R. A. Richter

I’ve always been a story teller. I founded Empire Coffee Company, and it was my goal to create and find exotic and exciting new coffee flavor profiles. Think about how many stories are shared over a cup of coffee at home or how many business meetings are held at a local cafe. It meant a lot to me to think coffee could bring people together. After fifty years of being in the coffee business, I decided that rather than create coffee, I wanted to create characters. It was time to write my own book.

The inspiration came to me while my family and I spent a vacation on a remote island in the Caribbean. My two sons and I went scuba diving. We met a man at one of the local bars. He didn’t say much but it was what he did say that sparked that inner passion to write a story. He said, “Two in the chest, one in the head, make sure he’s dead.”

From those few words, I started to breathe life into my own characters. The story starts with a family from a peaceful town in central Pennsylvania. They are thrust into the horrors of a war, and come face to face with corruption, deceit and betrayal. In reality, there aren’t always happy endings, but discovering the truth can bring a sense of redemption and peace to a troubled life. My book The Unit tells the story of that journey.