Usurper

A dead king. A new queen. An army collecting itself for war. A war that Queen Anistasia Nosov has been working toward her whole adult life. A war that will give her the ability to unlock the mysterious and consuming power which brought the previous age to its knees. The power to rule the world.

Yet, even with the army of Ayr at her back, problems persist. Her attempt to tie up loose ends has sent a critical piece of her plan into the hands to Quinn and Bernard, a pair of free-spirited bounty sheet men. The item, a mystery sending the two men on a global adventure.

While armies are clashing on one side of the central continent, well-paid assassins and mercenaries are closing in on Quinn and Bernard, attempting to remove them from the playing field before they can undermine the queen’s plans.

Swords clash, blood flows, and the dead begin to stack up across the land. Will Quinn and Berard solve the mystery before the assassins close in or will the queen get her ends? One thing is certain, it will take an army to stop these two.

SHADOW OF THE FALL

Type All Kristin Hughes wanted was a vacation on a beach somewhere quiet, a little bit of sun, the sand, and that salt spray from the waves. Sadly, that just isn’t the way her life works. In a world filled with spies, threats to national security, and impending doom, her life is lived at full speed. So, getting drug back to work by her CIA counterpart, the beautiful, yet problematic, nuclear scientist instantly finds herself and her Nuclear Emergency Search Team on a cross-country quest to locate and disable a pair of terrorist bombs.
The breadbasket of America has become ground zero for a sinister plot to destroy the nation. European arms dealer, Adrian Beqiri has been out buying old Soviet nuclear weapons for a shadowy figure. Now, that shadowy figure has sent the weaponized nukes hurtling toward the city of Chicago.
Getting some help from her friends in the FBI and the CIA, Doctor Hughes is on an all-out hunt to track down the nukes and keep them from destroying both the heartland and the impending G8 Summit. Can the NEST team keep the United States and its visiting world leaders from nuclear destruction, or will the terrorists succeed in the fall of a nation? For Kristin Hughes, there is only one outcome that counts.

Shadow Of The Fall was honored as the Fiction Category Winner and GRAND PRIZE WINNER of the 2019 Paris Book Festival. 

It also received Fiction Category Winner of the 2019 Florida Book Festival.

THE SONS OF SAVA

Stepping from the borrowed CIA jet onto the runway of the German airbase, Doctor Kristin Hughes had just been thrown into a crime scene. Bosnian war criminal Zoran Savić and his terrorist cell had stolen a suitcase-sized Cold War era nuclear bomb from a stockpile of weapons at the airbase. It was a bomb that didn’t exist on most government lists.
With the terrorist leader in custody and the remainder of his cell on the run, it’s left to Kristin Hughes, lead bomb technician for the Nuclear Emergency Search Team, to find the nuke before anyone decides to use it. Accompanied by her CIA bodyguard/assassin and a shadowy German commando, a Europe-wide quest begins to find the missing bomb.
That mission gets thrown into chaos when Hughes gets abducted during a gun battle with terrorist cell members in the heart of The Hague. To what lengths will the group Hughes works for go for the safe return of the beautiful and talented scientist with a history of finding herself in troubling spots? And what about the missing nuclear weapon? In a high-stakes manhunt on an international playing field, it’s certain that many players are going to die before the game is over.

Reflection

Beginning on the dark and gloomy seventeenth century London harbor docks, Lady Sara Anne Grey sets out to tell her tale of existence as a vampire.  Her story turns out to be not only one of a transition to the undead, but also from only daughter to self-made business mogul.  Constantly under siege from her darker nature Sara’s lighthearted youthfulness slowly gives way to pragmatism.  In telling her story of years gone by comes a realization that dealing with both the undead and the human realms has led her to view worldly events not merely as good versus evil but more situations of cause and effect.  A view that seems to slowly separate her from both the humans and vampires.

