BOOK GIVEAWAY: As part of my ongoing series supporting indie authors, I am giving away 3 eBook copies of Grant Pierce’s books to 3 lucky readers!
Click here to check the full entry requirements and join the giveaway!
Here is how to participate in the giveaway:
- Follow the Author: Show them some love on their social media (links provided at the end of this post).
- Leave a Comment: Read the interview and tell us:
What specific answer in the interview made you want to read his book/books?
A small favor to ask:
If you are one of the lucky winners, leaving a short, honest review on Amazon or/and Goodreads once you finish reading would mean the world to the author. It is completely optional and never required, but as indie writers know, even a quick two-sentence review helps a book immensely!
About the author
When an epic fantasy series opens with a fantastic opener, rich character dynamics, and quickly evolves into one of the most inventive sagas in modern dark fantasy, you know you’ve found something special. With The Faceless Chronicles, author Grant Pierce completely shatters standard fantasy tropes by building intricate “worlds within worlds” in which every single choice carries heavy, painful, and visceral consequences.
Spanning a gripping 6-book journey from prophecies, demons, and deadly reapers in the early books to a desperate struggle against an apocalyptic plague and the terrifying shapeshifter Valko, Pierce’s storytelling is both breathless and psychologically intense. Reinventing the stakes with every installment, he crafts a world where the line between hero and monster blurs brilliantly.
Behind this fast-paced, magic-fueled universe lies a fascinating mind. As a former psychologist, Grant channels that background into crafting villains like Valko with chilling depth, antagonists who genuinely believe they are the heroes of their own stories.
Even more inspiring is his publishing journey: a 1,000-page manuscript tucked away on a hard drive for 25 years (which has since been refined into the series’ 400-page first book), resurrected only when his 18-year-old daughter devoured it and asked the question that changed everything: “What happens next?“
With Book 5, The Thousand Legion, launching today on Amazon, and the grand finale, The Heir to the Abyss, arriving on November 15th, Grant took the time to answer a few questions about his writing process.
Read on to get to know the mind behind the magic!
Interview Questions
- For many readers, a great book isn’t just about words on a page; it’s a full sensory experience. If your book/books were a physical element (a specific weather, a texture, or a taste), what would it feel like?
If The Faceless Chronicles were a physical experience, it would be a violent thunderstorm sweeping across an ancient battlefield. You would feel the cold rain lashing your skin, smell the smoke and ash carried on the wind, and taste the metallic tang of blood in the air. Every flash of lightning would reveal something both wondrous and terrifying. The storm would seem relentless, threatening to consume everything in its path. Yet somewhere beyond the darkness, a glimmer of sunlight would break through the clouds, promising that even the fiercest storm must eventually end.
That’s the experience I want my readers to have. A world filled with danger, betrayal, impossible choices, and terrible consequences, but also one where courage, love, friendship, and sacrifice can prevail against overwhelming darkness.
- Many readers experience stories as vivid movies playing out in their heads rather than linear sentences. When you write, do you see the scenes unfolding visually first, or do you hear the characters’ voices?
For me, it begins as a movie playing out in my mind. I see the setting, the characters, their movements, and their expressions. Whether it’s an enormous battle between armies or an intimate confrontation between two characters, I visualize the scene before translating it into words.
But the characters’ voices matter just as much. I’ve spent so much time developing their personalities, motivations, fears, and desires that I know how they think and how they’re likely to react. Sometimes, a character’s response will take a scene in a direction I hadn’t originally anticipated.
Things get hairy when the first draft of the “movie” is playing out in my mind and characters break the 4th wall, look at me, and say something like, “My character would never say that. Change the dialogue. Here are some suggestions.”
- If you were forbidden from using written language to summarize your main character, what 3 songs, objects, or images would you hand someone to explain who they are?
If I were to choose three images to represent Valko Vasseur, the central antagonist of The Faceless Chronicles, they would tell the story of a shapeshifter who sees murder as art, whose identity constantly shifts, and who seeks so much power that even the heavens would tremble.
