Tag: Cozy noir

What is Alex up to? Sneak peek of exclusive prequel story

Hello Everyone!

I’m sitting here trying to stay warm on an unusually chilly weekend between LDOC (Last Day of Class; our campus was closed yesterday due to wintry weather) and exam week, and I thought I’d share another sneak peek of a bonus story for my Kickstarter prelaunch while I wait to see if we’ll get snow during my scheduled exam period on Monday morning. So far it’s looking likely. Thank goodness for Zoom.

But back to the Kickstarter. It’s for signed copies of any or all of the books in the Rowena Halley series, plus some things like the audiobook of Terminal Degree and some new bonus stories. It’s a pretty low-key, low-bling affair, but if you want personalized, hand-signed copies of any of the books (including ebooks–it’s now possible to personally sign ebooks!), or any of the bonus stories, this is the place to get them.

Speaking of bonus stories, I’m writing a series of very short stories as free prelaunch bonuses. To get them, all  you need to do is follow the prelaunch here.

The bonus stories stories are posted in the prelaunch updates. The first one is already up. The second one will be posted shortly, so if you follow the prelaunch now, you should get notified when it goes up. A preview is below:

***

Alex stared at the text for a moment. Then he saw the saw the time at the top of his phone, wrestled his car door open—really need to get that fixed. Maybe I’ll have enough saved up by winter break— and set off at a brisk jog. Didn’t want to be late for the first faculty meeting of the semester. Especially because he’d been sitting in his car texting his toxic ex-girlfriend. That shit was for teenagers, not war heroes—some fucking hero!—in their mid-thirties with Ivy League PhDs and faculty positions at schools in the Mid-Atlantic.

Tell that to your heart. It’s never matured past fifteen.

***

This particular story starts a few minutes before the beginning of Campus Confidential, and overlaps with it. It’s the first story from Alex’s point of view, so it’s unique.

If you’d like to read the rest of the story, plus the other free prelaunch bonuses, just go to the prelaunch page and hit “Notify me on launch.” This doesn’t lock you into anything, it just means you’ll get notified whenever a new story is posted–and, of course, when the campaign launches, although you are completely free to ignore that information and not back it.

Meanwhile, if you’re in the freeze zone, stay warm, and happy reading!

Sid Stark

Terminal Degree is now out!

Hello Everyone!

Happy New Year! May 2025 be a year of peace and plenty for all.

Sadly, I was just texting with a Chechen acquaintance about the Ukrainian drone strikes on Grozny, so not really an upbeat end to 2024/start to 2025. If the way you greet the New Year is the way you’ll spend it, then this is not very promising. However, I’d like to think that we have a certain amount of control over our actions, and can consciously choose to act for the better.

Which, as it happens, is a recurring theme in Terminal Degree, which is out now! The ebook and paperback are out today, with the audiobook to follow shortly (I hope). Universal link here. (As a side note, it looks like Kobo may be giving out an old file, even though from my end it’s telling me it has the updated, most recent draft. Sigh… If you get it from Kobo, you will get the complete book, but there might be a few extra typos and maybe some hinky formatting. If you think you got the old file and you’d like the new one, let me know and I’ll send it to you).

Anyway, Terminal Degree starts on December 31st, and is full of themes of karma (kind of a theme of the entire series), redemption (ditto), and helping each other (actually, also kind of ditto). Frankly, from where I’m sitting right now, we as a species could really use a lot of all three. I hope that Terminal Degreeprovides a little hope to its readers, in amongst all the darkness that the characters are navigating. 

Cover and blurb below, and once again, wishing you peace, love, and joy for 2025!

Rowena Halley has hit a dead end. Will it leave her dead?

Russian professor Rowena Halley is at the end of her money, the end of her job contract, the end of her romantic hopes…the end of her tether. And just when she thinks she can’t take any more, she gets dragged into not one, but two sticky situations by her nearest and dearest. Her friend Mel needs her help dealing with a scammer, and her long-lost paternal grandparents want her back in their lives—with cultish strings attached.

But Rowena has even bigger problems. Her ex-fiancé, opposition Russian journalist Dima Kuznetsov, comes to America, bringing old history and new danger with him. Rowena wants to believe they have a future as a couple. The mercenaries and hitmen Dima has been tangling with over the years could mean they don’t have a future, period. And revelations about Dima’s most recent deal with the Devil cause Rowena to doubt their chances to make a life together, even if they do survive.

Rowena wants a happy ending for everyone. But with this many bad guys mad at her, the ending she’s most likely to get is the terminal kind.

Content warning: This book contains an Air Force veteran, an officer in the Marines, and an ex-member of the Russian OMON. The language is accordingly salty.

Get it here!