idea until it becomes something extraordinary.

Dance of the Sacred and the Damned is his debut novel. He is currently at work on the next chapter of the journey — A Mask of Blood and Rain — and if the first book is any indication, readers would do well to keep the light on.