Red Desert - People of Mars

Earth.
It’s their home, they were born and raised there, but at the same time they’ve never set foot there. And so the deep feelings that Anna and Hassan have as they return to their own planet, after almost five years, are mixed with the marvel of the foreign entity they bring with them, as it lands on a new world.
The two survivors of the Isis mission are welcomed as heroes, but they can’t enjoy the adulation. The intent they are pursuing has priority over everything else.
Besides the internal battle between the new Anna and the old, two more conflicts consume her: the one against the hidden dangers brought by Earth itself, not to mention its inhabitants, and a more complex one involving her own feelings, which will force her to make an important choice affecting her future. In the meantime, on the Red Planet, Melissa finds herself deepening her exploration of human nature, torn between dread and disdain against it, and a growing sense of belonging.
But someone, intrigued by the sudden acceleration of the whole Isis program, is beginning to have suspicions.
Now that the adventure on Mars is over, what will Anna’s choice be? What will become of Earth?

The previous books are:
“Red Desert - Point of No Return” (book 1);
“Red Desert - People of Mars” (book 2);
“Red Desert - Invisible Enemy” (book 3).

Follow Anna Persson (@AnnaPerssonDR) on Twitter!

--- This is the first book in a series of four and it ends with a cliffhanger. ---

A quiet businessman—known by most as Joe Kettleman—narrowly survives an attempt on his life. While recovering from surgery to remove a bullet, imaging reveals a lethal tumor. Unwilling to spend his final days under chemical bombardment, he returns to a remote cabin in New Mexico to die in peace. 

But when death takes its time and Joe outlives his supplies, he’s forced to take a perilous journey through the deserts of the Bisti Badlands. Two days into what was supposed to be a five day trek, Joe comes across a town. A small city, really. Right in the middle of nowhere. 

And it’s not on any map.

That’s when Joe’s fate collides with that of a beautiful young woman, desperate to escape the strange city and making wild claims about a genetically enhanced pandemic that will soon wipe out most of humanity.

Clearly she’s delusional. But something has her genuinely terrified. To unravel the mystery, Joe will have to put his death on hold.

But she has just unearthed something that shouldn't be there, something that makes her question everything she knows about the disappearances of that fateful event.

Several hundred miles away Alex Hunter's family is holidaying in southern Italy when Mount Etna begins to shake, and ash blankets the countryside. Hideous figures are moving about in the smoke, snatching people from the streets, and scans indicate they are being taken into the core of the erupting volcano.

Hell is rising and Alex Hunter must gather a team of his most battle hardened HAWCs to take on an adversary from the very depths of hell. Nothing will stop him from rescuing Aimee and Joshua, not even the devil itself.

A remote deep-sea oil drill blows apart, pushing the cash-strapped energy company that owns it toward bankruptcy. Madness and murder engulf the oil platform. A probe shows intelligent life on the deepest sea floor, evolved from long-lived cephalopods to whom the oil is sacred. Though peaceful, they will defend the oil at all costs. Alerted to the intentions of previously unknown humans the undersea intelligence is pushed toward a conflict that could destroy both civilizations.

The rooftop reception on the skyscraper in
lower Manhattan is an elegant affair right up until the moment the murders
occur. With the lives of sixty-three of his friends and business associates
snuffed out in one horrifying blink of an eye, the wealthy and enigmatic
Jonathan Strickland boards a dangerous roller coaster ride of a lifetime in
this clever, nail biting who-done-it.

Following the nebulous clues left behind at
the scene of the crime, Strickland finds himself kidnapped and taken to a
clandestine meeting in the middle of the Syrian dessert beneath the ancient
ruins of one of the oldest civilizations known to man. The lines between good
and evil blur as the suspect list narrows. Strickland races against time to
find the invisible killers who have even more carnage in mind; they call their
sinister plan the Joshua Effect.

Strickland also struggles with the essence of
a life thrown into question by the gnawing epiphany that he is losing the one
thing which actually gives his existence meaning. All of his fantastic
achievements pale when compared with the desire to possess the love of the one
woman who can understand him - but who can never be with the man he is.

As the clock ticks relentlessly forward to a
catastrophe of truly Biblical proportions, the hunt for those responsible nears
its climax. From a brazen gun battle among the rich and famous in the exotic
streets of glamorous Miami Beach to the discovery of the secretive Catskills
hideaway of a reclusive scientist in upstate New York, the thrilling ride never
lets up.

All the while the personal war inside
Strickland rages on. Who is he? More importantly, who will he end up becoming?
For a man who thought he had everything, why does he suddenly find his life so
empty?

For Jonathan, the revelation that a life with
nothing in it worth dying for isn't much worth living shakes the very core of
his being. Then why does it feel so right? The Joshua Effect is a taut,
suspense filled page turner with a stunner around every corner.