Rancho Bernardo author concludes trilogy with “Meeting the Devil”

A Rancho Bernardo author has concluded his Twin Destiny Trilogy novels with the recently-released “Meeting the Devil.”

H. Byron Earhart’s first two novels in the series — “No Pizza in Heaven” and “Faith Finds Forgiveness” — came out in 2016 and 2017, respectively.

The series that spans more than three decades focuses on Faith Armstrong, who due to a one-night-stand as a teenager became pregnant and was forced by her very strict, mean father to give up her twins. His cruelty included forcing her to separate the boys upon adoption. Decades later, due to an error in a newspaper article, she reconnected with her sons, who were still unaware of their twin’s existence.

In this latest installment, a medical problem with one son forces her to contact their father, Doug Parnelli, to request his family’s medical history. He knows nothing about his sons’ existence until contacted by Faith’s lawyer. His subsequent actions and history prove the moniker she has given him, “the devil,” is aptly earned.

While Earhart said some readers have told him the book ends in a way that could allow for a fourth installment, he has no plans for one. Though writing a trilogy was not in his initial plans when writing “No Pizza in Heaven,” he decided to continue their tale with a sequel.

“When I got through the second, I knew there was more to come, because (the issue with Doug) was unresolved,” Earhart said. “We have to deal with him.”

Earhart said when writing, “the story takes over and kind of tells itself.” While he could have made Doug a decent or at least redeemed man — Faith made a youthful mistake, but turned her life around — he chose to instead make Doug quite despicable and a threat to the reunited family’s hard-won happiness.

As in the first two novels, religion again plays a key element to Earhart’s writing, as does the contrast between good and evil. With both parents and their actions 30 years prior, he said, the fault and responsibility is “not totally black and white. It’s ambiguous. It was stupid and foolish, but they could learn from their mistake. Faith learned and he couldn’t.”

Earhart briefly foreshadowed Doug’s devilish qualities in the first novel, in part because “there is a bit of the devil in all of us. How do we deal with it (is the question).”

The series’ heavy religious themes — less prevalent in book three, but still a factor — along with the novels being set in central Illinois and Chicago — are due to him writing about what he knows.

Before becoming a novelist, Earhart — an Illinois native — wrote and published several academic books. They primarily focused on world religions, especially religion in Japan. He has a doctorate in history of religions from the University of Chicago and was a professor at Western Michigan University. Earhart and his wife, Virginia, moved to Rancho Bernardo in 2002.

Another reason Earhart said he is not going to write a fourth installment is because he is busy working on the pre-publishing stage of two other manuscripts he has completed.

The first is a novel, “Hiram Upright and the Good Time Feelin’: A Spiritual Journey from Hot Salvation to Cool Enlightenment ... and Beyond” that tells the tale of a “country bumpkin” from Illinois that disavows his religious upbringing and tries other spiritual options while traveling along Route 66 to Los Angeles.

The second is a historical non-fiction that Earhart described as “part memoir of my life growing up in Illinois during World War II.” The book, “At Grandma’s House: The Illinois Home Front in World War II,” talks about wartime life during his childhood after his father went off to war and he, his siblings and mother moved in with his grandmother. The two women ran the family business, a frozen food locker in a small town, which he called a “risky venture” during the 1940s.

“Meeting the Devil” is available as a paperback for $12 and in Kindle version for $3.99 at amazon.com and other online retailers. The first two books in the trilogy are available online as well.

Email: rbnews@pomeradonews.com