Books
November, 2022
The Relic Thief
(2022)
“Destiny is a ride on the back of a wild beast. You can’t control it. You can only slap its hide and hope it takes the path you want.”
Nila cares nothing for destiny. She steals relics for the danger. Running the roofs, evading guards and dodging traps in her pursuit of these coveted but illegal artifacts makes her heart race, reminds her that she is more than just the ghost of a girl forced to flee her homeland.
Danger turns deadly, however, when a cloaked stranger lures her into a plot to rekindle a magic that once destroyed a world. Destiny is driving her down a path of horror and darkness, and she must change its course before she loses everything.
The Relic Thief (Book 1 of The Other Side of Darkness) is a provocative and thrilling, fast-paced hopepunk fantasy full of heists, monsters, pirates, zombies and a backstory that will cut your heart out.
Trigger Warning: descriptions of violence, gore, torture, reference to child sexual abuse
"Amazing, amazing, amazing...Terrific writing. Excellent detail...Lots of great actions scenes as well as many emotional moments that gave the novel depth and heart." Antony North, author of Tess
"Wonderful writing! Just was drawn in and it didn't ever let go. After it's made into a movie, I'll be the first in line!" Maggie Jagger, author of Lizzy Tempest Ruins a Viscount
"Captured me right from the beginning, hard to put down."
"A wonderful fantasy with well developed characters and an exciting plot."
Querying for Agents
North of 7
(Book club fiction)
This is not a Sunday drive around the idyllic countryside of rural Ontario but rather a journey through dog-strangling vine, buckthorns, and secrets buried in the soil.
ELLEN (68) is frustrated. She never wanted to end up a bored farmwife with an idle lump for a husband, but that was her lot and it was too late to change, or so she thought. When a visitor from England, a charming botanist, ignites in her a new thirst for life, Ellen is swept up in fantasies of deep conversations and exotic locations. She can’t see that her infatuation is just another way to turn her back on reality, she did after the tragic suicide of her younger sister and as she was taught to do much earlier.
BIRDY (34) is angry. Her husband left for Europe without her, sending her and the kids home to her family farm in Ontario for the summer. With little to do since her parents retired, she jumps at a chance to help an old friend on his dairy farm. A rekindling of old feelings and a new-found pleasure in rural life makes her wonder why she ever left. She is abruptly reminded when her uncle suddenly arrives with his new woman and 9 year-old ward in tow. Birdy soon sees that a secret can hurt more than just its keeper.
ELLEN and BIRDY have each been shaped by abuse, hiding it, knowing that exposure means to forever carry a blight in their small community. Neither sees the pattern reinforced by their silence until a gut-wrenching situation finally brings them face to face with the consequences of their secret-keeping. Will Ellen finally see the pattern? Will Birdy be able to break it?
In the works!
Rats!
A YA Pirate Adventure
Lotte, a girl plucked from the bosom of her loving but hapless family, and Amadi, a boy plucked from the belly of a slave ship, never imagined themselves commandeering a ship to hunt down the pirates who attacked them. But, those pirates have sailed off with precious cargo and Lotte and Amadi will not let their youth and inexperience stop them from getting it back.
(Image courtesy of Wallpaper Flare)
