|WATTYS 2022 WINNER - HORROR| Shawn, a convicted criminal, never thought she'd see the sun again, let alone call another star system her home. When she's offered an out from her prison sentence, she embarks on a dangerous interstellar expedition along with 18 of Earth's most intelligent criminals. Their task is to set up a base on a supposedly habitable planet and prepare it for colonization. Although the planet has liquid water and a breathable atmosphere, it is believed to host only microbial life. However, upon arriving, Shawn and the rest of the colonists learn that assumption was grossly incorrect. In a brutal attack from rampaging wildlife, everyone but Shawn and four other colonists are killed. The five survivors retreat to the cavernous network beneath the ground seeking safety, but they soon come to a terrible discovery. These caves aren't ordinary caves, and they are no safer down under than they were on the surface. [][][] This was originally my entry for the 2021 Open Novella Contest, and it received an honorable mention! It has now been expanded into a full length novel. I used prompt number 53: "When wildlife starts rampaging, all the humans are forced underground. However, they come to a terrible discovery that being underground is no safer than being on the surface."

SIREN is a novel about six people from around the world selected by the UN to investigate a strange musical transmission emanating from Neptune's orbit. They're given a spaceship with cutting edge technology, placed into an induced coma, and expected to report back in three years time. But when the awakened crew arrives at the origin of the transmission, their electronics malfunction and they're driven through the Kuiper Belt. With their engines ruined, oxygen supplies dwindling and one of the team members suffering from hypoxia, time is of the essence for the troubled squad. Their situation grows ever more tense when Tommy Fletcher discovers three alien ships watching their every move. Tommy Fletcher, the protagonist of SIREN, is the resident linguistics expert who over-thinks, second-guesses and has a habit of biting his nails. He may be in his late twenties, but Tommy's ceaseless trepidation makes the rest of the hardened crew feel like he's fragile and witless. Will the chaotic events happening around Tommy break his brittle will, or can he shed his hesitant demeanour and become a hero?