The Honeymoon Series
July 2023
When US Secretary of Defense Angelica Myers’ daughter and her husband go missing on their honeymoon in Kenya, conflict of interest laws make her powerless to help find them. But is she?
Annie and Charles Thompson go missing from a Kenyan Safari Camp four days after their wedding. Their parents are curious for days thereafter why no pictures have been posted of them with the animals… but it is Africa. However, as more days pass, each of their parents take more and more actions and hear more and more theories about why there has been no communications. When someone finally visits the camp, they discover Charles and Annie’s phones and luggage in a tent that has no trace of the couple. While Annie and Charles move from denial, to acceptance and finally seek escape from their captors, Annie’s mother, Angelica, runs out of patience with Kenyan officials and the FBI. She enlists an infamous CIA agent and takes matters into her own hands. They race against time and must overcome the complete lack of clues to find them in a strange culture and amidst desperate people. All the while, she knows she may have to step down as the US Secretary of Defense to bring her daughter home and at the same time confront a long-hidden secret.
October 2023
After being traumatized by being kidnapped on her honeymoon in Africa, Annie Thompson struggles to reinvent herself to be exactly like what she has always rejected… her former CIA agent mother.
Annie and Charles Thompson have a long-distance marriage. She is a Senate Intelligence Committee staffer and he is in Residency at the Mayo Clinic, half a continent away. Two years to go to being together. This means Annie must struggle alone with her fears as a result of being kidnapped on their honeymoon in Africa a year before. She feels a need to transform into a very different person from the one she has chosen to be. Annie, with the help of others, who care about her, embarks on a rigorous effort to be the exact kind of person she has rejected her whole life. A resilient CIA agent, on the front lines protecting our nation, and democracy. But following in the footsteps of her now Secretary of Defense mother is intimidating. For the first time in her life she is faced with the prospect of failing at doing something she is obsessed with achieving. Only a long-ago relationship thrusts her into an opportunity to discover if all her hard work has positioned her to be the person she now aspires to be.
November 2023
When you are always one step ahead of everyone else, it is difficult to admit you were wrong about the one person who loves you most.
Angelica Volkov came to America to escape the chaos of her home country, where she grew up on a tough street. Graduating from law school, she joins the CIA as an agent trainee. Excelling beyond anyone’s expectations, including her own, she is given a chance to prove herself in a covert operation where the project leader does not want her. Over time she establishes her worth ultimately replacing the man who did not want her, but has come to depend on her. When that mission completes, she is given another opportunity. This time she must work once again with the man who did not want her, but together they find a way to penetrate the halls of the Kremlin just as the Soviet Union disintegrates. But to pull off this intelligence coup she must sacrifice everything, including the man she finally realizes loves her.
August 2024
What do you do when the past you thought long forgotten comes seeking revenge?
Angelica Myers is in her second act. Having retired from being the US Secretary of Defense, she has accepted the role of Director General of the International Red Cross. However, this takes her to Geneva, Switzerland while her husband Howard stays behind as the Chancellor of the University of Virginia. Their daughter Annie has been promoted to CIA Station Chief in Turkey, living in Istanbul with her doctor husband, Charles and six-year-old daughter Andrea.
This is not a happy situation for anyone, particularly Charles who does not get to practice his pediatric neurosurgery specialty as the doctor for the Consulate in Istanbul. It is supposed to be a short-term situation, but with the war in Ukraine overwhelming Annie, and increasingly a focus for Angelica, Howard and even Beau, Charles’ father, Charles becomes more and more disaffected.
When Charles is called in to consult on a severely injured Ukrainian boy, he begins to see a path to not only practicing again; but being challenged by the severity of the injuries.
Unbeknownst to any of them, a decision Angelica made long ago, has set into motion a confrontation that will take the skill, insights and determination of all to keep the family together.
January 2025
When you are saving the world, one life at a time, do you just drop everything when your nation calls?
Angelica Myers atones for the death and destruction she was responsible for to keep America safe in a very unstable world as Secretary of Defense. She does this by delivering aid, food, medical supplies and services around the world. The International Committee of the Red Cross is the perfect position for her to use all the contacts and skills she has developed. But when a candidate for president comes calling with an offer she cannot refuse… typical for her, she does just that.
But world events, which her daughter Annie and her family are right in the middle of, conspire to give her an opportunity to reconsider and strong reason to do so. Will Angelica’s opportunity derail her daughter’s career as it has already limited her husband’s political rise, or will she continue to put family over country having done the opposite most of her life?
February 2025
When evil colludes, upsetting the entire world order, can a newly elected Vice President of the United States stop the headlong rush to ending life as we know it?
When Angelica Myers finds herself in a role she did not expect, she must negotiate her authorities and navigate the power vacuum it seems nearly everyone rushes to fill. All the while her family and those dearest to her struggle with the search for balance in their lives.
She finds she must rely on those who demonstrated their worth before to understand the challenges evil actors are colluding to mount to the power of the United States and its allies in the world. She must also find the strength to believe in her daughter and her family to find a way through the demands of career and raising a family.
Assumptions she made are dispelled. Abilities of other nations to harm the interests and people of America are blatantly demonstrated. Angelica comes to realize that she must devise a strategy to avoid the Elysian Enigma, which is not will the world end, but when and how. Then, she must execute it flawlessly.