Narelle here. Today for Fiction Friday I’m sharing an interview with D.J. Williams about his new book, Battle of Lion Rock, that’s releasing on January 10, 2025.
What inspired you to write the Beacon Hill series? Can you tell us about the research that went into writing this novel?
As an expat who grew up in Hong Kong until my mid-teens, I always wanted to write a supernatural YA series rooted in that part of the world with characters inspired by many of my childhood friends. As the series has progressed, Jack Reynolds and his band of misfits find themselves traveling throughout Asia and beyond into other supernatural realms. It’s been an evolution I never imagined would finally make it onto the page, but with Battle of Lion Rock the dream of the trilogy has gone beyond what I ever imagined.
I guess you could say the research has taken decades, as I’ve allowed my imagination to run free, rooted in my travels and life experience—while revisiting my years growing up in Kowloon and the adventurous path that I have traveled since. As the years have passed, I’ve developed a greater appreciation for where I was raised and the countries and places I have experienced firsthand. From the city lights across Asia to the jungles of Africa to the rivers and mountains of South America, I’ve been inspired to bring readers into these incredible settings while taking them even further into supernatural realms that will leave them holding on tight. Now with Battle of Lion Rock on the verge of being released, I have the satisfaction that all my inspiration and research has brought readers an epic story that began as a spark of an idea in my imagination.
You used your many travels as inspiration for the settings of the series. How can young people benefit from experiencing other cultures?
In today’s world, whether you’re a young person or part of an older generation, isolation can creep into our lives even though social platforms are more popular than ever. As I’ve met many young people over the last few years, it’s become clear that validation is often based on views, clicks, and likes. Growing up, I never had this distraction because it didn’t exist yet—but it is definitely a challenge today not to get sucked into watching the world around me rather than experiencing the world and other cultures firsthand.
I’ve learned from cross-cultural experiences to broaden my perspective on society and expand my worldview beyond my immediate surroundings. There is a greater emphasis on diversity in today’s culture, and there is also an opportunity for greater empathy and tolerance if we choose to respect the differences in our beliefs, traditions, and points of view. We don’t have to all agree, but we should be able to have conversations that grow and encourage friendship. And we can find creativity, fresh inspiration, and connection by engaging in diverse cultural expressions—art, music, cuisines, storytelling.
Young people face a great challenge to fight against isolation masked as engagement and to broaden their experience across various cultures that allow them to adapt amid unfamiliar environments in a globalized world that is constantly changing. Overall, experiencing other cultures enriches young people’s lives by offering them a broader perspective while fostering diverse friendships, as well as offering an enriching experience that will help them thrive in a multicultural world for a lifetime.
The Beacon Hill series has several themes (including forgiveness) that develop over the three books. What do the characters learn from the first to the third books, and why are these themes important to today’s teens?
In the Beacon Hill series, the characters undergo significant growth across the trilogy, learning valuable lessons that I hope resonate with today’s teens. You mentioned forgiveness, which is a central theme from the first pages of Hunt for Eden’s Star. Jack is challenged with whether to hold on to anger, resentment, and revenge or to embrace forgiveness, restoration, and a faith beyond simply inner peace. It’s not an easy decision, as I believe we can all understand. When you’re faced with supernatural forces attempting to destroy the world, those choices become even more difficult.
One cornerstone of the trilogy is the exploration of faith woven into the characters’ journeys. Each learns to lean on their faith during difficulties, finding strength and guidance along their path—especially when using the supernatural artifacts they uncover. Naturally, this theme underscores the importance of rooting our lives in faith greater than ourselves.
Family dynamics also play a crucial role in the characters’ lives and the overall story. Each character navigates challenges while searching for unconditional love, and some of them find this in unexpected ways during times of adversity. The value of friendship also shines through as Jack, Emma, Vince, Tim, Amina, Eliška, and Bau must rely on each other regardless of their differences. Family and friendship require trust, loyalty, and respect—and genuine family and friends stand by each other through thick and thin.
In the trilogy, each of the characters demonstrates courage in unique ways, standing up for what they believe in and taking risks in this world and beyond. What they learn is that courage is not the absence of fear but the strength rooted in Elyon to persevere and confront challenges with resilience. The series also sensitively—and sometimes brutally portrays how Jack deals with loss and grief. He experiences various stages: anger, depression, acceptance, and an underlying battle to even the score for his loss. My hope is tackling this head-on allows teens and YA readers to understand and process their own feelings surrounded by a community of friends and family who will walk with them through the valley to the mountaintop.
