Michael James

Michael James is not the author you'd expect to write a supernatural Western thriller.

He grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, hated reading as a kid, and spent the better part of his childhood being bribed by his parents to finish a book. He went into sales, then finance, and figured that was that.

Then he saw The Da Vinci Code in theaters and walked out needing to know what happened next. He found the Dan Brown novels, read every one, and something shifted. The same thing happened years later with the Reacher series on Amazon — he started the Lee Child books and couldn't stop. What he responded to in both was the same thing: tight chapters, relentless pacing, deep research worn lightly, and the pull of always needing to know what comes next. That's the kind of writer he set out to become.

The Prophet's Brand has been a year and a half in the making, built on serious research into the post-Civil War American Southwest — a place and era he finds endlessly compelling. Simple in some ways. Strange in others. Full of the kind of history that doesn't make it into textbooks.

He is also developing a series of children's novels inspired by his own kids — a project that started as a birthday gift for his son and grew into something bigger.

Michael James lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and three children. He is currently writing the second book in the Elias Shaw Series.