I knew I wanted to be a writer at an early age. After winning a short story contest at age 13 for a two-page Dystopian tale called The Egg, the groundwork was laid. It would take a few more years–okay, almost 30–before I’d finally complete my debut novel.
My fiction thus far has focused on thrillers. Write what you read, they say…and I gravitate toward that genre more than any other.
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 evolved from driving stakes through redwood trees and the toppling of radio towers to more sophisticated and sinister acts of terror, including 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 the organization’s name onto the global headlines…unless Rachel can stop them first. When things turn personal, Rachel 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.
Upcoming Projects
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Mark My Words 