John Higgins

1. Could you tell me a little bit about yourself and your book series?

I am a former statewide prosecutor in the State of New Jersey. I had a full career performing a wide variety of tasks from interacting with the public, writing policy positions, laws staffing and being a member of various committees as well as actually prosecuting a wide variety of cases from a serial killer nurse all the way down to simple assault cases, although the majority were complex and very high profile cases.

The Archangel Jarahmael and the War to Conquer Heaven is the first trilogy in the series and deals with the creation of the Beings of Light and the Universe and entwined within is a love story between the fourth born Archangel, Jarahmael and the first human a female named Lillith. Their story winds throughout the trilogy so there is a Human element to the books. There are nine species of Angels dispersed among the Seven levels of Heaven, pre-humans called Simians, pyramids, Adam and Eve. I fill in the gaps that are hinted at but missing in the Book of Genesis using fiction, but I make sure the story still remains logical and consistent within it.

This will be on on-going series and I have the fourth book in the hands of my publisher, Ring of Fire Books, that will start a second trilogy, The Archangel Jarahmael and the War to Conquer Hell.

2. Where does the inspiration for your writing come from?

I have always been creative and have an inner drive to create things out of nothing or alter existing things in a way that gives them new purpose. In the past I produced and created television commercials using celebrities to combat teenage substance abuse in the 1980’s, produced an anti-bias crime play in the 1990’s, and now retired from government, I started writing novels.

I was always intrigued by these Beings of Light having had my own personal experience seeing these creatures as a toddler shortly before my father was killed in a car accident. I wanted to learn more about them. I believe they were the first creations of the Almighty but there are missing gaps about how they began and why they rebelled and tried to replace the Almighty in the Heavens. I was not able to find their story written anywhere only allusions to it even though the story felt hardwired into my inner mind. Of course there is John Milton who wrote Paradise Lost, but that is unreadable today. So I began to do extensive research on what others have written and used my inner guidance to write ertheir story and continue to write about them as their story is the original story of Good and Evil. During the course of this experience, even up to the present day there are a lot of coincidences that provide me information that I use in my writing.

3. Who would you pick to play the characters in your books on the big screen?

That is a tough question as there are fourteen Archangels, and various secondary characters form the other species of Angels – Seraphim, Thrones, Cherubim, Virtues, Dominions, Principalities, Potentates and Guardians. And then with Luciferael and his other close Archangels who call themselves his Auxilium, those actors would have to have a full range and a great deal of nuance to portray them from their pureness in the beginning to their slow devolve into the Rebel Angels. If I was casting the roles I would prefer new and fresh faces, talents that would not be already associated with previous roles. Remember these are the greatest of the Almighty’s creatures with doses of energy far greater than the creatures of mud known as Humans.

4. Can you describe your writing style in three words for someone who has never read your books?

Creative, visual and I have been told engaging.

5. Do you prefer writing the hero or the villain characters?

I prefer the hero character as that range of emotion most closely tracks my own. Not to say that the villainous aren’t fun, but my life’s work prior to this was prosecuting those personalities and putting that type of person in prison to protect society.

6. Who is your favourite author and whats your favourite book?

I don’t know that I can even get close to naming one author or one book as my favourite as many things I have read took me to places I wanted to go at the moment. I began at ten with Ian Fleming and his James Bond, with a wicked stepfather 007 became a role model for me as crazy as that may sound. JRR Tolkien and his Middle Earth was a great place to hide as a teenager, but I also read Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Hemingway, all sorts of histories and writings from great men like Lincoln. In my twenties, Stephen King was a thrill and in my thirties Anne Rice’s Vampire world was amazing. I also have this tendency to read anything I can get my hands on when a subject interests me, I am sure I could qualify as an expert in court in a variety of subjects just from my reading alone.

7. What are you currently working on or what do you have planned for the future?

Right now I am writing a young adult novel that may become its own series that deals with local lore concerning a creature called the New Jersey Devil. Not far from my house, an 1864 train station by the way that I converted, there is a cave system within a bed of house sized boulders on the side of a mountain called Devil’s Half-Acre. How cool is that?

By the time I am done with this new project, Book 4 should be out and then I will switch back to Jarahmael. But I also have a number of crime novels in my mind as well, I just wanted a break from dealing with a lot of that real life tragedy.

8. Where can people find out more about you?

I can be found at www.john-j-higgins.com, email at jjhigginsesq@gmail.com , Twitter @JohnJHigginsEsq, Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/john.higgins.737 and https://www.facebook.com/TheArchangelJarahmaelTheWarToConquerHeavenTrilogy and Amazon all over the world --this is the US version http://amzn.com/e/B00AU76AOI. My books are also available at Barnes and Noble or can be ordered at your local bookstore through Kobo.