When people that I meet find out that I am a writer they always ask, “What kind of books do you write?”

I never know what to tell them because we’ve just met and I have no idea what level of detail they are looking for or would understand. As I start to explain, some will say, “Wait. Which type of book is fiction and what is non-fiction?”

If I’m really on the ball that day, I might say, “Well, it’s urban fantasy and historical fantasy time travel with a large number of characters and multiple arcs on the cusp of YA level but with an SAT vocabulary.”

And increasingly, I’ll find myself speaking to a scholar who knows much more than I do, and she’ll reply, “Ah, I know that mix. It’s just like so and so.” (It’s always someone I never heard of because my TBR pile reaches the sky). Then she’ll read my work and ferret out similarities for every passage. “Ah, that’s Bradbury, that’s Gaiman, that’s Whedon, it’s like Dresden, and Scalzi…” And so on.

But the most curious response of all is when someone reads my Wade of Aquitaine series, and before they know it, find themselves immersed in historical fiction and then go either one way or another. Some completely ignore it and just enjoy the emotional experience while others grab hold of history books or Google it to learn even more.

These latter types make it all worthwhile for me. I will spend years reading every dry history book I can get my hands on, and I find these amazing historical figures under amazing circumstances, but with huge gaps in the record and sometimes a vast amount of confusion in the mind of the historian. As a result, I’m forced to become a “better” historian, which to me is one who reconciles the differences based on human nature and everything that’s known about the technology, economics, and culture of those or similar peoples. So the writing is an adventure in sociology and psychology, exploring how prejudices, jealousies and financial gain are the real drivers of history. No one has yet realized that my most deeply rooted influences are scholars such as financial historians Charles and Mary Beard.

This is how I end up devoting so much of Amynta of Anatolia to Princess Euphrosyne who was exiled to an island prison as a little child and spent her life restoring her dignity. She is one of the most astonishing, least known people who ever lived and she belongs to the time period I’m writing about. In the past year I’ve taught entire courses to all ages of students based on my writing about her. Her story arc is, and probably will always be, my favorite part of the whole book.

–Ben Parris
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https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55815885-amynta-of-anatolia