The first draft of this novel is still in progress and the synopsis below is subject to change.
Betas: Start here. Please don’t forget to send me feedback! I’d especially like to know:
- How is the pacing going? Too fast, too slow, just right?
- Does anyone seem to be acting out-of-character with no reason?
- Was the chapter too long, too short, boring, interesting, or just necessary filler?
- What questions do you have after reading the chapter?
- Can you get a good feel for the setting?
- Is there anything else you’d like to see more or less of?
Anything you type into the “Comments” field on each chapter will be read, but not approved to post, so your comments themselves are completely confidential.
Thanks!

Release ETA: Spring 2027
After surviving the collapse of everything they’d held familiar, intelligence operatives Lee and Amanda Stetson are sent to London for what is supposed to be a fresh start. Instead, they find themselves rebuilding from the inside out.
Lee, sidelined from field work and struggling to redefine who he is without it, accepts a new assignment as liaison between the Agency and British intelligence. Amanda throws herself into language study, the world of counterintelligence, and the difficult work of making an unfamiliar city feel like home for their family. Their son Jamie is trying to adapt too — to new schools, new rules, and a world that suddenly feels much larger than the one he left behind.
Then a civilian airliner is shot from the sky over the Persian Gulf.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, Lee is drawn into a quiet investigation surrounding the USS Vincennes and a growing pattern of anomalies no one wants acknowledged. What begins as routine liaison work slowly reveals something far more dangerous: a system built to prevent catastrophe may already have been compromised from within.
As the pressure mounts, London itself becomes a crossroads of loyalties, secrets, and unfinished grief. Old certainties begin to fracture. Institutional faith gives way to uneasy questions. And Lee and Amanda are forced to confront a possibility more frightening than any enemy operation, because the systems meant to protect them may no longer be capable of telling truth from survival.
Acknowledgments · Afterword
The eBook and paperback editions that will be available through Contentnea Creek Books are being sold as a fundraiser for a designated 501(c)(3) charity. No profit is being made by either author or publisher.
Chapter List
Acknowledgments
Coming soon!
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.
Live as children of light, for light produces every kind
of goodness and righteousness and truth.
Ephesians 5:8-9 [NABRE]