Even before my first attempt at a novel in middle school, scribbling in one of those old-fashioned black composition notebooks, I've always had a deep love of books. This passion would carry me into adulthood, where in between getting my Masters in Library and Information Science and running a library of my own, I have now finished five novel-length projects. In Summer 2018 (when only two of these five were complete), I entered into the CRAFT First Chapters contest. While I did not place, my excerpt was ranked among the top 2% of entries, and I have continued to submit to other literary journals.
I am compelled by stories where the characters feel like real people, treat each other and their world with heart and humor, and have a touch of genre-savviness. I delight in inventing new challenges to pit quick-witted protagonists against, and enjoy blending genres to create engaging and unique reading experiences.
To date, the majority of my writing takes place in the world of the Empowered, a superheroic setting that allows me to play with multiple genres and themes. Originally written as a single extremely long novel, the intended first book of this series has now split into three concurrent novels - and spawned two additional stories as well!
It has been fifty years since the Infinity Ring experiment, when the population of the planet Earth was showered with an unknown form of cosmic energy. Since then, individuals with extraordinary abilities – the Empowered – have appeared all over the world. To the general public, their presence is a carefully guarded secret, but there is no telling when or where the next superhuman will appear.
When a heist goes catastrophically wrong, nineteen-year-old cat burglar Hailey Grasp finds herself joining the ranks of the Empowered. She is promptly snatched up by SOMS, the Superhero Observational and Maintenance Society. As the organization responsible for keeping the world in the dark about superhumans, and keeping superhumans on the right side of the law, they are eager to recruit and reform Hailey.
While Hailey is interested in learning more about her new abilities, she is hesitant to give SOMS her loyalty. The circumstances surrounding her rescue, and her rescuer Carolina Dash, leave many questions unanswered. Hailey eventually develops a friendship with Carolina, but remains skeptical of SOMS overall. To further complicate matters, Saxton Churchill, the subject of her would-be heist, aligns himself with SOMS’ sworn enemies, the Infinity Ring Exiles. When they launch a joint invasion, both Hailey and her new friend are forced to flee.
Now on the run from both SOMS and their adversaries, Hailey and Carolina are approached by Sir Isaac, a superhero of yesteryear. Unaffiliated with either SOMS or IRE, he seeks to end the ongoing conflict between the two organizations, and asks both women to join his fledgling team. Taking any port in a storm, Hailey accepts, and joins the Coalition of Assorted Super Heroes.
A lab disaster sends a man fleeing a fire that he fears he has caused. In the wreckage that he leaves behind, he abandons the gauntlets that were supposed to help him control his powers. As he disappears into London, he finds work as a bouncer - at a club owned by a former member of the Infinity Ring Exiles, a woman named Veronica Matthews.
Meanwhile, a superhero of years past, Sir Isaac, struggles to provide a home for his foster daughter Claire, a young woman with psychic powers and a history of being used by parental figures. The matter is made more difficult by the arrival of Dr. David Lang, a biologist who was recently rescued from a disastrous encounter in the Amazon - an event of which he has no memory. Claire chafes at the doctor's intrusion into a home that she was just starting to find stable, and struggles to find a way to prove her independence to Isaac. Simultaneously, Dr. Lang tries to uncover what exactly happened to him - and the rest of his now-missing colleagues.
Into this web of complicated relationships enters Onyx Matthews, Veronica's estranged son. Unlike his mother, however, he is actively working for IRE. And this organization has just given him his most exciting mission yet - breaking into and stealing a very specific object from Isaac's home.
Silena Beaufont and Dharta Brighton are career criminals - young, in love, and most notably, Empowered. Currently in between jobs, they discover a red envelope on their doorstep, offering an address and an implied opportunity.
Unfortunately, upon a visit to the Sieve, Silena and Dharta find the letter to be a trap, and the antiheroes are beset by a SOMS platoon. in the ensuing fight, Dharta is captured. Silena, however, escapes, thanks to the timely intervention of The Gazelle, a local vigilante.
As Dharta struggles to determine a plan to escape SOMS' superhuman prison of Stormwatch, he finds two unlikely allies. One is Dr. Sonya Hitomi a medic employed under duress at the prison. The other is Falconer, who claims to have escaped the prison before - and has a plan to do it again.
