A cautionary political tale that shines a light on the danger to our
country when the wrong people have too much money and power.
The Vote is a political thriller built around a conspiracy among powerful
political actors, billionaires, and party operatives who seek to manipulate
the constitutional amendment process in order to permanently reshape the
structure of American government. The mechanics of American politics,
particularly the Article V constitutional amendment process, is the framework
that informs the central premise of the novel. The current political landscape
of the country lends credibility to the story and gives the narrative an
interesting and timely foundation.
The manuscript opens with a series of interconnected storylines involving
political figures, wealthy conspirators, and emerging state-level candidates.
These threads gradually reveal a coordinated effort to gain control of state
legislatures and Congress as part of a broader plan to fundamentally alter the
country’s political system. The concept itself is ambitious and grounded
in recognizable political realities.
About the Author
David Swanson was raised on a dairy farm in central Michigan. He
received a degree in political science from the University of Puget Sound and
an advanced degree in foreign trade from the Thunderbird Graduate School of
International Management. Between degrees, he served a stint in the United
States Navy.
In 1981, he founded Daavlin, a medical technology company that eventually grew
into a prominent player in the field of dermatology. As part of his career, he
stepped foot on every continent and dipped his toes in every ocean on earth.
Reading, writing, traveling, acting, and directing live theater are his
favored pastimes.
He’s also a lifetime political junkie. As this book goes to press,
Swanson is a candidate for the Ohio House of Representatives.
A cautionary political tale that shines a light on the danger to our
country when the wrong people have too much money and power.
The Vote is a political thriller built around a conspiracy among powerful
political actors, billionaires, and party operatives who seek to manipulate
the constitutional amendment process in order to permanently reshape the
structure of American government. The mechanics of American politics,
particularly the Article V constitutional amendment process, is the framework
that informs the central premise of the novel. The current political landscape
of the country lends credibility to the story and gives the narrative an
interesting and timely foundation.
The manuscript opens with a series of interconnected storylines involving
political figures, wealthy conspirators, and emerging state-level candidates.
These threads gradually reveal a coordinated effort to gain control of state
legislatures and Congress as part of a broader plan to fundamentally alter the
country’s political system. The concept itself is ambitious and grounded
in recognizable political realities.
Excerpt
Rudolph Conover fumed as the jet he’d sent to convey Aldon Powers
to the Conover compound in Southern Illinois sat idling somewhere in Texas. No
sign of Powers. No explanation. No apology. The plane should have left hours
ago.
For Conover, meetings such as today’s were a carefully choreographed
dance, designed to shape an opponent’s mental disposition and ultimately
their amenability to whatever it was he wanted from them. Everyone was an
opponent in Conover’s world and everything was meant to intimidate, from
the jet’s amenities to the obsessive focus on secrecy to the quirkiness
of his compound. When dealing with men like Powers, it was his way of
reminding them of his preeminence in the hierarchy of billionaires. On rare
occasions when someone dared to play by their own rules, he did not take it
well. Today was one of those occasions.
Conover’s wife, Marcia, slipped into the war room where he sat. The
meeting was scheduled to begin shortly. “Any communication from
Powers?” he asked, irritated.
She shook her head.
“How can he be so disrespectful?”
She put her hand on his shoulder, “You have every right to be upset.
I’ll go see if there is any news.”
Conover knew Powers was difficult and unpredictable but it was impossible not
to respect him. A modern-day Edison, he was a daring visionary and the most
technologically disruptive man in a century. His companies had mastered space,
the Earth’s outer crust, and the ocean’s depths. The man had
become so indispensable that some feared him as a veritable government unto
himself, unfettered by borders and the normal rules of behavior. Everybody
needed something from him that only he could give. Conover wanted to be a
warlord. Powers wanted to be God.
About the Author
David Swanson was raised on a dairy farm in central Michigan. He
received a degree in political science from the University of Puget Sound and
an advanced degree in foreign trade from the Thunderbird Graduate School of
International Management. Between degrees, he served a stint in the United
States Navy.
