Book picks similar to
Emissary by Jonathan Davison
sci-fi
thriller
distaster-and-survival
mystery
Arrival (The Tyr Trilogy, #1)
Richard Fox - 2021
He left the violence behind for a life of science, raising a family far from the bloodshed of the Corporation. With his wife, Sarah, and son, Michael, he studied the alien Tyr for years, hidden among their complex societies. Their mission should have ended with the arrival of a replacement team. Instead, the Clays’ corporate overlords choose a death sentence: an invasion fleet to conquer the Tyr.This first contact will destroy the Tyr, and only Daniel Clay and his family can help fight back against the drug-fueled conscripts and military might of the invaders. The Clays must help the Tyr from the shadows or be killed by the Tyr who fear them...or by the Corporation they’ve betrayed.But the Clays aren’t the only hidden power.If you like Avatar or V, you’ll love The Tyr Trilogy, a series that combines the wonder, excitement, and drama of top-notch sci-fi.
The God of War
Chris Stewart - 2008
super- jet named after the Greek God of war. With its ultra powerful laser and ability to easily outmaneouver anything else in the sky, the Ares opens a new era in warfare. But when it is stolen before of a crowd of international dignitaries, the President and his defence staff must use outdated technology to try to stop their creation from sparking a war between civilizations.It's up to Colonel "Jesse" James to save the world from impending doom. But, the obstacles will be numerous. He faces suspicion from the President's chief advisor, a romantic interest with unknown allegiances, and a terror plot that seems too obvious to be true. In his fourth novel, Stewart is in top form- fusing a high octane plot with hair raising flight scenes drawn from his career as a fighter pilot.
Dark Ages: 2020 (Dark Ages, #1)
J.D. Dutra - 2015
When societies collapse... How do the unprepared survive? After ancient Rome fell to the barbarian hordes and its light went out, 500 years of economic and cultural deterioration followed in Europe - The Dark Ages. In the 14th century, the most brutal pandemic to ravage mankind finally pulled this part of the world out of the darkness. The Black Death decimated over 60% of the population, creating an immediate surplus of goods and land, which catapulted Europe into a new age of the rebirth: The Renaissance. The Black Death pandemic of the 14th century was no act of nature. The outbreak was unleashed on purpose, by an ancient and occult cabal which still operates at the present time, behind the secret societies of the rich and powerful. In the year 2020, moved by the desire to launch humanity into a new era of enlightenment and scientific advancements, this same obscure society plans to release a virus which can wipe out up to 90% of the world's population. Political maneuvering and the biggest false flag event in generations sets their plan in motion, and immediately the President of The United States is caught in a web of horror weaved by this powerful global elite. In the midst of it all, a clandestine CIA agent is torn between honor, duty and family. A struggling entrepreneur obeys the State and yet pays the ultimate price. An influential philanthropist has a dark secret that can alter the course of history, one which might lead a trio of scam artists to get more than they ever expected. As modern society crumbles and the final unleashing of a New World Order takes place, these 5 lives will collide in a violent struggle for control, power and ultimate survival.
The Threat
Jonas Saul - 2011
Things go bad fast. During the deal on the fourteenth floor of an apartment building, the dealer disappears, and Drake is stuck in the apartment with a dead woman.The police are at the door. He has nowhere to go.On the run from the police and the maniacal killers intent on framing Drake for murder, he must uncover the truth before it is too late.There is a reason behind the madness that has become his life. That information takes him back twelve years to when he was hospitalized with a concussion and his fiancée went missing.The only way out is to clean up someone else's mess. The only way out is murder.Drake Bellamy didn't want to break the law, but now he is out for blood.
The Navigators
Dan Alatorre - 2016
SOME SECRETS AREN'T MEANT TO BE KNOWN! A freak landslide at a remote mine site uncovers a strange machine to a group of paleontology grad students. Wary of corrupt school officials, team leader Barry takes the machine home to study it in secret, reaching only one realistic, and unbelievable, conclusion: it was designed to bridge the time-space continuum. It’s a time machine. Testing delivers disastrous results, sending one team member to the hospital and nearly killing another. When word leaks about the discovery, the ultimate power struggle ensues: the university wants it for funding, the power company wants its energy regenerating abilities kept under wraps, and a rival group wants to steal it for themselves. No one cares if Barry's team comes out alive. Fleeing for their lives, the students must fight the school, the police, and each other if they want to learn the truth about what they've discovered, a truth with more severe consequences than any of them can predict..
