Ice Planet Page 26

  Flood: When the terrorists set off the rockslide on La Palma Island in the Canary Islands, they create a tsunami of gigantic proportions. The wave races across the Atlantic, giving the authorities in the United States six hours to evacuate everyone within a hundred miles of the coast. The other countries on the Atlantic coast suffer the same devastation, but now an additional factor comes into play – the smashing of five hundred trillion tons of rock into the fragile floor of the Atlantic at a thousand kilometers per hour sends a shockwave through the molten magma that sets off volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis around the world. The terrorist plot has consequences far beyond those envisaged by its planners!

  The remnants of the United States Military takes revenge, but the eradication of all those who supported terrorism is just the first step in the survival of the civilized nations of the northern hemisphere. Those few who survive must integrate into other societies that are themselves disintegrating under the stresses of the world economic meltdown.

  In this enthralling tale of a world catastrophe, Nicole Stuart describes the large events that flow from a comparatively small beginning, and how some people grasp the opportunity to rebuild the lives of their people.

  You can buy Flood by clicking here.

  Other Books

  Nicole Stuart demonstrates her versatility in a range of books covering a wide variety of subjects, themes and milieus.

  Storm: Outback Tours is a business operated by Dan Brown to give foreign tourists an insight into the splendor of the Australian Outback. On this tour, the second of its type, Dan leads a group of five women, promising to show them that they are capable of meeting almost any challenge. The tour is cut short when a hurricane strikes, trapping them in an idyllic valley where a lightning strike sets of the collapse of a cliff face, damming the river. When the storm abates, they evaluate their situation, and decide that there is little chance of them escaping from the valley in their LandRover unless the water subsides. The situation becomes critical when one of the women is bitten by a venomous spider, and it becomes necessary for some of them to walk across the vast devastated Outback for help. The walk is a lot harder and more dangerous than they expected, and they are driven to their limits in their quest to find help for Andrea!

  You can buy Storm by clicking here.

  Justis: John Brown, the owner of a small spectacle wholesale business, is facing a large claim for damages by an exclusive distributor of his goods who has set a trap for him. He is confident that truth will prevail in Court, and is staggered when the Judge rules against him, granting a large award of damages to the distributor. He discusses this with Ken, his partner in the business, and they set about protecting the assets of the business from predation by the distributor until they can launch an appeal against the judgment. Angered by this injustice, Ken makes a business proposal to John, to provide a service ‘to give justice to people outside the Court system’. John is interested, after his experience of the failings of the formal legal system, and he agrees to join Ken in the business. Ultimately, John is forced to realize that their actions are missing the real objective of correcting an ineffective and often corrupt system, and he must choose between right and wealth.

  You can buy Justis by clicking here.

  Hijack: Penelope Gartner arrives in Johannesburg with Tom Perkins, an aspirant musician, to collect a LandRover owned by friends, to drive it to Maputo Airport to collect Jensen and Elizabeth, and then to Silver Shoal, a diving and fishing camp in central Mozambique. Penelope finds that Tom is a drunk and a boor, and, worse, wants to sleep with her and doesn’t understand the word “no!” The vacation turns into something of a nightmare for Penelope as she avoids Tom’s advances and tolerates his bad manners. After a few days at the camp, Penelope overhears a conversation in a foreign dialect between two men visitors to the camp office. Concerned at her understanding of the conversation, she alerts Ben, one of the owners of the camp, to an impending hijacking of a ship offshore, but the hijackers are several steps ahead. The result is a series of murders, a gunfight at night in the African bush and a boat battle at sea.

  You can buy Hijack by clicking here.

  Terrorist: Tom Brentwood, a London Attorney, has retired after the sudden death of his wife. He is diving from his catamaran off the beach at Cap Gris Nez when he notices that the keel of another yacht has an unusual bulbous configuration. He goes in to Villefranche, and, that evening, at a local restaurant he meets the most beautiful woman he has seen. He invites her to lunch on his yacht, and Alice accepts. They are joined on the yacht by Brent Atwood, the man who purchased Tom’s law practice. That evening in the same restaurant, Tom overhears some words in an Afrikaans dialect spoken by the men that Tom believes arrived on the yacht. He ties the words together with the shape of the keel, and tells the others of his suspicions. The men act quickly and violently, kidnapping Alice and striking viciously at Tom and Brent. Tom escapes the trap they set, and manages to rescue Alice. The men evade the search for them, until Tom and Alice meet up with the yacht again in Italy, as the men pursue their plan to bring death and destruction to elements of the United States and Europe.

  You can buy Terrorist by clicking here.

  Thoughts: Peter Michaels, the owner of a business manufacturing high-technology items for the Military, invites three friends to a New Year’s Eve lunch. They discuss one of his newest products, a helmet designed to shield the wearer from microwave and similar radiation. Ariadne notices that the helmet seems to sharpen the way she thinks. The others try it, and agree. They decide to notify the Police Special Branch the next day, believing that the helmet screens out a specific radiation that appears to be part of a plot to suppress normal thinking. Joseph does this, but is shortly thereafter arrested on a charge of treason. He is released the following day, only to die shortly after in an explosion of his car. His friends realize that he was killed to suppress the knowledge that he had. The threat is clear. They escape to a remote location near Oudtshoorn, in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Working under the effect of the mind-numbing radiation and with the threat of death if they make any mistake, not knowing how their thinking is being influenced or who can be trusted, they try to develop a plan to save civilization from the radiation, which is increasing in intensity and threatening to destroy the national defenses of the major nations as well as their economies.

