Origin Story

The idea to write In Absentia Lucis occurred when I was about halfway through writing In Living Memory. Yamini Benoit had emerged as a liminal figure in the narrative, and her character’s trajectory didn’t fit with In Living Memory, but it had implications for In Medio Dierum and the as yet unnamed fifth book too. I thought it was worth exploring to add depth to the character and to round out her story after she all but disappears during the narrative of In Medio Dierum.

Once I’d started taking notes and developing how the story might proceed, it became obvious that Yamini’s role in the pentalogy was even more important than I’d imagined previously. Her character connects several other characters, and those connections in turn conjoin several books, transforming the five fictional worlds from five books into a much broader and deeper pentalogical universe. But she also serves as a spiritual exemplar – someone who made the choice to walk away from her conventional reality and follow a path to spiritual enlightenment. There’s also a sense that Yamini’s spiritual path cost her dearly. She abandoned her family, her lover, her friends, her home, and so part of the reason for writing this book was to find out if, for her, her sacrifices were worth what they cost her .