SecondWorld
Jeremy Robinson - 2012
A week into his stay, strange red flakes descend from the surface. Scores of fish are dead and dying, poisoned by the debris that turns to powder in Miller’s fingers and tastes like blood.Miller heads for the surface, ready to fight whoever is polluting on his watch. But he finds nothing. No ships. No polluters.No oxygen.Instead, he finds a cloudless sky full of red particles dropping like snow and coating the ocean with a thick film that stretches to the horizon. When a dead blue whale collides with Aquarius, Miller begins a harrowing race to escape the affected area. Cut off from the rest of the world and surrounded by death, Miller makes his way to Miami where he discovers just one survivor, and the awful truth: the strange phenomenon that robbed the air of its life giving oxygen was an attack by an enemy reborn from the ashes of World War II. And they’re just getting started. Miami, Tel Aviv, and Tokyo have all been destroyed. Millions are dead.And if Miller can’t track down and stop those responsible in seven days, the rest of the world is next.
The President
Parker Hudson - 1995
Mid-way through his term, a secular-humanist President becomes a Christian and has to decide how his new worldview must change his policies. His wife, children, siblings, staff and the entire nation grapple with how his new faith informs his actions. Meanwhile, terrorists are plotting to detonate a nuclear warhead in New York. The many strands of the story all come together in Manhattan as the terrorists use the World Trade Towers to launch their attack, the center of action is a place called Ground Zero and one of the characters yells, "Let's Roll" near the end. The President is a gripping action thriller with a strong Christian message for the individual and the nation.
North Sea Hunters
Brad Harmer-Barnes - 2017
His story is so outlandish as to be unbelievable: a colossal shark – far too large even to be a Great White – hunting them for days before savaging straight through their hull and sinking them down into the ocean. Captain August Krauser is sceptical of the man’s story, but as the U-616 continues its patrol he is forced to admit that the danger lurking in the water is very real. Something impossibly large and ancient follows the submarine, bringing the two greatest hunters the North Sea has ever seen into an explosive confrontation.
Screaming Eagles
Timothy W. Long - 2015
He's been dispatched to the Ardennes Forest outside of Bastogne to assist Baker company against a surprise attack by the Germans. Outgunned, low on ammo, food, and supplies, the men along the new front are up against an army ten times their size. Barely able to hold out the 101st now face a new threat. German soldiers who take massive amounts of damage but keep on attacking. This is an alternative history that will sink its teeth into you.
Rick Cantelli, P.I.
Bernard Lee DeLeo - 2013
After twenty successful years, Rick's old high school girlfriend shows up to turn their world upside down. Suddenly, they're back killing bad guys, facing down mobsters, and escorting movie stars. They were a deadly team in their CIA years, and they prove they’re just as deadly now.
London 2012: "What If...?"