Along this journey, each of the characters faces obstacles, setbacks, and choices. They learn to believe in themselves and in a greater power, to harness their strengths, and to persevere through adversity no matter how their story ends. Belief is another cornerstone that helps young adults to stay resilient when they face challenges or obstacles that threaten to throw them off the course ahead.
These themes are particularly important to today’s teens as they navigate the complexities of adolescence and the pressures of modern life. In the Beacon Hill trilogy, they will find characters they can relate to amid an entertaining and epic journey that pushes them to the very edge of this world and beyond.
In the book, various factions learn to work together to defeat the rising evil. How can readers apply this message of unity to today’s challenges?
The message of unity portrayed in the trilogy, culminating in Battle of Lion Rock, holds significant relevance for addressing today’s challenges. Just as the factions unite against a common enemy, building bridges across differences is essential in today’s culture. Beyond conflict there is collaboration and cooperation to overcome challenges.
In the Beacon Hill trilogy, we follow Jack and his friends as they learn to embrace diverse perspectives and as they sacrifice to find crucial common ground to defeat the darkness that lurks in the shadows and other realms. In Battle of Lion Rock, each brings their unique strengths, gifts, and abilities to conquer their enemy—but not all will survive.
Today’s world often faces division and polarization. The message of unity from the series encourages readers to go beyond superficial differences, biases, or selfish ambitions to focus on shared humanity, a community of collective well-being, and the pursuit of a united faith greater and deeper than we could have on our own. As the Beacon Hill series culminates in Battle of Lion Rock, the factions mobilize against overwhelming odds, and when the dust settles readers discover how amplified community drives meaningful impact for the greater good.
You wrote this series with the intent of creating books that are clean and uplifting (while also thrilling and adventure-filled). Why was this focus important to you?
Clean and uplifting stories can deeply resonate with readers and provide moments of joy, empathy, and reflection, fostering a meaningful connection between the reader and the characters’ journeys. Thrilling and adventure-filled stories, especially those wrapped in the supernatural, captivate readers’ imaginations and transport them to exciting worlds. Such stories not only entertain but stimulate creativity and curiosity, encouraging readers to explore new ideas and possibilities.
Creating the Beacon Hill series as a clean, uplifting, thrilling, and adventurous read is important because I want to provide readers—especially young adults—with a story that offers a positive influence through lessons that will travel with them beyond the last page. In a world where negativity and cynicism can be pervasive, uplifting themes such as courage, friendship, forgiveness, and resilience provide readers with hope and inspiration. And I believe these themes and the story within the pages of Beacon Hill resonate with readers and encourage them to embrace not only positive values in their own lives but a search for deeper faith.
As an author, I want my stories to reflect in some way my personal values and the faith that has been rooted in my soul since I was eight years old. Crafting the Beacon Hill series has allowed me to embody those values and to share underlying messages with readers that I hope will last a lifetime. Ultimately, my mission in writing Beacon Hill is to offer readers an enriching, entertaining, and uplifting experience.
How has this series shaped you as a writer?
The Beacon Hill series has been instrumental in shaping my writing style, deepening my understanding of story, and fostering a commitment to create meaningful stories for all ages. Writing the series has allowed me an opportunity to delve deeply into aspects of the characters that resonated with me. Each character in the series has a distinct personality, motivations, and growth arc. Through their journeys, I’ve grown in my understanding of the foundational importance of multidimensional characters no matter what story is on the page.
I explored themes such as forgiveness, faith, friendship, courage, and overcoming adversity, and was challenged to weave deeper meaning into the narrative while keeping the story and world engaging and accessible to readers of various ages. Balancing thrilling adventure and supernatural elements with uplifting and clean content challenged me to maintain tension and excitement in the plot while ensuring the series remained positive and suitable for a wide audience. Believe me, I pushed the characters and series to the very edge.
For the last few years, I’ve been on a journey of personal growth as an author. I’ve been challenged to push boundaries, explore overarching themes, and improve my craft. Writing integral, impactful scenes and exploring characters’ emotional journeys in Beacon Hill has helped me develop as a storyteller. I’ve aimed to evoke emotions in readers while creating moments of empathy, joy, sorrow, anger, frustration, and triumph that resonate on a deeper level. It’s been an experience with challenges and successes, and it will continue to influence and inspire my writing in the years ahead.
This series involves a search for ancient artifacts. If you could discover an ancient artifact, what would you hope to find? What would that artifact do?
If I were to discover an ancient artifact, I’d like to find Dragon Soul or Eden’s Star. Both have deep historical significance in the Beacon Hill series. With both in hand, I’d be willing to travel to another realm and ride with the Cherub of old.