In 1981, he founded Daavlin, a medical technology company that eventually grew
into a prominent player in the field of dermatology. As part of his career, he
stepped foot on every continent and dipped his toes in every ocean on earth.
Reading, writing, traveling, acting, and directing live theater are his
favored pastimes.
He’s also a lifetime political junkie. As this book goes to press,
Swanson is a candidate for the Ohio House of Representatives.
Historical Thriller, Conspiracy Thriller, Political Thriller, Action
Thriller
Date Published: August 18, 2026
What if the Civil War never truly ended, and no one noticed who is now
winning?
A standalone thriller. New readers can start right here.
When Professor Jack Sullivan is asked to decode a cipher from the war's final
days, he expects a historical curiosity. Instead, he uncovers a thread
Jefferson Davis died protecting, a secret never meant to resurface.
But the Knights didn't disappear. They became patient.
For 160 years they studied what force could never win. They embedded
themselves in the institutions Americans trust, and waited for the moment when
they wouldn't need to seize power. They would be invited to take it.
Now their heirs have risen. A cartel is running weapons north while a
cyberattack probes the power grid, and a senator climbs toward power on the
fear both create. Jack begins to realize he was never hunting the treasure. He
was being led to it.
Joined by Homeland cyber analyst Priya Patel and hunted by enemies he cannot
see, Jack has four days to break a design older than anyone imagined before
the trap closes around everyone he loves.
"The high-stakes, of-the-moment, infiltrated-America suspense simply does not
let up."
— BookLife by Publishers Weekly
Some secrets don't stay buried. They grow roots.
Great for fans of Steve Berry and Clive Cussler.
Praise for Echoes of Fortune: Knights of the Golden Circle
"One part Jack Reacher, one part Indiana Jones... an impressively entertaining
action thriller."
— Kirkus Reviews ("GET IT")
"Leng lets history press against the present, sometimes like a warning and
sometimes like a buried fuse."— Literary Titan
About the Author
David R Leng is the award-winning author of the Echoes of Fortune historical
conspiracy thriller series, winner of three PenCraft Awards, including
Thriller of the Year and back-to-back Best Thriller honors, two Literary Titan
Gold Awards, and a Kirkus Reviews "GET IT" selection.
A lifelong resident of Southwestern Pennsylvania, David grew up in the shadow
of the same battlefields his characters explore. He spent summers near the
Shades of Death wilderness in western Maryland and has kayaked the
Youghiogheny River, where a chance encounter with a stranger carrying a metal
detector and asking about Braddock's gold planted the seed for the series.
His debut novel, The Search for Braddock's Lost Gold, follows historian Jack
Sullivan into the unsolved mystery of General Braddock's vanished army payroll
from the 1755 Battle of the Monongahela. The series has since expanded to the
sunken Confederate secrets of Cozumel and the shadowed world of the Knights of
the Golden Circle.
When he is not unraveling centuries-old conspiracies, David can be found scuba
diving, boating, or in his woodshop. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife
and family.
When injuries cut short the figure skating career of Angie Fernandez
Parnell, she joins the Peace Corps. She is assigned to Tunis where she finds
her soulmate, U.S. diplomat James Whitcomb. At the conclusion of their tours
of duty, they marry, and within weeks of the wedding, he is taken captive in
the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979-81.
James, held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Teheran, endures the same demons
that afflicted the real-life hostages during the actual crisis 45 years ago.
Deprivation, bad treatment, political manipulation, and above all the
uncertainty of whether or when it would all end.
Angie, biting her nails at home, endures her own demons. How can she support
him? Should she join efforts that pressure the president to negotiate a
release? Or even a rescue? A take-charge person by nature, she follows a path
that will reap huge benefits if it works. Or destroy her life if it fails.
Goodbye Demons is a visceral, emotionally charged exploration of resilience in
the face of adversity. It is the story of a man and a woman struggling to
overcome demons beyond their control.