  You can buy Thoughts by clicking here.

  Revenge! A gifted scientist becomes the victim of the Muslim terrorism sweeping the world – first the 9/11 attacks and then the Madrid train bombing. He decides that the Muslim threat, as he sees it, is not being dealt with adequately by the Government, and he steps in, using his advanced knowledge of biological weapons to exact revenge on the people who harbor the terrorists that have cost him so dearly. Only when he comes to know an ordinary Muslim does he realize that not all adherents of that religion should be made to pay for his loss.

  You can buy Revenge! by clicking here.

  Intrepid: A yacht trip across the Atlantic is a big undertaking. Jon, a single-handed yachtsman, plans to sail from the Bahamas to the Mediterranean alone, but friends persuade him to invite Celine to keep him company for the five weeks of the trip. She suggests that her half-brother, Barry, an accomplished sailor, comes too. The challenges of sailing in calms, violent squalls and storms are compounded, when Jon and Celine find that Barry is not what he seems! They have to confront a murder plan before they can reach the peace of the beautiful Azores.

  You can buy Intrepid by clicking here.

  The Writer: Roger wants to write, more than anything in his life, but his characters run out of steam, his plots become boring. Frustrated, he seeks new inspiration eight thousand miles away, in Mossel Bay, and finds the perfect character in a photograph he takes on his first day there. The character develops as he writes about writing the story, until the beautiful woman he has chosen to carry the story becomes real to him, in his story and in the story he writes about the story. Then the stor
y is complete. Where to now?

  In a review of The Writer, James Priest of Minneapolis wrote: ‘A beautifully crafted book about a book. The only thing which could possibly improve it would be another hundred or so pages. However as the main character, Roger, stated, "His story was finished. “No,” he thought. “Not Finished. Complete." This is a complete work which is a joy to read.

  If you want to have even more fun with the book, Google Maps will take you to Mossel Bay where you can see and visit all the places the author describes. You can literally spend hours strolling along the streets and beaches. The street level coverage of the entire town is fantastic. If your view of South Africa was formed during the era of Apartheid and the Soweto Uprising you may come away with a totally different opinion.

  I can think of no greater compliment to pay a writer than to say, "You have changed my view of the world." ‘

  You can buy The Writer by clicking here.

  Graphene: A scientific genius escapes from Soviet Russia with his wife. They have nothing, but the help of a stranger starts him on his way to accumulating a fortune, with a steady flow of inventions, and an upright approach to doing business. He finds out about graphene, a miracle material that has almost unimaginable qualities, but can only be extracted in minute quantities. Leonid sees the potential of the product for the entire world and, together with Marina, his daughter, he develops a means to produce the material cheaply enough to compete with almost every existing product that it can replace. He fails to reckon with big business, and the predators who are so fixated on their own profit that they will stop at nothing to remove the threat that he and graphene present to the realization of their ambitions.

  In this fast-paced story of genius versus business, Nicole Stuart explores the problems and challenges encountered by many new products that affect the status quo, including blackmail, deceit and murder!

  You can buy Graphene by clicking here.

  Energy: An inventor, not realizing the power and the ruthlessness of the competition he faces, dares to take on the monopoly of the oil giants, and pays with his life for his innocent belief in the rule of law and his trust in people, leaving behind a devastated widow with a tiny daughter. She picks herself up and follows the clues he left behind, hoping to recreate the invention that led to his death. Driven by her husband’s dream, she follows his path to gain revenge on the system that has held the world economy to ransom for decades.

  In this thrilling story of international intrigue and power plays, Nicole Stuart lays bare the might of the money gained by ruthless men, who use their wealth to buy the monopoly of the world’s energy supplies.

  You can buy Energy by clicking here.

  Recompense: A businessman is asked by the representative of a senior politician for a bribe to ensure the awarding of a contract. He refuses to pay, and his angry threat to inform the authorities results in him being killed. His wife and daughter are left to pick up the pieces. One of those pieces points to the probability that the accident that killed him was murder. They develop a plan to get revenge on those responsible, but their planning soon reveals that the only meaningful revenge will bring down a Government!

  In this tale of murder and intrigue, Nicole Stuart brings to life the characters who play their games behind the screens of power and wealth. It is a story of the power of the ordinary person, forced by events beyond endurance, to bring justice to a part of the world.

  You can buy Recompense by clicking here.

  Retrenched: Reg hates his life. He has a dead-end job, a boss who puts him down all the time, and a wife who wants more money, status and security, and who despises him for his apparent failure. The whole edifice appears to be about to crumble when he is retrenched, too old to find another job.

