The Doctor Rowena Halley Series, in order
#0.5 Foreign Exchange–Free! And audio version here.
In post-Soviet Russia, crime fights you.
Rowena Halley has spent all her money and her last winter break before her dissertation defense to visit her fiancé Dima in Moscow. But instead of planning the wedding, he’s focused on fighting crime. An opposition journalist, Dima is used to attracting trouble. This time around, though, he may not be the only target. In the Wild, Wild East, crime fights back, and Rowena may be its next victim.
Set against the backdrop of the Euromaidan revolution and the turbulence of the North Caucasus, “Foreign Exchange” tells a story of the clash between love, honor, and international politics. This 20,000-word novelette is a prequel to the Doctor Rowena Halley series, but can be read as a standalone work.
*Content warning: adult language*
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“Brilliantly-written and highly entertaining, a must read…” The Prairies Book Review
Doctor Rowena Halley needs a job. But it may cost her more than she’s bargained for.
During one of the worst years on record in the academic job market, newly-minted PhD Rowena Halley has, against all odds, gotten a job. For one semester. At poverty wages. In New Jersey. But with so many of her fellow PhDs bagging groceries—or worse—instead of teaching Russian, this is the best chance she has.
New jobs come with a lot of stress, everyone knows that. But Rowena has more problems than just learning her way around a new campus and convincing all these Yankees that yes, she really is from Georgia. Tensions in the department are high, her family wants to know when she’s going to get a decent job and a decent man, and her ex-boyfriend is as usual persona non grata with the Russian government. It’s when students start coming to her for help that she really gets into trouble, though. Rowena got where she is because she wants to help people and save the world, but if she’s not careful, her idealism may get her killed.
Witty and suspenseful in the vein of the Stephanie Plum novels, Campus Confidential is an insider’s look at the gritty underbelly of academia, where the struggles are so vicious because the stakes are so small. Only sometimes, they’re a matter of life and death.
*Content warning: Adult language*
Universal link here. Want it in audio? It’s widely available on most audiobook retailers, including Apple, Google Play, Kobo, Nook, and Scribd. You can also listen to it for free by requesting it through your local library.
Loves hurts. Sometimes it kills.
After the tumultuous events of the previous semester, Russian professor Rowena Halley has found a new job. This time it’s a one-semester adjunct position in Charlotte, North Carolina. Not ideal, but better than no job at all. At least that’s what she’s telling herself.
Rowena loves what she does, but love isn’t always kind. Her job is keeping her broke AND three states away from her best candidate for serious boyfriend material, her ex is sending her cryptic messages from the war zone in Ukraine, and her brother has come back from Afghanistan even more messed up than before. And if that isn’t enough, students are trying to draw her into their family dramas—with dangerous consequences. Everyone knows that “publish or perish” is the rule in academia, but if Rowena isn’t careful, she may perish before she gets the chance to publish.
Combining humor, romance, and suspense, Permanent Position gives an insider’s view of the gritty backstage of higher education, where words do more than cut and all the testing is high-stakes.
*Content warning: Adult language*
Universal link here. Want it in audio? Get it at Audible, Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks, Scribd, and most other online audiobook retailers! You can also listen to it for free by requesting it through your local library.
Sometimes summer flings turn deadly serious.
Russian professor Rowena Halley’s life finally seems to be taking a turn for the better. She has a job for the summer AND the fall, her family dramas of the past spring have settled down, and she’s got a promising romance going with Alex, a fellow academic and actual American.
But the course of true love rarely runs smooth. Rowena’s weekend of fun and good times with Alex is disrupted when one of her students goes missing, in a town that’s already had more than its fair share of missing young women. Simple flakiness, or something more sinister?
Rowena teams up with the student’s annoying new boyfriend to try to track her down, even as she wonders if he’s really the culprit behind her disappearance. Rowena’s research skills are finely honed. Hopefully her survival skills are too.
*Content warning: Adult language. Soooooo much adult language.*
Universal link here. Want it in audio? It’s widely available through most audiobook retailers, including Apple, Google Play, Kobo, Nook, and Scribd. You can also listen to it for free by requesting it through your local library.
Currently on preorder for just 99c! Expected release date: September 5th, 2020. Email me your proof of preorder to sidstark@sidstarkauthor.com and I’ll send you an exclusive free story!
When does freedom go too far?
Doctor Rowena Halley has finally found a job that pays enough to live on. Too bad it’s a continent away from one of the men in her life, and an ocean away from the other. Plus, the campus she’s teaching at is not the idyllic haven it seems.
There are the usual problems of academia: busywork, embarrassing extracurricular activities, a difficult department chair. And then there’s real danger. A Gamergate activist has been invited to speak at the college, and a campus Men’s Rights group has threatened to protest the event. Are the rumors of violence swirling around the speaker “just talk,” or are they going to become action?
When Rowena gets drawn into organizing the event, she is called on to find out before something tragic happens. Her dive into the campus’s incel culture just threatens to stir the pot, though. Rowena is worried that she’s going to lose her job. With tensions on campus running this high, however, it may be more than her contract that is terminated. The college is concerned about freedom of speech. Rowena is concerned about the freedom to stay alive.
Combining suspense, dark humor, and a touch of romance, Trigger Warning is a sharply satirical examination of modern higher ed reminiscent of Robert B. Parker’s investigations into the dark side of contemporary college life, written by someone with years of experience in the trenches of academia.
*Content warning: Along with the kind of adult language you should expect from mouthy undergrads and battle-scarred Iraq vets, this book also contains a serious discussion of bullying, incel culture, and gun violence. You’ve been warned.*
Universal link here.
Sid Stark, Academic Suspense Author 