How has your work as a producer and director impacted your writing?
My experience as a producer and director has enriched my writing by providing me with a unique perspective on storytelling, character dynamics, visual aesthetics, and the collaborative process, all of which contribute to creating compelling narratives on the page.
Directing and producing involve crafting visual narratives that resonate with audiences—whether the visual is unscripted or scripted. With that background in my toolbox, I’ve learned to have a heightened awareness of pacing, structure, and engaging an audience from the outset. My writing style is very much like watching a scene in a film, so creating scenes and dialogue that advance the plot in a visual and emotional way is always at the front of my mind.
Throughout the process of writing the Beacon Hill series, I have experienced integral collaboration and teamwork at various stages. Similarly, in production, I value constructive criticism, creative ideas, and camaraderie throughout each stage. With a strong editorial team, I’m empowered and freed to dive deeper into my visual imagination and paint vivid images with words to immerse readers in the world.
How do you hope this series will impact readers?
My hope is that the series will inspire readers of all ages to face daunting challenges with courage and resilience. Through the journeys of Jack and his band of misfits, readers may find encouragement to confront their own obstacles and adversities in life.
As I’ve mentioned, the series explores forgiveness, faith, friendship, and the complexities of family. I hope these themes provoke reflection among readers about their own beliefs, relationships, and values. By portraying characters dealing with loss, grief, and the search for meaning, Beacon Hill offers an entertaining space for readers to empathize and process their own emotions. I hope it will encourage them to explore how they navigate difficult feelings and to find strength in challenging times.
From the first page, the series demonstrates the power of inner strength and the importance of supportive relationships to encourage personal growth and the pursuit of resilience in the face of adversity. Through the search for supernatural artifacts and the exploration of faith, the series digs deeper into cultural and spiritual awareness, culminating in the last book of the trilogy, Battle of Lion Rock. Along my own journey, I’ve found friends and a compass that guides my steps. My hope is readers will discover the same.
Along with exploring thoughtful themes, Beacon Hill also aims to entertain and bring enjoyment to readers searching for escapism and exploration wrapped in an adventurous plot, engaging characters, ancient mysteries, and the unpredictable. By weaving together the supernatural with profound human experiences, readers will be challenged to engage with deep questions about identity, relationships, and the journey toward deeper faith. I believe this combination of adventure, introspection, and moral and spiritual exploration resonates strongly with readers. When the final page of Battle of Lion Rock is turned, my hope is readers will be further along their journey in this world toward the great beyond.
A thrilling third installment in the Beacon Hill YA fantasy series which Ryan Steck* praised as “a blistering, high-stakes, fast-paced supernatural thriller that’s impossible to put down.”
Ladened with guilt over the innocent lives lost in the war, Jack Reynolds is more determined than ever to honor his sister’s promise. He must fulfill a quest to unite supernatural artifacts missing for centuries and hunted by the Cherub, followers of Elyon, and the Merikh, an evil group seeking world domination. With Eden’s Star as their guide, Jack and Emma journey from this world into other realms to uncover ancient secrets buried in a legendary battle. What they discover could alter the course of history.
Back at Beacon Hill, tensions are rising among the Cherub. Friendships and alliances are tested as great loss divides the followers of Elyon. While the thief of Dragon Soul seeks greater power, a dark force from centuries ago has awakened in a realm untouchable since the Mercy Covenant. Revenge rooted in the past collides with the present, forcing Jack to fight against his greatest fear as a legendary warrior’s unrelenting power threatens the destruction of everything and everyone he loves.
Battle of Lion Rock is the third novel in the Beacon Hill series, an epic young adult supernatural fantasy that launches you on an action-packed quest for ancient artifacts, secret realms, and true allies. This book is for readers who love fantasy, incredible world building, adventure, found family, loyal friendships, a taste of romance, and the ultimate gift: forgiveness.
Buy Battle of Lion Rock from Tyndale.
With the DNA of a world traveler, D. J. Williams was born and raised in Hong Kong, igniting an adventurous spirit. Providing a fresh voice in mystery, suspense, and YA fantasy, Williams’s novels have climbed the charts, ranking as high as #1 on Amazon Hot New Releases. His books The Auctioneer and Hunt for Eden’s Star have received stellar reviews from Kirkus Reviews, the most trusted voice in book discovery. The trailers and documentary of his latest YA series, Beacon Hill, have reached over 1.8 million views. Battle of Lion Rock is book three in the Beacon Hill series. Williams has also been an executive producer and director on over five hundred episodes of broadcast television. To learn more, visit djwilliamsbooks.com.