The first image is a man holding a dagger like it’s a paintbrush on a canvas. The image on the canvas is a tortured warrior with fresh, bloody scars over every inch of his body.
The second image is a shattered mirror, each fragment reflecting a different face.
The third image is a solitary figure seated on a throne of bones atop the highest mountain, surrounded by the ruins of a thousand civilizations. He wears a crown, but no one is left to bow before him. He looks up and challenges the heavens because no one else can stand up to him.
- Every book has hidden patterns, subtle details, or background elements that most people miss on a first read. What is one tiny, easily overlooked detail in your book/books that holds a massive secret meaning for you?
“Every villain is the hero of their own story.” My college mentor taught me this while I was studying psychology. He pointed out that even Darth Vader never thinks of himself as evil. In fact, he sees himself as the hero of his own story. This mentality applies to politicians, bullies, criminals, and more. By the end of the conversation, my mentor invited me to do a forensic psychology internship at a medium-security prison. That’s where I first developed the personality for my series villain, Valko, who truly believes he’s the hero of the story. Valko wants everyone to believe the story, The Faceless Chronicles, is about him and that every story should revolve around him. The protagonists believe history belongs to everyone. The Faceless Chronicles answers who is telling the story and whose story it is. History is written by the victors.
- Years from now, a reader might forget the exact plot points or character names, but they’ll remember how your book/books made them feel. What is the single emotional residue you want left behind in their mind?
I want readers to walk away with a sense of hard-won hope. The Faceless Chronicles is filled with darkness, betrayal, suffering, and impossible choices. Good people make terrible mistakes. Evil sometimes triumphs. Heroes and villains fall, and victories can come at devastating costs. But beneath all that darkness lies a simple truth: doing what is right still matters, even when it seems hopeless.
I don’t want readers to believe that courage guarantees victory or that good always triumphs over evil. Life doesn’t work that way, and neither does my fictional world. I want them to recognize that true heroism isn’t measured by whether someone wins, but by what they’re willing to sacrifice for others.
Years from now, if readers remember nothing else about my books, I hope they remember that even in the darkest moments, faced with impossible odds, there is still something worth fighting for.
- If you could step inside your book/books for just 10 minutes as an invisible observer, which specific scene would you want to physically stand in and experience?
My books are filled with battle scenes that scale from the bizarre (e.g., sentient water attacking ships) to the more traditional (e.g., an army of monsters spawned from the depths of the Abyss attacking an alliance of humans, orcs, reapers, gorgons, banshees, and other creatures of myth). However, even if I were invisible, I’m not sure I’d survive these scenes for ten minutes.
Therefore, I’d probably choose to witness a scene where the series protagonist faces a choice in the first book. Does Kalen murder his best friend, Logan, and prevent the apocalypse, or refuse because there is never justification for an evil act? Does he ask forgiveness and permission from Logan? I would want to stand beside him and witness the struggle between his loyalty to his friend and his responsibility to protect the world. I’m drawn to the moments when characters face impossible choices, knowing whatever they decide will have consequences.
Those impossible choices capture much of what The Faceless Chronicles is about: Love, loyalty, sacrifice, free will, and the price of power.
And perhaps, standing there as an invisible observer, I might finally know whether I would have the courage to make the same choice.
- Writing a book is a constant wrestling match with words. Was there a scene or a concept that felt almost impossible to translate into language, no matter how many times you rewrote it?
The climax of the final book in The Faceless Chronicles nearly broke me as an author. The challenge wasn’t simply describing spectacular battles, powerful magic, or terrifying enemies. There was plenty of that across multiple battlefields. Both heroes and villains faced internal struggles as they fought for the fate of all worlds. But the greatest challenge was bringing six books of intertwined stories to a satisfying conclusion.
I had to pull together every major plot thread, decide who would survive, determine who would emerge victorious, and ensure that the characters’ journeys reached meaningful conclusions. Earlier books offered some wiggle room. Unresolved conflicts and unanswered questions could be addressed in a sequel. But there is no cleaning things up after the last book. Everything has to come together by the time the reader turns the final page.