  He takes advantage of the opportunity to turn his life around, and heads off on a tour of the Mediterranean. One of his retrenched co-workers joins him, and, together, they discover that their ex-boss is involved in a sinister conspiracy to create havoc in the United States. The target of their investigation discovers that his ex-employees have gathered information that could bring down his work of two years, only weeks before the plan is set to go live, and he sets out to remove the threat.

  In this exciting novel of conspiracy and murder, Nicole Stuart roams the bright sunlight of the Mediterranean and the dark recesses of evil.

  You can buy Retrenched by clicking here.

  Island: Martin works eighteen hours per day to win a two-week stay in a tropical island resort. His prize turns sour. The resort is half-built and almost empty, and then the four guests find themselves in the middle of an invasion!

  The guests have to find a way to safety. Their escape by boat takes them into the middle of a naval battle for control of the channel that will determine the outcome of the war, and only their characters will determine whether they will survive.

  In this story of suspense, conflict and intrigue, Nicole Stuart explores the way that ordinary people become heroes.

  You can buy Island by clicking here.

  The Dancer: A young girl aspires to dance. Her skill is completed when she makes contact with a boy, who is prevented from dancing by his size. Their lives are drawn inexorably together by their shared love of ballet, until there is a union of their spirits, to fulfill each of them.

  Nicole Stuart tells a sensitive story of the coming together of two disparate people who share a love for ballet.

  You can buy The Dancer by clicking here.

  Marloth: Meredith is at home when she receives a call from the Police. Her husband is dead, murdered by hijackers. She seeks peace in Marloth Park, a wildlife reserve on the border of the Kruger National Park. She buys a guesthouse as a way to recover her mental equilibrium, but soon finds that Marloth is being used by poachers to enter the Kruger National Park, to kill the elephants and rhinos there, for their ivory tusks and horns. Together with her new friends, she works out a plan to bring an end to the poaching that threatens to exterminate the elephants and rhinos that they all love, but their plan brings them into conflict with senior people in the Government, resulting in the massacre of a group of Policemen. They must find a way to overcome the corruption at the top level of Government that threatens to destroy their way of life.

  You can buy Marloth by clicking here.

  Rock Paintings: Klaus and Jennifer think that they have achieved a major breakthrough in their careers as archeologists when they are invited to participate in a landmark archeological dig in the Cave, at Mossel Bay. The Cave is expected to provide some proof that Stone Age Man developed the basis of civilization in the area, before migrating to Asia and Europe, to bring Humanity to the world. They could not expect that their role in the project would develop to become much more than simply discovering the origins of Humanity.

  In this exciting novel, Nicole Stuart explores many of the puzzles of Man’s meteoric rise to become the dominant being on Earth, against a factual backdrop of one of the most exciting archeological finds on Earth, a find that has revolutionized the understanding of the development of Humanity.

  You can buy Rock Paintings by clicking here.

  Smoke: The number of smokers has been decreasing for more than a decade, but the trend suddenly turns around, with a rapid increase in the number of people smoking, and in their consumption of tobacco, without any clear reason. Audrey notices the change, and starts researching the effects of nicotine on the human body with the intention of finding a way to counter the addiction. She is surprised to receive an offer of funding for her work. She needs the money, but the conditions attached to the funding concern her, and when she looks into the body that has made the offer, it does not take long for her to realize that the funding is designed to suppress the results of her research, but by then her work has come to the attention of powerful people. If she does not accede to their financial control of her work, they will find other ways to prevent it being published.

  In this exciting novel, Nicole Stuart explores the might of
the tobacco industry.

  You can buy Smoke by clicking here.

  Ebola: After a brief pause, the killer disease Ebola suddenly breaks out again in West Africa, raging through countries which had not been infected before. A small lapse in the safety measures results in a doctor becoming infected with a mutated strain of the horror disease, and his two day vacation in Johannesburg results in hundreds of new infections taking the disease into the world.

  Alicia is filming the disease for a TV documentary in the Ivory Coast when she is caught up in the horror. She manages to escape with three friends, only to find that the haven of safety she has reached is next to the terrorist base where the virus is being readied to transmit the disease to the military units that are all that remain effective in the western world.

  This is a tale of international terrorism on a huge scale, inspired by the many unanswered questions of the Ebola outbreaks that still threatens the world with a new Dark Age.

  You can buy Ebola by clicking here.

  Shapes: Sarah is an artist with an unusual ability. She is able to understand what the shapes say. The shapes are everywhere, in the patterns of fields of wheat blowing in the breeze, in the arrangement of leaves on a tree, in gravel on a footpath, in the clouds of the sky. They are seen and understood by many children, but most people lose that ability as they grow to become adults. Sarah’s ability allows her to understand what is happening presently and what will happen in the future. Her exposure to the shapes in the United States, in Switzerland, Moscow, Sydney and Esperance in Australia, and in Johannesburg, Marloth and Cape Town in South Africa gives her the chance to make valuable contributions to the people of those places and to the world. In this sweeping novel, Nicole Stuart gives us the chance to explore our own understandings and interactions with the world.