Rancho Bernardo author explores religion in his Twin Destiny Trilogy novels

A Rancho Bernardo man says a family conversation about a news report of real-life twins born in different decades inspired him to write a trilogy of novels.

H. Byron Earhart’s first two novels in the Twin Destiny Trilogy — “No Pizza in Heaven” and “Faith Finds Forgiveness” — are available now, while the concluding novel, “Meeting the Devil,” is set for publication later this year.

The books focus on Faith Armstrong, who due to a one-night-stand as a teenager becomes pregnant and is forced by her very strict father to give up her twins. Decades later, due to an error in a newspaper article, she has an opportunity to reconnect with her sons, Jeremy and Jon.

Because of their grandfather’s fundamental religious extremism and cruelty the young men have no idea they have a twin. To further punish his daughter for her sin, Aaron Armstrong forced Faith to agree that the boys be split up when adopted as infants, the adoptive parents were not told their sons had a twin and Faith had no knowledge of their whereabouts.

While the first two books share the stories of three connected-but-separated lives, a main theme is religion, how people embrace or reject it and what role, if any, it plays in people’s lives.

Earhart said the heavy religious themes — 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.

“It’s two very different experiences,” Earhart said about writing academic books versus novels. “I think the writing of fiction is much more fun. The writing of scholarship (requires you) to look over your shoulder. Who wrote what and who will critique your work? (With fiction) I am free to create whatever characters I want ... to make it real.”

While Earhart made one of the twins very religious, to the point of being a zealot, he had the other raised with no religion, but during a college course create a popular computer program in which the user creates a religion. Earhart said the latter, in some ways, is very futuristic, but also very meaningful.

“Sometimes there is truth in novels, but falsehood in scholarship,” he said. “I see life in quite ambiguous terms. There can be truth in fiction that helps you see the world and life better.”

Earhart said he belongs to a writing group that focuses on science fiction and speculative fiction, so through his novels he tried to create a world that is plausible and interesting.

In retrospect, Earhart said he also realized that the story “shares much with my earlier attempts (in academia) to foster understanding and minimize conflict between people of different religious positions.”

While some writers outline their stories before writing, Earhart said that was not his approach.

“The (first) novel wrote itself,” he said. “I never know where the plot is going to take me, just a general idea.”

Earhart said he also did not initially intend to turn the story of Faith and her sons into a trilogy, but the first book — which could have stood on its own with no sequel — concluded in a way that offered additional topics to explore. These included an adult Faith coming to terms with her choices and circumstances as a teen, plus everyone learning what happened to the boys’ father, who knew nothing about his sons’ existence.

The first two books in the Twin Destiny Trilogy can be purchased online through Amazon. “No Pizza in Heaven” is $14.99 for a paperback and “Faith Finds Forgiveness” is $12 for a paperback. Both are also available in Kindle versions.

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