Contention

Being a Vampire isn’t easy, and Sara Grey knows it. Her continued desire for anonymity pushes her from Crete back to her ancestral home in England. There, she runs up against The Brenfield Society, who want to take possession of her mystical amulet. Sara knows she can’t give it up but isn’t sure why.
Trying to unlock some of the jewel’s secrets, Sara makes her way into the Secret Archives at the Vatican with the help of her friend and priest, Father David. But, while in Rome on their mission, they receive news that her Vampire lover, Antonio, is being imprisoned in the lands to the east of the Black Sea. This news sends the two of them off on an unplanned adventure through strange lands to rescue the one who made her, all the time having to deal with Brenfield agents that keep appearing in her path.
Once back in England, her feud with the mysterious group escalates into all-out war. The bloodshed follows Sara to her new home in New York and back to England once more. Finally, in London, with a new name and teenage appearance, she must make her case for being both human, and a Lady, at the Court of the Queen, or else. 

Contention received the Editor’s Choice Award from iUniverse publishing upon its release in 2008.

Contention was a Finalist for ForeWord Reviews 2010 Book of the Year Competition, in the Horror Category

PROGRESSION

Returning to London after the bloodletting of the American Civil War, the vampire Sara Grey discovers she’s been absent so long that the Wyndell family has all but taken over her corporate Empire. No more than settling in to deal with her issues and an attempt is made on her life by men from Grand Duke Bennett’s family. The entire family seems out to end her existence. If this wasn’t enough, she must trek off to find her wayward lover Antonio only to discover that he has given into his demonic nature. With her trusted amulet for companionship, Sara decides to deal with her problems head on. The Bennett’s all need to die, the corporation needs to go, and Antonio needs to pull it together or be replaced. That and dealing with endless wants from the crown.
From the posh streets of London to the Bristol countryside and the money-laden streets of New York City; Lady Sara Anne Grey risks final death and exposure of her vampire secret as she attempts to put her life straight. Will a life 380 years in the making end in triumph over adversity, or will one of the Bennett’s just end it?

Progression was honored as both the General Fiction category winner and The Grand Prize winner at the 2014 London Book Festival.

Progression was selected as the Runner Up in the General Fiction category of the 2015 Amsterdam Book Festival.

The BLACK MAP

After selling a load of arms to their mob employer, Captain Booker Ward and the crew of the salvage ship Kristi are offered a once-in-a-lifetime job. The only catch is, it’s out on the galactic edge.

                An Old Realm battleship has just been discovered marooned on a small planet. Since the fall of the realm, the centuries old battleship has supposedly laid derelict. It will take a team like Booker Ward’s to resurrect the long-dead ship and fly her home.

                But with big rewards come big risks. A ship as valuable as the one they are going out to retrieve won’t stay a secret for long. Once others know, there is no doubt that the Command Authority, which controls most of the spiral arm, will be coming to claim it as well.

                Can Booker Ward and his crew stand off the entire Command Authority battle fleet and get away with the ship, or are they returning to their mob employer empty handed? Will space pirates and marauders beat the Command Authority to the punch? Most importantly, can the crew even get the long-dead ship back up into space again?

                For the crew of the Kristi, it’s going to be a high stakes gamble out on the edge of the black. And it looks like there going to be a whole lot of cannon fire before this deal is done.

The Black Map was the Science Fiction Category Winner of the 2024 London Book Festival.

The Black Map was the Science Fiction Category Winner of the 2024 Hollywood Book Festival.

The Long Path

There are times when you get more than you expect. Chris Anderson is having one of those times. After receiving an intriguing email, the unassuming college professor jets off to Europe to inspect a French manuscript reported to reference the Knights Templar. Quickly drawn into the research, the obsessive Templar scholar realizes that the enigma before him is actually the start of a quest. Unwilling to let go, he heads out across Europe chasing one clue after another, and slowly puzzling out the path that leads to the hiding place of the lost Templar treasure.
Shadowed at every step by a ruthless assassin; Anderson follows the twisting path that somehow bring him back to North America. With a small group of good friends in support, Professor Anderson follows the path to its end, and the most unlikely of hiding places. The assassin, seeing the group has located the treasure, confronts Anderson and his friends in a bid to seize it for himself. The small-town treasure hunters must outwit their adversary or end up casualties of the chase. But, if they do survive, what will they do with the treasure.
Starting in the restrained world of academia and moving out into the hurried locals of Europe and America, The Long Path follows a puzzle built by generations of loyal Guardians. Anderson stands and protects the past in a climax fitting of any Knights Templar battle.