Excerpt
This was the chance of a lifetime, and Angie swore she wouldn’t
blow it. She did elaborate stretching exercises and weight training. She
followed a dietician’s meal plan and skated five days a week under the
guidance of her coach. Angie concocted a brilliant plan to capture the Gold at
Nationals and guarantee her a slot on the Olympic team.
Her coach objected. “No woman has ever done a triple axel, and
you’re not ready.”
“I did it in practice. You saw me.”
“You fell. A perfect double axel that you’re capable of doing
trumps a triple axel that you screw up.”
Angie was determined to do the triple without falling. She doubled down on her
training regime. Bruising falls came each day. It wasn’t until a week
before the competitions that she completed a triple. She grinned triumphantly
at her surprised coach. Then on the next try she took a nasty fall that left
her limping when she rose from the ice. Her coach sped over to her. After
making sure Angie had broken no bones, she again warned her to stop trying the
triple axel.
“You’re not ready. It’s a riverboat gamble.”
“I have to take the gamble when I’ve got the chance.”
“You’ll have a chance next year. You’ll be stronger and more
experienced. That’ll be the time to do it.”
“In the meantime, some other girl might do it first, and nobody will
ever hear about me. Even if I do one the next day. Can you tell me who was the
second woman to fly across the Atlantic?”
About the Author
Historical thriller author JJ Harrigan is a former US Service Officer
and political science professor. He scribbles his tales of intrigue on the
banks of the St. Croix River in Minnesota, where he lives with his wife,
Sandy.
Espionage Thriller, Political Thriller, Literary Thriller
Date Published: July 1, 2026
A thirty-nine-day war between the United States and Iran ends the way
modern wars end now: not in surrender, but in a memorandum. The guns go
silent. The money is promised. The world exhales.
Buried within the language of the peace are nineteen words that quietly
abandon the people who believed the bombing meant deliverance.
In Washington, a small policy institute that has spent its life describing the
world decides, for the first time, to act on it, and learns that the line
between analysis and operation, once crossed, cannot be uncrossed.
In Tehran, an air-defense colonel runs the only arithmetic that has ever
governed his life, weighing the family the regime holds against a door that
may not be real. In a blacked-out city, a nurse keeps a count the state
intends to erase, while an organizer discovers that the most dangerous thing a
broken country can do is begin to hope.
As a sixty-day clock counts down to the vote that will make the peace
permanent, three lives on opposite sides of a sealed border move toward a
single decision and toward a question no government can answer for them: What
is owed to the people you cannot save?
The Closing Window is a literary espionage thriller of statecraft,
intelligence, political consequence, and moral responsibility. A novel about
power, responsibility, and the narrowing distance between describing a
catastrophe and becoming part of it.
About the Author
Gregg Roman is a Middle East policy and security analyst who has spent more
than a decade at the center of American debates over Iran, counterterrorism,
and the politics of the region. He serves as Executive Director of the Middle
East Forum, has testified before Congress, and writes and comments widely on
national security and foreign policy. He divides his time between the United
States and Israel. The Closing Window is his first novel.
William Sukara, a gregarious dreamer, emerges from the 1950s an estranged son.
In divorce debt and with limited visitation rights as a father, he searches
for order in failure. Pursuing self-discipline as an answer, he enlists in the
Navy, volunteers for underwater demolition team training, and survives the
elite course.
With five other team members, he raises his hand for a clandestine mission,
knowing only that it's a “hundred day operation in a warm climate." They
are led by a mysterious civilian who alludes that their authorization comes
from the Oval Office, and they are to operate with extreme malice. They
revolt, escaping under bizarre circumstances.
The Helmsman of Anthesis is a raw, close to the nerve, psychological
thriller about a mission gone wantonly mad.
