Did you ever read a novel that stayed with you for days, months, even years afterward? That went way beyond merely entertaining you, and changed your life?
An intriguing, gripping plot, and relatable yet interesting characters are the hallmarks of a good novel, in any genre. But when a story unfolds in such a way as to take you along with it, and literally change your perceptions not only of the world, but of what life on this earth really means? That is another experience altogether.
An Impressive Debut
Author Mark Tiro began writing because he loved books like that—and he wanted to contribute to the expansion of reader’s minds, as well as to entertain them. After studying metaphysical literary phenomena such as The Celestine Prophecy and A Course In Miracles, he felt he was ready to write the story he was born to write.
Mark’s writing style has been compared to authors Paul Coelho and Richard Bach, and his debut novel, Implicit, Soul Invictus, has been well received. Here are a few of the great reviews:
“An emotional tour de force and breathtaking adventure in forgiveness!”
“Engripping! It’s a novel so novel it takes a new word to describe.”
Released November 1, 2017, this fast-paced yet deep novel follows the past and future lives of Maya Lee, and her epic journey on her last forgiveness adventure. The sequel, All These Things, Maya Invictus, followed a month later, on December first. Both novels are available on Amazon or can be read for free through the Kindle Unlimited subscription service.
The Inspiration
I recently sat down with Mark to find out more about these fascinating novels:
How did you get the concept for your novel series, and when did you begin writing?
I hit upon an idea to write about one woman’s epic journeys through her past and future lives. And I wanted to do it in a way that wouldn’t bore readers to death.
Readers either love Maya or they hate her. She’s brilliant, and tenacious. She’s the kind of person you’d love to have a drink with. But she’s also angry, and when people screw her over, she’s driven to get even. I wanted to show how this plays out—not just in this lifetime, but as Maya goes from lifetime to lifetime. She doesn’t check her desire for revenge at the door, and at some point—you know it’s going to catch up with her
So, this is my take on Maya’s epic journey—and it’s quite an adventure.
What was it that drew you to the concept of reincarnation?
It’s like a dream we all have at night: we’re in our bed, sleeping, but dreaming that we’re running around in our dream. Someone’s chasing us. We’re chasing someone else. And always—we’re the hero of our own dream. We never realize it’s a dream though—at least while we’re dreaming it. But every morning, we wake up, safe in our bed, and the dream is just... gone. Disappeared back into the mind which thought it.
And we may feel out of sorts from our dream, at least for a little while after we wake up. But once we’re awake, it’s pretty easy to accept the idea that all the people we dreamed about, everything that was important to us, the figures, the characters—everything in the dream—was just that. A creation of our mind.
That’s the entire universe.
That’s reincarnation. Whether we dream we live one lifetime or a hundred—none of them is any more real than the dream we dream, while we’re safe asleep in our beds at night. And the only way to wake up is to look straight into our dream world, and to forgive what we see—specifically because it’s not real.
That’s how we return to our true home in perfect love.
Maya, the main character, journeys through many lifetimes in Implicit. Did you have to conduct much research for the various time periods?
Even though she’s fictional, Maya’s more real than just about anyone I know. She doesn’t seem to have the ability to hold back. She’s the kind of person people are drawn to, but you might wish you hadn’t been. She’s got an irresistible spirit, which in the end, is why I called the series the ‘Spirit Invictus’–the unconquered spirit.
No matter whether she’s an unfairly fired professor, or a Roman senator fighting a doomed battle out on the Northern frontier, or she’s a 16-year-old computer genius whose unrequited love for a young revolutionary student lands her right in the middle a coup to take back power for the people of her country—she’s always the same person at her core.
The form we take appears to change in each of our dream ‘lifetimes’, but the content stays the same. And it always comes down to the same choice: Are we going to choose love and forgiveness, or are we going to stay stuck in fear, anger and revenge?
There’s a podcast by a guy named Mike Duncan. It’s the History of Rome podcast. I loved that, and I couldn’t resist incorporating it into Maya’s past lives. One of Maya’s future lives in the book bears an uncanny resemblance to a lot of what went on in the aftermath of the French revolution. And of course, there’s Maya’s lifetime as Yoshio, when she was a soldier on a remote island in World War II.
What are you working on currently?
It’s the third and final book in the Spirit Invictus series. The working title is ‘Maya’s Magic List’ (shortened to just ‘The List’). It covers the time period in Maya’s life, from the flashback she had in the last book (All These Things) when she was a little girl, and goes through to when we pick up with her in that book as a confident young college student. Here’s the blurb:
Maya’s vision lasted for an eternity. In her mind. In the world—it was over in an instant.
When she opened her eyes, she found herself alone on the floor in her room, with just an empty piece of paper and a pen sitting next to her.
The list.
A comforting spirit and a revelation beyond this world had given Maya peace after the most traumatic year of her life. Now it had gone, but she had been left with the list as a reminder of what was possible.
A magic list.
Anything she wrote down on her list that night would come true. And so she did what any girl would do. Maya filled up her list with everything she wanted in life. At first it was exciting as the things she put on her list started coming true.
But now everything’s coming true fast. And Maya’s starting to panic.
When she’d made her list, she’d filled up the end of it with things everybody knew could never happen.
Or so she thought.
The last wish threatened to change not just her life, but her entire world.
And now Maya’s in a panic to do anything she can to stop it.
Where can readers get in touch with you?
I love it when readers want to talk about the ideas, the books—and pretty much anything else. My home on the web is my website at http://MarkTiro.com , and anyone can always connect with me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/marcustiro .
The Bottom Line
I am so excited to have discovered Mark Tiro. It is refreshing to read stories that are well-written, original, thought-provoking, and highly entertaining, to boot!
I’m looking forward to reading more books from this talented and imaginative author. What books have you read lately that made an impact on your life?