Meanwhile, outside of jail, Silena seeks to break her beau out. But in order to do so, she's going to need some help. The outfitter of most of her criminal career, Maximilian Proust, will do nicely for starters, but she'll need some muscle too. With an audacious plan forming, she requests the assistance of The Gazelle to stage a jailbreak.
Unbeknownst to all, a jailbreak is already in the works. To solve both the problem of an unwanted vigilante, and the overreaching control of SOMS, Ashton Kukri has opted to work with a group named IRE, that has just the solution for him...
For seven of the past eight months, Jack Falcon’s life has been looking up. After moving to Halifax, Massachusetts, he and his fellow private investigator Fred Pearsson have achieved household-name recognition, romance has bloomed at the public library, and most importantly of all, Jack has finally put the traumatic event that caused the abrupt and decisive end to his military stint in Vashitok behind him.
Unfortunately, the eighth month has not gone quite so well.
As Halifax’s mayor snaps up Fred for a swanky city hall job, and Jack’s clientele begins to dwindle, spring is off to a poor start. Things take a turn for the stranger when Jack is the subject of a peculiar attempted burglary. Instead of anything of monetary value, the culprits seek to make off with Jack’s private notes on his most recent cases. The situation is complicated further by the arrival of Jack’s ex Athena – who he last saw eight months ago in Vashitok.
Athena’s spontaneous Halifax appearance is the first herald of the past returning to haunt Jack, but hardly the last. As the detective delves deeper into the attempted burglary, interviewing shady locksmiths, avoiding the unfriendly police, and soliciting the insights of his librarian girlfriend, Jack discovers that an organized crime wave is rising – one with ambitious plans, superhuman capabilities, and a troubling connection to Jack’s own past. Now, in order to protect his friends, and preserve the life he’s built in Halifax, Jack must step back into the shadows, and embrace a past that he'd hoped to leave buried.
Patrick Shay is a weapon. As one of the top-ranking agents in the Superhero Observational and Maintenance Society, he brought Empowered criminals to justice the world over, thwarted the plans of the Infinity Ring Exiles countless times, and was constantly ready to fire back with a bullet or a snappy reply. But after a stint of being hypnotically controlled by a supervisor, he left SOMS behind. Now a freelance agent, he's free to tackle whatever missions he chooses - even if he does have to do them alone.
Vanessa Martinez is a weapon. During her time as the top enforcer of the Infinity Ring Exiles, she brought down SOMS' flying island headquarters, scrapped with the most powerful heroes of yesteryear, and made a name for herself that was feared across the globe. But following the Second Infinity Ring, Vanessa has broken from IRE. It's harder on her own, but she continues to protect the Empowered who would otherwise be forced into bending the knee to multinational organizations.
When a new Empowered is sighted in Sri Lanka, both Vanessa and Patrick find themselves drawn into a situation that proves more dangerous than either had expected. Forced into a fight for their lives, the former enemies must join forces, and are surprised to discover that they work better together than they would have guessed.
Armed with bullets, bravado, acid, and attitude, there's nothing that can stand in the two's way - that is, if they don't kill each other first.
In addition to the CASH Universe and its handful of spinoffs, I have also written in non-superhuman settings. These have included projects that I have submitted to writing journals, and other works that simply had too interesting of a premise to pass up.
In the world of Bad Luck, individuals are born with a number of tallymarks on their skin - a physical representation of their ability to change their fate. People can expend these marks to tip the scales of the world in their favor, but it's never a sure thing. Additionally, the marks are single-use - and therefore high-risk.
Layd hasn't spent a tallymark in years. He's been saving them up, ever since he met the love of his life, Deckett. But when his marriage proposal fails to go according to plan, Layd starts to wonder if he's made a mistake.
Written for a contest within my writing group, Willow of Whisp explores a dark covenant that has been made between the people of Whisp, and the fae of the Greenverge. The compact is explicit: A child a year, Whisp shall not fear. But last year, the fae were cheated of their prize, and now seek recompense.
Only Willow, the mayor's daughter, can untangle what has transpired. Aided by the wandering spirit of her late friend, she braves both the forest and the dark secrets of her own village, in order to discover the truth - and prevent any others from falling to the same fate.