About the Author
At age twenty, Lee Hodiak joined the Navy and spent most of his enlistment
attached to Underwater Demolition Team 12. After serving, he joined the San
Diego Police Department but realized he needed to follow his passion for
wilderness travel and adventure instead. He went on to backpack the Baja
California Peninsula, built a thirty-six-foot sloop, and lived in Australia
for twenty years.
Now a resident of Central California, Lee enjoys
birdwatching and living by the ocean. Sixty years in the making, The Helmsman
of Anthesis is his debut novel.
In Reign of Secrets, diplomacy meets danger, and the past may be the deadliest
weapon of all.
Praise for Reign of Secrets
"A gripping, timely story... that masterfully blends that warrior ethos with
today's geopolitical reality, as Whit Ransom confronts Vladimir Putin's
ruthless ambition to resurrect an empire."
- Lt. Col. James Reese (Ret.), US Army Delta Force Operator
"Through this historical thriller, Reign of Secrets offers a captivating
glimpse into the essence of what it means to follow in the footsteps of
legends..."
- Morten Andersen, "The Great Dane", Member, NFL Hall of Fame
"A masterfully crafted tale that explores how the West's adversaries subtly
challenge the narratives of history - reshaping symbols, exploiting
weaknesses, reframing legacies, and testing the resilience of democratic
values and the international order."
-Lt. General Ed Cardon (Ret.), former Commander, US Army Cyber Command
About the Author
James P. Cain’s remarkable career has spanned the fields of law,
business, politics, sports and international diplomacy. From volunteering on
Ronald Reagan's first Presidential campaign, being featured on CBS's 60
Minutes at the age of 27, to becoming a partner in an international law firm,
serving as President of the NHL Carolina Hurricanes, and later as U.S.
Ambassador to Denmark, Ambassador Cain has operated at the highest levels of
leadership and public service for over five decades.
A personal encounter with Islamic terrorism in 2016 became the catalyst for
writing Reign of Secrets.
Reign of Secrets is the first in a series of Whit Ransom novels.
His first book, The American, written during the last few months of his
diplomatic service, was a Bestseller in Denmark.
Ambassador Cain and his family live in North Carolina.
The action-packed sequel to the best-selling thriller, The Road to Montepulciano
Blurb
The action-packed sequel to the best-selling thriller, The Road to Montepulciano
On the night of the ninth of June 1944, four days after the Allied liberation of Rome, four nuns are murdered in a railway carriage at the Vatican City railway station.
Sixteen years later, returning to Tuscany after a gruelling book signing tour of Australia, Damson O’Reilly finds his partner, Giancarlo (no longer a detective but now a well-known and successful lawyer) engrossed in a slander case between Italy’s screen heartthrob, Mario Celestino, and a high-profile, fascist industrialist, Giovanni Scavola.
The case uncovers buried secrets, secrets that bring to light the involvement of both men in the WW2 crime and which lead to kidnapping, torture and murder, culminating in a dramatic, bloody outcome that will rock the Italian nation to its core.
The following excerpt contains material suitable only for readers 18+.
Excerpt
By the time I finished my turn in the bathroom, Kendall was naked, sitting up on top of the bed covers, so I perched on the edge of the mattress next to his knee and lit a cigarette.
“Come closer,” he said. By now, I recognised that look in his eye.
He ran his hand over my thigh and cupped my balls. I leaned back and moved my knees apart while he gently massaged my chest and stomach, his hand finally coming to rest, encircling the base of my by-now hard cock. “I like this,” he said, jiggling it a little.
“What about the rest of me?”
“Oh, yeah, that’s all right, too.” His accompanying cheeky wink made me grin.
“What you said earlier … I’m the only man who’s ever fucked you?”
“Yep.”
“Why me?”
“As I said, I like this.” He squeezed harder, milking my erection, then leaned over and licked the shiny drop of fluid from the eye of my cock with the tip of his tongue. “I’ve always liked looking at big ones, but yours is the first I’ve ever wanted inside me.”
“Kendall—”
He laughed, interrupting what I was going to say. “I’m not out to make trouble with you and Giancarlo. I really like him too. What we did in the hotel room in Sydney … I want more of that, and not just watching either.”
