Book Four: Architect
General and Literary Fiction
Date Published: February 28, 2023
Publisher: The Skydenn Looking Glass
Twenty-first-century scientist Matt Miller has become a wealthy businessman and politician with a beautiful wife and family. Yet, despite his every effort, Matt’s world is crumbling around him. Grace has recovered from her physical injuries, but her mental scars deepen as the threat to her family remains and her brother’s trial looms on the horizon. The Millers find themselves at the center of a maelstrom that threatens to engulf the entire colony of Virginia and make it the epicenter for a revolution. As the events around Matt unfold and his situation worsens, an opportunity presents itself to right the wrongs he has caused, but only if Matt can leave his life in the colonies behind.
Interview with Mark J. Rose
How many books have you written and which is your favorite?
I’ve written four books and four screenplays. The four books are part of the Matt Miller in the Colonies series. I can’t say which book is my favorite. They each have something special about them. They often reflect what I was going through at the time. That said, some of my favorite chapters are in the second book, Prophet, where I write from the perspective of either Matt Miller’s horse or his dog. I grew up a massive fan of Call of the Wild, so those chapters are a shoutout to Jack London.
If you’re planning a sequel, can you share a tiny bit about your plans for it?
I’m still deciding on the plot for the fifth book in the Matt Miller in the Colonies series. I wrote a few prequel chapters for Architect, the latest book in the series, which explains how the Taylor family wound up in the horse breeding business. Matt Miller wakes up on their farm years later after traveling in time. Unfortunately, the prequel wouldn’t involve any time travel, so I’m not committed to this yet. I’ve also been throwing around other ideas to reach more readers who would not usually read time travel novels. One is a common sense how-to book on self-publishing. I feel like I’m an expert on this now. There is also a new series I’ve written a few chapters for that deals with humanity’s struggle against artificial intelligence. I suspect the human brain and body have an untapped potential that we haven’t come close to harnessing. I’d love to explore that in a battle between intelligent robots and humans that are finally learning to develop their mental and physical capabilities. I saw the movie Colossus: The Forbin Project when I was like eight, and it has haunted me ever since. I never got over the possibility that humanity would someday be forced to fight against machines of our own making. The battle would set us up for the next stage in our evolution.
Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?
The Matt Miller in the Colonies books are best read in sequence, but there should be enough in each one to understand the story. It’s been the mantra of my editors that each book should stand on its own – I listen to them most times.
How did you come up with the title for your book?
The latest book is titled Architect. I felt this was the first time in the saga that Matt Miller, the lead character, had enough knowledge and experience to start designing his own life rather than merely reacting to everything happening around him. The twenty-six-year-old boy the series starts with is beginning to understand what it is to be a man.
How long did it take you to write this book?
This latest book took almost three years to finally come together. There were many personal things going on in my life that kept me from writing. I also researched this book more than the others to recreate 1772 Virginia as accurately as possible.
What does the title mean?
See question four, above
What did you learn when writing the book?
Something fun! We use many phrases in our day-to-day conversations today that don’t make any sense but have their origin in eighteenth-century life. They are phrases like: It’s worth an arm and a leg, He went the whole nine yards, or Sleep tight!
My favorites come from the eighteenth-century penchant for people to be buried alive because doctors weren’t good enough to tell whether someone was unconscious or dead:
Saved by the Bell – This has nothing to do with boxing but was a method for rescuing people who were buried alive. They drilled a hole in the lid of your coffin and tied a string to your wrist that led up through the dirt to a bell. Someone came to dig you up if you woke up and rang the bell.
Graveyard Shift – This refers to working in the graveyard, sometimes at night, to listen for bells rung by people who were buried alive.
Dead Ringer – This was the buried-alive person who was Saved by the Bell
Hold a Wake – Dead people were laid out on a table for a couple of days to wait and see if they would wake up.
What surprised you the most?
The series takes place during the buildup to the American Revolution. Two things struck me as significant. One was the influence of the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers on our Founding Fathers, and the other was how much of a miracle it was for the United States to form. I can’t imagine this happening ever again in human history. People struggle with representative governments across the globe, and the United States has one that functions better than any other republic in history. Yet, some people act like it’s no big deal and would love to throw it out and start over. So many things had to fall into place at precisely the right time for the young United States not to crumble into chaos and anarchy. I still don’t know how the Founders did it, but the world owes them an immense debt for creating this beacon of light we call the United States of America.
Have you ever killed off a character your readers loved?
I kill off a few characters, but you must read the books to discover who they are and decide whether you love or hate them.
What do you do to get inside your character’s heads?
I try my best to ensure my heroes and heroines have honorable intentions and then decide how they would act based on that honor. I don’t spend much time in the heads of my villains. It’s enough to realize that there are bad people in the world and that they will do bad things. I also find it much easier to define when something is bad versus when something is good.
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