This week, we're talking with John Trudel about his book, God's House.
What inspired you to write God's House?
God's House was my first novel published, but it was actually my second book. I was winding down my High Tech consulting business, traveling a lot, and had been working on Privacy Wars for years. Back then, people had no clue of how technology and corruption enabled what some refer to as “Prisons Without Walls.” That's a story best left for another interview. Orwell warned us.
The tale of a corrupted Church and unaccountable elites resonated. This timeless theme is one that has plagued mankind forever. With modern technology and communications, it is both better and worse. Today we have Twitter because news isn't trusted. Is that similar to patriots meeting in taverns and writing pamphlets? I think so.
What most inspired me was a person, the mother of my wife's late husband. She wanted me to write a novel but didn't live long enough to see it.
What in your own life has influenced you to write this story?
My wife claims that God's House put the story of how we met on steroids. I smile and sign books, but the truth is that I [who NEVER attended funerals, and who'd had a bad marriage and was NEVER going to do that again] in real life:
a) met her at her late husband's funeral
b) married her a few years later in a ceremony conducted by the same charismatic minister who'd presided at the funeral.
My presence on the scene in her family was quite a shock. Her children and friends were, ah, skeptical. Well, beyond skeptical. Her best friend, when I first met her, said, “You better treat her right. I raise Rottweilers.”
She did. Rescue Rottweilers. My answer, “I do pretty good with dogs….” My support base back then consisted of my now wife, her stepfather, the aforementioned mother of her late husband, and a scruffy, fearful, 18-year-old female cat who distrusted everyone.
The Mega Church later self-destructed in a scandal that resulted in criminal charges and good people being swindled out of their homes. It was not pretty.
What are the key elements to the story?
Good versus evil. Corruption. Deceit. Honor. Betrayal. The fact that things are often not what they seem.
A theme that runs through all my novels is what Einstein said, “The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.”
My characters do something about it…..
Why is this story important now?
I think the themes in God's House are more important now than when it was written.
Western Culture – including the notion of sacred codes of conduct, like the Ten Commandments and Constitution – is being erased. My readers seem to resonate with the characters, both good and evil. Many say they have encountered such people in their own lives.
One regret of mine was raised in the interview, concerns about the title, God's House. Testing showed that to be a popular title, and so it was, too much so.
Few books with God in the title are Thrillers. The genre is not where my target readers look for reading material. When my novel came out, it vanished into a sea of books, not to appear again until it had collected enough good reviews to be noticed. When it was noticed, some ministers voiced concerns. These are usually withdrawn after reading the book.
Sadly, a few readers labeled my book as Anti-Christian in the reviews they posted. That charge is mistaken, but their concerns are valid. Christianity is under more attack now than when my novel came out. All over the world, churches are burning….
What are you working on next?
I am currently working on book # 4 of my Raven's series. The first, Raven' Run, was the first Global Thriller to win a major award in the category of Paranormal. My character Raven is a Deep Black paramilitary agent. He is fired with prejudice in the first chapter by the CIA for being overly “unkind” to one of our enemies. CIA leadership wanted to prefer treason charges, but settled for casting him out into the darkness, never to return.
As it turns out, others in the government need his talents to protect a woman, a sensitive paranormal viewer named Josie. She is a psychic who can see things across time and space. She is a creature of rainbows and light, a Celtic Priestess in a former life. She can sense evil, but violence can destroy her. Raven is nothing BUT violence, but he must stay close to keep
her alive.
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