No Time for Kings
Newspaper reporter Rachel Sullivan is trying to balance single parenthood and a career, hoping for a big story that will land her on the front page. On assignment in Alaska, she stumbles across the aftermath of a brazen attack by Earth Fights Back, a radical eco-terrorist group that has been wreaking havoc across the western United States for years.
Led by a suave megalomaniac with a mysterious past, the organization’s antics have grown increasingly more sophisticated and sinister – and now include murder. Driven by a thirst for notoriety and a misplaced desire to protect the planet, Earth Fights Back is leaving a trail of destruction and dead bodies in its wake while constantly remaining one step ahead of the FBI. They are planning their biggest attack yet, one that will catapult them onto global headlines…unless Rachel can stop them first. When things turn personal, she finds herself locked in a deadly, winner-takes-all game of cat and mouse in which only one person will emerge victorious.
No Time for Kings is available on Amazon and most other online retailers.
Mark Petruska’s debut novel is of a quality not usually seen in self-published books. The characters are complex and well-rounded; each individual chapter is a pleasure to read. Particularly admirable is his formidable use of descriptive language. Engaging and well-written; Petruska’s future as an author looks bright.
— San Francisco Book Review
Dream Sailors
“What if you slept, and what if in your sleep you dreamed, and what if in your dream you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower, and what if when you awoke, you had that flower in your hand? Ah, what then?”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Noun
oneironaut (plural oneironauts)
A person who explores dream worlds, usually associated with lucid dreaming.
A ragtag group of self-described oneironauts, nicknamed the Dream Sailors, meets once a month at a pizza joint in Portland, Oregon to discuss their lucid dreaming experiences. Things take a turn toward the macabre when they stumble upon a technique that allows them to bring objects from their dreams back to the waking world. They are then forced to confront a series of moral and ethical dilemmas that threaten to tear apart families and friendships, and test their very humanity.
This novel is currently available in serial format on the Kindle Vella platform.
UPDATE: Amazon closed down Kindle Vella on Feb. 28, 2025. I’m currently exploring alternative publishing options.
Earth Fights Back (In progress)
Twelve years after bringing down the ecoterrorist group Earth Fights Back, investigative journalist Rachel Sullivan-Warren is covering an unfolding global climate crisis. As an endless series of disasters strikes and the death toll from a warming planet continues to climb, she is forced to wrestle with a previously unthinkable question…
Was Earth Fights Back right all along?
You can read the first three chapters in .pdf format here:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
The Last Icebreaker (In progress)
In a world plagued by climate change, global warming has made icebreakers obsolete. A sudden catastrophic atmospheric event causes global temperatures to plummet, leading to a flash freeze. At a remote scientific outpost in the Arctic, a group of climate archivists has been mapping the timeline of this new Ice Age; their data shows the freeze isn’t a temporary storm—it will last for 2,000 years. The information gathered during their research might save humankind, but they are trapped by the ice. Every icebreaking ship was decommissioned long ago, except one: the Endeavor. The government contacts the small crew piloting the ship across the North Atlantic; they are the only vessel physically capable of cutting a rescue path––but the ship is old and leaky, and tensions onboard are running high. Will the Endeavor be able to reach the scientific outpost in time to save mankind from certain extinction?
Upcoming Projects
Check back here for updates on future projects. You never know what you might see next!
Mark My Words 