Barrie’s Jim Hepburn admits he's always been a bit of a bookworm, but wrestled with finding stories that truly appealed to him as a young teen.
“I would devour a book in a couple of days, so the struggle of trying to find good material, and good series to get into, was always a big struggle. Whenever I would find something, or my parents would find something, I would just latch onto it," he tells BarrieToday.
Hepburn decided he wanted to help fill that gap and recently released Hunted by Fire: Fires of Innovation, which he says will be the first in a series of stories that will follow his main character, 15-year-old Felix Deltorei, whose world is ruled by barbaric dragon gods, but who dreams of rebelling.
“He has dreams of freeing everybody one day, but he’s stuck because he needs to hide his beliefs and find his own world,” Hepburn says. “He’s not combat-trained, like he’d like to be, and he’s not charismatic like his friends, but he’s very clever and resourceful and has a knack for inventing, science and engineering.”
Hepburn, who works for Toromont Cat, says his main goal when creating the story was to try to make science and engineering “cool."
“A lot of media and books for young men, all of the main characters they follow always have to be good at physical combat and violence. That draws a lot of young men in — and there is violence in Hunted By Fire — but there’s so much to life that people go through, and they have to find a way through and fight battles that aren’t physical," he says.
Hepburn says he wanted to create a character that was not only exciting to follow, but also had a lot of growth and could overcome their challenges mentally.
“That’s ultimately related to the bigger categorization problem all young people face … when they are in high school,” he says. “There are big problems in the world we all face and I am of the mind that we can always use more smart, educated and well-rounded people to help solve them.”
Hepburn, 29, says he started working on the book when he was 25, adding he learned a lot along the way.
“It’s kind of like I am writing 50 essays that all have to link together, but that people also want to read,” he said. “At the beginning, it was very overwhelming of how to cope with the challenges of how I was going to make this an enthralling story and make sure it’s the right quality to release to the world that people could pick up and enjoy.”
Hepburn hopes that any young person who reads Hunted By Fire will be encouraged to embrace subjects such as science and math, even if they believe they don’t have a natural affinity for them.
“I want to inspire them to keep taking on those challenges and to keep seeking out those challenges so that ultimately, one day, they can maybe make the world a better place in their own way," he says.
Hunted By Fire is available to purchase at the Barrie Book Inn on Duckworth Street in Barrie, Manticore Books in Orillia and online.
