Michael & Ann Novels
About The Books
The Past Always Comes Back
to help you,
or killyou
A Michael & Ann novel — a high-velocity thriller where competence collides with conscience.
Michael Johnson spent years in the shadows—special operations in Africa, elite protection work across Europe. Now he wants peace with Ann in the Willamette Valley. The blast changes everything. With the FBI and ATF sifting ruins and the killers still moving, Michael reaches for contingency plans he hoped he’d never need: safe locations, clean identities, quiet allies, and a methodical path to the people who pulled the trigger.
Ann won’t be protected out of the story. Training turns to muscle memory; fear becomes fuel. As the trail sharpens—through burned cars, staged alibis, and a family empire that treats murder as management—Michael and Ann push past survival toward justice. The deeper they go, the sharper the questions: what line won’t they cross, and what will crossing it make of them?
What You’ll Love
- Explosive opening, earned escalation — the inciting blast pivots into a relentless counter hunt.
- Field-credible tradecraft — safe houses, surveillance, and contingency planning that feel real.
- A partnership that matters — a marriage forged under pressure, not pushed to the sidelines.
- Globetrotting stakes — from Oregon timber country to European power circles.
- A precision villainy — a well-funded, multi-national network with family ties and long memories.
- Moral tension under fire — survival demands choices; choices carry consequences.
- Clean, propulsive prose — crisp pacing; no filler, no fluff.
The Palm Tree
A Coffee sHOP Extraordinaire
The Palm Tree follows Ann’s struggles to find God while still captive by a toxic religious past. Ann meets Michael by happenstance in The Palm Tree, a unique coffee shop in an Oregon college town. Michael is a mysterious man hiding his past as an ex-bodyguard with notches on his gun handle. The story has nightmares, assassins, gunfights, paranoia, tragedy, love, and the possibility of a home in God.
With The Palm Tree as the only thing they have in common, they develop a rocky relationship. Michael resurrects his spiritual counselor alter ego, but Ann’s desire for religious escape and transformation is roadblocked by her constrained past. Within the unexpected twists, turns, and reversals of their lives, the question of whether spiritual redemption is possible hangs thinly in the air.
Can they get past their roadblocks for Ann’s personal resurrection, redemption, and meaningful relationship with God? Is Michael’s grieving over the loss of his wife so strong that he will not be able to help Ann? Is love even possible?
While The Palm Tree story touches on progressive Christianity, the core focus is on how Ann and Michael deal with her struggle to find God and whether He can exist for her. Throughout, the story is about real-life emotions of people caught in their web of religious grief and conflicted pasts. The story points to the possibility that people can overcome toxic religious experiences.