Why I Left Biblical Nonfiction... to Write Fantasy

One of the questions I'm asked most often is this:
"Why would someone who spent years writing biblical nonfiction suddenly begin writing fantasy?"
The answer is surprisingly simple. I never really left.
For years, I devoted my writing to exploring Scripture, history, and the languages behind the biblical text. I wanted readers to look beyond tradition and wrestle with what the Bible actually says. Research became second nature. I loved tracing ancient words, comparing manuscripts, and asking difficult questions.
But somewhere along the way, I realized something.
Facts inform the mind.
Stories reach the heart.
Jesus Himself understood this. He could have presented theological lectures, yet so often He chose parables. A farmer scattering seed. A lost son. A traveler left beaten beside the road. Those stories linger because they invite us to experience truth rather than merely understand it.
That realization changed how I viewed writing.
I began asking myself, What if I could explore the same biblical themes through the lens of a story?
Not a sermon disguised as a novel. Not allegory.
A genuine fantasy that treated Scripture with respect while imagining the unseen world hinted at throughout the Bible.
That question became Blood of Starlight, another novel after the Realms of the Fallen series.
The series, Realms of the Fallen and Blood of Starlight, draws inspiration from passages that fascinate me: the rebellion of Lucifer and the Watchers, the mysterious references in Genesis, the Book of Enoch, spiritual warfare, redemption, and humanity's place within a conflict far older than civilization itself.
Those elements form the foundation, but imagination builds the house. Fantasy gives me room to ask "What if?" without claiming, "This is how it happened."

• What if the consequences of Lucifer could be swayed by an angel’s love?
  
• What if the consequences of the Watchers' rebellion still echoed through history?
• What if ancient choices continued to shape the modern world? And do they?
• What if redemption remained possible even for those who had fallen the farthest?

These are not attempts to rewrite Scripture. They are invitations to wonder.
Research still fills my laptop with ancient texts. And I continue to examine biblical languages and historical sources because I believe good fantasy should feel grounded, even when it ventures into impossible places.
The difference is that now, instead of presenting conclusions in chapters of nonfiction, I invite readers to walk beside characters who must wrestle with those questions themselves.

In many ways, fantasy allows me to explore truth from another angle.
A reader may close a nonfiction book having learned something.
A reader may close a novel having experienced something.

If Realms of the Fallen encourages readers to think more deeply about redemption, sacrifice, free will, and not only the hope woven throughout Scripture, then it has accomplished exactly what I hoped it would.

So no, I didn't leave biblical writing behind. I simply found another way to tell the story. And in many respects, I think it's the story I was always meant to write.