Author: Helen Fields
Due to be published (Kindle, Audio and Paperback) February 2021
Category: Police Procedural, Crime Fiction, Psychological, Book Review
Elspeth, Meggy and Xavier are locked in a flat. They don’t know where they are, and they don’t know why they’re there. They only know that the shadow man has taken them, and he won’t let them go.
Desperate to escape, the three of them must find a way out of their living hell, even if it means uncovering a very dark truth.
Because the shadow man isn’t a nightmare. He’s all too real.
Author: Carl Rackman
Independently Published: September 2020
Category: Conspiracy Thriller, Suspense, SciFi, Crime, Book Review
Four years have passed since Voyager One sent back chilling photos of a spaceship from deep in interstellar space.
A shocked world prepared to meet the Visitors, but terrorism, pandemics, and global political turmoil have now consumed it. Discredited as a hoax, the Visitors have faded from public attention.
But the powerful global conspiracy known as the Triumvirate is behind much of the chaos. Creating a screen of subterfuge and misdirection, they prepare a clandestine welcome for the Visitors, whose origins may be more sinister than the aliens of popular fiction.
In a windowless shack in the woods, Lena’s life and that of her two children follows the rules set by their captor, the father: Meals, bathroom visits, study time are strictly scheduled and meticulously observed. He protects his family from the dangers lurking in the outside world and makes sure that his children will always have a mother to look after them.
One day Lena manages to flee–but the nightmare continues. It seems as if her tormentor wants to get back what belongs to him. And then there is the question whether she really is the woman called “Lena,” who disappeared without a trace 14 years ago. The police and Lena’s family are all desperately trying to piece together a puzzle which doesn’t quite seem to fit.
Into The Unbounded Night follows the lives of five troubled individuals as they struggle for survival and purpose in the first century Roman empire. The story is primarily seen through the eyes of Aislin, a refugee from Albion; other important characters include Yohanan ben Zakkai, Saul of Tarsus, the emperor Vespasian, and Azazel, a doomed angel.
Throughout Into The Unbounded Night, these characters’ lives intertwine in unexpected ways that shed light on colonization and its discontents, the relative values of dominant and tyrannized cultures, the sense of imminent apocalypse, and the holiness of life itself — even the weakest of lives.
Into The Unbounded Night is not only relevant to the world today, it is also a meditation on who we are, the stories we tell, and why we tell them.
FIRE ON THE ISLAND is a playful, romantic thriller set in contemporary Greece, featuring Nick Damigos, a gay Greek-American FBI agent, who is undercover on the island to investigate a series of mysterious fires. Set against the very real refugee crisis on the beautiful, sun-drenched Greek islands, this novel paints a loving portrait of a community in crisis.
Nick Damigos arrives on the island just in time to witness the latest fire and save a beloved truffle-sniffing dog. Hailed as a hero and embraced by the community, Nick finds himself drawn to Takis, a young bartender who becomes his primary suspect, which is a problem because they’re having an affair. Theirs is not the only complicated romance in the community and Takis isn’t the only suspicious character on the island. The priest is an art forger, a young Albanian waiter harbors a secret, the captain of the coast guard station seems to have his own agenda, and the village itself hides a violent history. Nick has to unravel the truth in time to prevent catastrophe, as he comes to terms with his own past trauma. In saving the village, he will go a long way toward saving himself.
As the people of Vourvoulos grapple with declining tourism, poverty, a refugee crisis, family feuds, and a perilously damaged church, the invasion of an arsonist in their midst may just send the village past the point of no return. Each of the characters is intriguing and crafted with true care that reveals Smith’s love for, and knowledge of Greece, where he has spent some seven years. This new romantic thriller charms in a way reminiscent of Zorba the Greek, while also shedding light on the very real challenges of life in contemporary Greece.
