Interview with L. Paul Dorsey, Author of Forbidden Inheritance

What can you tell us about your new release, Forbidden Inheritance?

Family dynamics can change quickly when the life of a mother or father is on the line. In Forbidden Inheritance, when Larry Cooper fights for his father’s life, he discovers many things about his family and past that challenge his understanding of who he is.

As a financial advisor, I spend more time with clients helping them understand who they are so they can decide how to best use their money. I’m more of a psychologist than an investment analyst.

A few years ago, after a client received an inheritance, a long lost son appeared. She had given him up for adoption at sixteen. It reminded me of another family who had a boy that didn’t look like the rest of them. For years, they told him he was mixed up at the hospital.

What if something like that happened, but neither were true? It would make a great story. Mix in the requisite family drama, and you might start asking, “Is this about my family?”

What or who inspired you to become an author?

A decade ago I read a quote that went something like, “My biggest concern with middle-age was standing still.”

All my life, I focussed on numbers. Studying math and science in a college-prep all boys high school, my advisor encouraged me to become an engineer. Halfway through college, I realized there was more to life than engineering. Being an NROTC student, I had to graduate in four years so I switched to Math.

Because Math was in Arts and Sciences, they made me take a writing class. My words affected people more than the numbers I worked with. I never forgot that.

What’s on your top 5 list for the best books you’ve ever read?

A Separate Peace – John Knowles

1984 – George Orwell

Wall of Silence – Tracy Buchanan

How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie

The Happiness Project – Gretchen Rubin

What’s your favorite thing about writing?

When I write, and I can get in a good groove, my subconscious comes out of nowhere and I learn something about myself and my characters

What is a typical day like for you?

As a financial advisor, I help people understand the markets. The only way to do this is to tell stories. I’m the first to admit, I can’t see the future. If anybody tells you where the market will be a year from now, you should run fast. But I teach from experience. As a professional, this is the third major market turndown. I find myself as a psychologist rather than an advisor. So I tell stories to get my point across. Then I come home and write, occasionally.

What scene in Forbidden Inheritance was your favorite to write?

Near the middle of the book the protagonist’s father is stuck in a nursing home and his mother doesn’t want anybody to know. She blackmails his little brother into helping him escape.

I spend a considerable amount of time with clients in nursing homes. They have a different perspective and I learn from them. As I walk around, each one of them wants out… like dogs want out of the kennel.

Do you have a motto, quote or philosophy you live by?

Put your oar in the water.

When I was in the Navy, I remember complaining to the Executive Officer about something that I didn’t realize I could control.

He was rational. I respected him, still do to this day.

One day when he got tired of hearing me complain he said. “Put your oar in the water.”

It changed my perspective, and I solved the problem.

I thought of him when I enrolled to get my Masters in English and Creative Writing. If I didn’t put my oar in the water, I wasn’t going to get anywhere, let alone write a book.

L. Paul Dorsey is the author of the new book Forbidden Inheritance.

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