“Where on earth does this come from? You’ve always seemed rather standoffish to me, especially when it comes to talking about sex.”
“I dunno, Damson. Something just clicked between us that first night in Adelaide when I pretended to be drunk and asked you to suck me off.”
“You returned the favour, as I remember.”
“That’s right, and yours was the first cock I ever had in my mouth, and the first time I’d ever swallowed or even tasted spunk.”
“I’m confused.”
“I’m aware that I always skirt around my history—my sexual history, that is. You know that I’ve always been into sex with older women. Not sure why—I don’t remember my own mother, I was far too small when she died, so it can’t be that. Fooled around a bit in my teens with lads my own age; that happens at an all-boys’ boarding school. But then, when I joined up, I became fixated on what men had between their legs, especially the big ones, like yours. There was someone for a while, but all we did was swap tongues while we pulled each other off.”
“You’ve never seemed to want to swap tongues with me,” I said, by this time my legs wide apart and my erection almost purple because he’d been squeezing the base so tightly.
“Can we just be friends, Damson? I don’t want anything more than you as a close mate in my life. Of course, I still want to do this with you—and Giancarlo if that’s on the cards—but I’m not looking for a love affair. Is that all right with you?”
I closed my eyes for a moment. “That depends.”
“Depends on what?”
I wrapped one hand around the back of his neck and pulled him towards me. I guessed the kissing part of what he’d done with his army mate was something he really liked, because before I knew it, I was almost choking on his tongue after he’d nearly sucked mine out of my head. I pushed him onto his back on the bed. The kissing became more languid, sensuous, exploring. He guided my hand down to his balls, then raised his hips. I massaged the rim of his arsehole with my fingers.
“Aw, fuck,” he moaned into my mouth.
Damned if he wasn’t one of the best kissers I’d ever met. He didn’t even flinch a little bit as I eased my saliva-wetted dick into his body.
About the Author
From the outback to the opera.
After a thirty-year career as a professional opera singer, performing as a soloist in opera houses and in concert halls all over the world, I took up a position as lecturer in music in Australia in 1999, at the Central Queensland Conservatorium of Music, which is now part of CQ University.
Brought up in Australia, between the bush and the beaches of the Eastern suburbs, I retired in 2015 and now live in the tropics, writing, gardening, and finally finding time to enjoy life and to re-establish a connection with who I am after a very busy career on the stage and as an academic.
What would happen if a man of integrity, calm judgment, and firm
conservative principles were elected our President? Would he do better than
what we have? Or might he discover that behind America’s expressed
principles something still lingers from the Fall? That behind our longing
for justice, for community, for fairness, for freedom, for beauty,
proportion, for the things that nurture all that is good, Something is still
out there?
Let’s see.
About the Author
Dr. Richard Sherry is the author of the Baker Mischief series, including A
Month of Sundays (2022) ; Mondays, Mondays (2023) ; and First Tuesday 2024.
The political thriller series introduces retired political science professor
Dr. Ed Baker, determined to open up American politics to daylight. He is
almost always up against both the law and forces attempting to conceal their
influence on American life. In A Month of Sundays, Baker uncovers who owns
senators up for election in 2020 and releases their emails to the voters in
their states. In Mondays, Mondays, he reveals a "voting bloc" in
the Supreme Court and who is influencing them. In First Tuesday, Baker and
his former students look at the influential forces behind the 2024
presidential election, with surprising results.
Richard released a memoir in 2020, The Long Run: Meditations on Marriage,
Dementia, Caregiving, and Loss (2020), about his first wife's illness and
death.
Richard is a retired college professor and administrator. He resides in
Minnesota and winters in Arizona with his wife Marjorie Mathison Hance,
author of the North lakes Murder Mystery Series.