Ian C.P. Irvine - 2012
People the world over will identify with the story told within these pages. As the story progresses, some will feel guilty, some will cry, some will laugh, ...but all will follow the plight of James Quinn, a man who is not unlike so many of us all.The Story :Contemplating having an affair, bored with work, and convinced there must be something more to it all, James Quinn is a man just about to enter a mid-life crisis. At the pinnacle of his career, James leads a successful life. But is it the right life? Instead of a Product Manager in a Telecommunications company, should he have been a plumber, an Olympic athlete, or a stockbroker, or an artist? Life, as they say, isn't a practice run. This is it.Convinced the 'grass is greener' everywhere else, and worried that he may be missing out, James Quinn is a man full of doubts.It's not that he hates his own life. Far from it. His 'life', as others may call it, is good. It's just that, nowadays he can't stop looking at other people and wondering if, out of the thousands of different lives that he could be living, is he living the right one? What if James has got it wrong? And then there's Jane, the first girl he kissed at school, and the one that got away. What would life have been like if he had married her instead of his wife? Unable to control his curiosity he tracks her down through Facebook and discovers that she is now a beautiful woman, living in London, and unhappy in her marriage: like a moth drawn to a flame James finds himself heading for infidelity and feels powerless to stop. Then one day, during the normal underground commute to work in London, he looks up from his book and doesn't recognise the station name on the Jubilee Line, …and in a split-second, everything changes.Emerging onto a platform at "New Cross Gate North", a station that shouldn't exist, James finds that Canary Wharf has vanished. Gone. And so have Selfridges and mobile phones.Instead, James finds himself in an alternate and different London, where the city he lived in has subtly changed, and every moment is now a voyage of discovery into a new life: a new career in advertising, a new house, and a new wife: Jane-the object of all his fantasies.In this new world, James discovers that he is a flamboyant, intelligent, charismatic, successful businessman. Yet, even though he now has everything he has always dreamt of, he finds that he longs for everything else that he used to have but has now lost: his two children, Keira and Nicole, and his wife Sarah. Sarah, the woman he loved but took for granted. Convinced that both the past and present are somehow real, he realises that somewhere Sarah must be as real in this world as she was in the last. Longing to hold her in his arms again, and with no apparent way back to his old world, he sets out to find Sarah in his new world. Wherever she is. Using knowledge of her gained from their previous life together, he manages to track her down. But James realises that before he can truly be together with Sarah once again, he must first understand what went wrong between them in the other world to avoid it happening again. What is the secret that his subconscious has hidden from his conscious mind, and which made him want to turn away from Sarah and into the arms of another woman? Will it be possible for Sarah to fall in love with him again in this new world? And is it too late to find a way back to the old world, the old life, and the London he used to know?Or will he be stuck forever in this other world, yearning for the green, green grass of home…
Thirteen for Dinner
Denise Daisy - 2013
But it’s Averie who needs rescuing when all hell begins to break loose. Averie Cooke has never set foot on the old Faulkner plantation. The macabre history surrounding it is what keeps her away; not to mention everyone says the place is haunted. A hundred and fifty years ago Lunar Wilson was hung there. His lifeless body dangled in the breeze along with the gray Spanish moss. Later that same night, the petite southern belle, Emily Faulkner wrapped a thick rope around her delicate neck and joined her lover in the afterlife. Legend says all hell broke loose after that. Unaware that their only daughter was hanging dead up in the cupola, Emily’s parents continued on with their festivities, gorging themselves on prime rib, and guzzling expensive wine. They were pretty drunk by the time the Wilson boys burst inside the house slinging their hatchets, vindicating their brother’s murder. They decapitated James Faulkner, his socialite wife, Elizabeth and dismembered all eleven dinner guest. The massacre was the bloodiest ever recorded. So why does Averie agree to attend a dinner party in the same mansion where the massacre took place? She needs the money that’s why. But, she gets much more than a paycheck when she and another mysterious guest transports back to the year 1859, exactly one month before the gruesome event. Things go from bad to worse when she discovers the only way back home is to stop the murders. But can she put her fears aside long enough to change the past and find life in the place she fears the most?Thirteen for Dinner is a page turning thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat one minute, laughing out loud the next, and crying while you contemplate the meaning of life. Dealing with issues such as racism, slavery, hatred, and fear you’ll discover the only weapon that has the power to damage them all is love.
The Butterfly Tattoo
M.D. Thomas - 2020
Jon, guilt-ridden because he forgot to make sure his son had buckled up, will do anything to save his relationship with his wife. Bartender Elle doesn’t believe in guilt, even as it accelerates her descent into alcoholism. Narcotics officer Harvey has been stealing seized drug money for months to pay off his grandparent’s debt, unaware his superiors are onto him. Their struggles morph from difficult to life-threatening when Lee’s spirit finds each of them.They all think they know what Lee’s spirit is after. They’re all wrong. Drawn ever-closer together, their mistakes and misdeeds accumulate until Lee’s spirit latches onto one of them, and if they can’t figure out the truth in time, everybody they care about might die.
Anansi Island
Christian Cantrell - 2010
But throughout the island's history, its isolation also made it the perfect place to hide things the world was never meant to see.As Laurel finds herself entangled in the island's newest and most bizarre chapter, she must not only solve its mysteries, but also survive long enough to pass them on.This short story (about 7,500 words) mixes science fiction and horror with endearing and enigmatic characters who can only solve the mysteries of Anansi Island by facing their worst fears.