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Sid Stark

Fans of Kinsey Millhone's grit, Stephanie Plum's humor, or Spenser's wry take on academia will love this new series!

"Brilliantly-written and highly entertaining, a must read..." The Prairies Book Review

"A charming blend of academic inspection and social commentary that weaves an engrossing personal perspective into a blend of social observation and evolving romance." D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

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, 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: We've got angsty adjunct professors, mouthy undergrads, a cynical Navy vet, and a career Marine all mixing it up in here. The level of adult language is significant.*

Helia Press

Doctor Rowena Halley

Campus Confidential: An Academic Thriller

“Stark remains a brilliant observer of the academia scene”—The Prairies Book Review

﻿If you like Stephanie Plum’s wit, Kinsey Millhone’s grit, or Spenser’s wry take on academia, you’ll love the Doctor Rowena Halley series!

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: We've got angsty adjunct professors, mouthy undergrads, a cynical Navy vet, and a career Marine all mixing it up in here. The level of adult language is significant.*

Permanent Position: An Academic Thriller

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.*

Summer Session: An Academic Thriller

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.*

Trigger Warning: An Academic Thriller

Doctor Rowena Halley signed up to be a professor, not a cop. Now she may have to be judge, jury, and executioner as well.

When a student with a hijab and a strong Chechen accent confides in Rowena about a tricky sexual assault case and asks for her help, Rowena can’t say no—again. Being the only Russian professor on campus, as well as the faculty member students go to for help, has its advantages. But the disadvantages can be deadly.

After a tragic incident last semester, Rowena is trying to get her career back on track, not to mention her love life. With her Russian ex-fiancé Dima supposedly out of the picture, Rowena is hoping to build a future across the country in California with her American boyfriend Alex.

But the past has a nasty habit of coming back to haunt you. When Aishat Aslanbekova comes to Rowena with her suspicions that she was drugged and assaulted at a frat party, Rowena finds herself forced to confront her own demons as well as Aishat’s.

With Aishat making accusations against the college’s star quarterback and posterchild for diversity, Rowena doesn’t know which will be more heartbreaking: finding out that Aishat is lying, or finding out she’s telling the truth. Either way, both Aishat and the men she says assaulted her are in danger of an honor killing at the hands of Aishat’s family. Rowena believes in non-violence. Non-violence may not believe in her.

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 racism, Islamophobia, economic injustice, PTSD, and sexual assault. You’ve been warned.

This audiobook also contains the bonus companion novella Spring Break.

Honor Court: An Academic Thriller

Sometimes lightning strikes twice.

Doctor Rowena Halley was really hoping that a summer in California would help her heal from the previous semester’s injuries, mental and physical. Instead, it might throw her into the greatest danger she’s faced yet.

Spending the summer working in Monterey and living with her boyfriend Alex was supposed to prove to both of them that they were ready to take their relationship to the next level. But what it’s really shown is that they’re still clinging to old flames.

To make matters worse, their old flames have problems of their own. Problems that are refusing to stay in the past. Love is supposed to hit you like a bolt of lightning. But lightning is dangerous—and sometimes it strikes twice.

On her last weekend in California, Rowena gets sucked into a search for Alex’s missing ex-girlfriend. What should have been a few phone calls turns into a life-or-death confrontation—and Rowena may have to pay for other people’s past sins. As Rowena is about to discover, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned—but mother nature’s fury is even greater.

Combining mystery and action with a side of romance and a strong dose of humor and snark, Total Immersion will appeal to fans of Kinsey Millhone, Stephanie Plum, and Jeri Howard, or anyone who loves strong, smart heroines.

*Content warning: along with the kind of colorful language you’d expect from a collection of world-weary journalists and hardened Iraq vets, this story contains discussions of codependent relationships, intimate partner abuse, and the darkest side of the War on Terror. You’ve been warned.*

Total Immersion: An Academic Thriller

Doctor Rowena Halley hits rock bottom. Then she ends up on a terrorist hit list.

August 2016. Rowena Halley, PhD, is nursing a busted knee and a busted heart. Plus, her career path is on a toilet trajectory and the divisive politics of a particularly fraught election cycle are threatening to bust up her family, too. Then Madison, former student, (former???) drug addict, and troublemaker extraordinaire, comes bursting back into her life.

Rowena is afraid Madison will get her hauled in on drug and kidnapping charges. But the reality is even more dangerous. Madison has been digging into her family history. She’s unearthed a sordid story of Nazi collaboration in Eastern Europe. It’s not just in the past, either. Members of her family are carrying on the tradition, now using sophisticated social media tools to spread their message, and they want to bring Madison into the fold.

To make things even more fun, Rowena’s ex-fiancé, Russian investigative journalist Dima Kuznetsov, has riled up some very unpleasant mercenaries from the Caucasus. If she’s not careful, Rowena could end up in the crosshairs of both groups.

All this is forcing Rowena to undertake a serious review of her life choices. But even if she decides to change her life, it may be too late to save it.

NB: This book, like all the books in the series, contains some serious adult language. You’ve been warned!