What would happen if a man of integrity, calm judgment, and firm
conservative principles were elected our President? Would he do better than
what we have? Or might he discover that behind America’s expressed
principles something still lingers from the Fall? That behind our longing
for justice, for community, for fairness, for freedom, for beauty,
proportion, for the things that nurture all that is good, Something is still
out there?
Let’s see.
Excerpt
Ed Baker, professor of political science emeritus, watched a burst of snow
obliterate the lights on the opposite shoreline. The world out the window
got smaller. Since Melody had introduced him to her lake home in the
northwestern part of the state, this had seemed a haven and a refuge. Now it
began to feel like a premonition of four years for America. Dark, icy, and a
threat to your life.
It was early yet
today, not even breakfast time, and he’d finished email, lounging over
his computer at the kitchen island. Melody was sleeping in a bit, dealing
with some sort of cold for the last day or so. He was a little worried how
fast this had come on and how weak she was. Another cup of coffee? I believe
I will.
Looking back at him,
faintly mirrored in the window, he saw a white-haired, white-bearded figure
of middling height, dark wire-framed glasses, a little thicker around the
middle than was probably healthy. Shadowy in a robe and slippers.
That’s me, he thought. Pretty conventional. Beard and hair trimmed.
Not ratty, not too well turned out. No lean Jordan Peterson, no pudgy,
sloppy Jeff Bridges, no crisp Alec Guinness. No old surprises, and I feel
like I’m fresh out of new ones. Just me.
When his journey
into being a gadfly, a subtle saboteur, had begun four years ago, he had
been widowed, a little thinner, clean-shaven, and dark-haired with some
threads of white. Not any longer, he thought, and sighed happily.
He thought about that hyphenated estimate of the country’s emotional
condition: “pre-suicidal.” He wouldn’t have expected the
presidential election of 2024 to have turned out to be so emotionally
devastating. When Former President Frederick Underwood Gray had
“disappeared,” fleeing to Moscow in the face of possible
impending arrest, and current President Gerard Freeman had decided to
withdraw so both parties could start over, Baker had been cautiously
optimistic. Both Democrats and Republicans had publicly talked about a
“reset,” with reaffirmation of “first principles”
about government. He hoped for new platforms.
It hadn’t
happened.
About the Author
Dr. Richard Sherry is the author of the Baker Mischief series, including A
Month of Sundays (2022) ; Mondays, Mondays (2023) ; and First Tuesday 2024.
The political thriller series introduces retired political science professor
Dr. Ed Baker, determined to open up American politics to daylight. He is
almost always up against both the law and forces attempting to conceal their
influence on American life. In A Month of Sundays, Baker uncovers who owns
senators up for election in 2020 and releases their emails to the voters in
their states. In Mondays, Mondays, he reveals a "voting bloc" in
the Supreme Court and who is influencing them. In First Tuesday, Baker and
his former students look at the influential forces behind the 2024
presidential election, with surprising results.
Richard released a memoir in 2020, The Long Run: Meditations on Marriage,
Dementia, Caregiving, and Loss (2020), about his first wife's illness and
death.
Richard is a retired college professor and administrator. He resides in
Minnesota and winters in Arizona with his wife Marjorie Mathison Hance,
author of the North lakes Murder Mystery Series.
In this stunning sequel to Just Call Me Jim, the world has awakened to Jim
Vincent’s outside influence on the way things are done.
He and his extraterrestrial partner, the Source, successfully changed the
corrupt policies of social media companies and neutralized the nuclear
weapons capability of global countries. Now, he has more enemies than he
knows.
Despite the risks to Jim and his family; the time has come for him and the
Source to venture into the world of drug trafficking, where human life holds
little value.
Together they orchestrate attacks destroying the cocaine processing plants
in Mexico and Central America, intercepting the flow of cartel cash, and put
a stop to the influx of deadly drugs from China.
Mexican drug cartels and their Chinese partners are losing billions of
dollars.
They want Jim dead!
About the Author
James Peifer is a retired business-owner from Silicon Valley.
He was an Army Captain and a combat veteran of the Vietnam War.