Not every character gets a happy ending. Readers don’t have to agree with every outcome. Some characters might die, others might suffer terrible losses, and certain victories might come at devastating costs. Readers may grieve for beloved characters or wish events had unfolded differently. But I believe readers deserve an ending that feels earned, complete, and faithful to the story. If major plot threads remain unresolved or readers feel cheated because the conclusion fails to deliver on the promises made throughout the series, then I’ve failed them as an author.
Just as importantly, I have to experience that sense of satisfaction myself. If I don’t feel that the story has reached its rightful conclusion, how can I expect my readers to? I rewrote the ending of the final book repeatedly, struggling to strike the right balance between spectacle, emotion, and closure.
Ultimately, I wanted readers to reach those final chapters emotionally exhausted, desperate to discover what happens next, and genuinely uncertain which of the characters they’d grown to love would survive, which would triumph, and which would fall. And when they finally close the last book, I want them to feel that every sacrifice, every heartbreak, and every hard-won victory mattered. The ending doesn’t have to leave them happy, but it should leave them satisfied that the journey was worth taking.
- If your main character suddenly gained full control over their own fate and decided to walk away from the main plot of your book/books, what totally different life would they choose?
Kalen has never craved power, glory, or recognition. He doesn’t want to be a legendary hero. He just wants an ordinary life surrounded by those he loves. He’d be a blacksmith, get married, raise children, and live long enough to watch his grandchildren grow up.
However, walking away from power is easier said than done. Once people acquire power, they often resist surrendering it. The more power they accumulate, the harder it becomes to let go. Over time, even the most well-intentioned individuals can succumb to its corrupting influence. This is true for heroes as much as for villains.
Throughout The Faceless Chronicles, Kalen acquires extraordinary power. What will he ultimately do with it? Will he succumb to its temptations, or will he prove to be the exception? That’s a question I definitively answer before the series ends.
- If you had to design a 3-frame comic or a short silent animation that captures the exact heart of your book/books without a single word of text, what would we see?
I would create a three-panel comic illustrating Valko’s transformation throughout The Faceless Chronicles.
In the first panel, a man is hiding from an angry mob while clutching a bloody dagger. He is outnumbered, but he is clearly not innocent.
In the second panel, a larger mob confronts him. This time, the man has grown twice as tall, with vampiric fangs and a bloody sword in place of the dagger. He is no longer hiding. He stands his ground.
In the third panel, the man has become an enormous, muscular demon with horns and wings, towering over the crowd. Now he is the aggressor, driving the mob before him with a massive black two-handed sword. The balance of fear and power has completely reversed.
The three panels capture Valko’s arc as he acquires more and more power. He begins as a man who operates from the shadows, becomes someone who refuses to yield, and ultimately transforms into a monstrous force whose very shadow makes people tremble.
Acquiring power merely reveals who he always wanted to be.
- Books often transform the reader, but they also change the writer. What is something you see or understand differently about the real world now that you’ve finished writing your book/books?
Before writing The Faceless Chronicles, my background in psychology had already taught me to look beyond people’s actions and ask why they behaved as they did. I was fascinated by the ways people justified cruelty while believing themselves decent, even heroic.
But spending six books inside the minds of both heroes and villains changed the questions I ask. Understanding why someone does something is not the same as excusing it. I could give a character fears, painful experiences, and seemingly compelling reasons for harming another character, then portray those same events from the victim’s perspective. Both perspectives might be understandable, but that didn’t make the harm any less real.
That realization has carried over into how I look at the world. I’m less inclined to accept someone’s stated intentions as proof of their character and more interested in the consequences of their choices, especially when they hold power over others. At the same time, I’m more reluctant to define someone solely by the worst thing they’ve ever done. People can recognize their mistakes, take responsibility, and change. I’ve also come to believe that redemption requires more than simply believing oneself worthy of forgiveness. Forgiveness may offer a path toward reconciliation, but redemption must be demonstrated through actions.
Perhaps the greatest lesson I’ve taken from writing these books is that people aren’t defined by what they believe about themselves. They’re defined by the choices they make, particularly when doing what is right comes at a personal cost.
Links to find the author:
Amazon links to the books
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