Winchester landed a starring role in the first novel by a Kentucky-based structural engineer and professor.

“Equilibrium,” by Thomas Burns, follows the life of Nick, an architect, over the course of about two decades, Burns said. As the story begins, Nick is a talented architect working in Lexington and building a prestigious career. Then one of his projects ends in a catastrophic failure and costs him his firm as well as much of his life.

Nick settles in Winchester and starts over teaching at the fictional Winchester Community College. As time passes, he begins investigating the real reasons behind the building’s failure, Burns said.

“I thought Winchester’s proximity to Lexington was the type of setting the character needed to be in as he tries to find redemption in his life,” Burns said.

Writing a novel is a new life turn for Burns. He said he’s been a college professor for 30 years and did plenty of writing in reports and technical documents. He’s thought about writing a novel years ago, but started working on it seriously two years ago.

“I was fulfilling a promise to my mom about writing a novel,” he said. “I was at a point in my life where I could do it.”

While the book draws on Burns’ experiences as an engineer and as a professor at a community college along with real events, he said it is fiction.

“It incorporates a lot of historical events from both the real world as well as the world of engineering,” he said. “I’ve tried to mask what they are because it’s fiction but people should be able to recognize what they are.”

“Equilibrium” was originally published in digital form in May for Kindle. A paperback version was released earlier this month on Amazon.