Uncaged: Can you tell readers more about your book, Among Us?
Among Us is a new adult science fiction-based government conspiracy thriller set at the Jersey Shore. The main character, Marci Simon, lives a double life. She’s a conservative English professor by day and a controversial alien blogger by night. The story centers on a classified document that collides her opposing worlds in an explosive revelation of deadly secrets. Marci is forced to embark on an unstoppable quest to expose the truth, but is unprepared to battle the secret government agency hunting her down, determined to silence her forever.
Among Us is my debut audiobook. It was featured on Audible’s ACX University 2018 and is an Audible Editors Select pick in the thriller category for 2019.
Uncaged: You also have a series running, The Ensouled Series, can you tell readers more about that series? How many books are planned for this series or is it open-ended?
The Ensouled Series (Choosing Evil and Breaking Evil) follows a Jersey Shore girl, Serafina Murano as she struggles with a paranormal identity crisis. Dark, deadly secrets and gut-wrenching betrayal haunting her since childhood unfolds over the two stories. Serafina is faced with impossible decisions and must ultimately decide who is the worse enemy: evil or humanity. Her choices will change her, and perhaps the world, forever.
The series is technically open-ended. However, I’ve started a third book and I hope to finish and publish it at some point soon.
Uncaged: What are you working on now that you can tell us about?
I’m currently writing a new adult paranormal thriller, Unleash the Wicked, set in a fictional town at the Jersey Shore. It follows Mitzi Everson, a Manhattan socialite who is forced to move back to her mysterious seaside hometown of Tidal Falls. There, she faces her tragic past and unwittingly unleashes a deadly centuries-old curse intent on total destruction.
Read the rest of this interview in the issue below
Kristina Rienzi is a Jersey Shore-based new adult thriller author and certified professional coach. An introvert who dreams beyond big, Kristina encourages others (and herself) to embrace the unknown through her stories. When she’s not writing, Kristina is spoiling her baby girl, wrangling her two fur-babies, watching the Hallmark Channel, singing (and dancing) to Yacht Rock Radio, or rooting for the West Virginia University Mountaineers. She believes in all things paranormal, a closet full of designer bags, the Law of Attraction, aliens, angels, and the value of a graduate degree in psychology. Her debut audiobook, Among Us was featured on Audible’s ACX University and chosen as an Audible Editors Select pick.
KristinaRienzi.com
Among Us
Kristina Rienzi
SciFi Thriller
Danger lurks in the unknown…
Marci Simon lives a double life: conservative English professor by day, and controversial alien blogger by night. But when a classified document lands in her lap, her two worlds collide in an explosive revelation of shocking and deadly secrets.
Despite imminent danger at every twist, Marci embarks on an unstoppable quest to expose the terrifying truth. Only she never anticipated the entangled nebula of dark lies, nor the never-ending wormhole the government would spiral through to silence her forever.
Knowledge can kill.
And Marci knows too much. With global security at risk, no one can be trusted. To debunk the stratosphere of deceit, Marci races at the speed of light to escape the grips of the clandestine Extraterrestrial Security Agency (ESA) hunting her before she vanishes like all the others. But Marci is unique. Despite being the ESA’s prime target, she’s also the skeleton key to the deadliest truth in the history of the universe.
The nightmare is real, and it’s only just begun. Marci must take a nefarious leap of faith before her options, and her breaths, evaporate into a black hole for all eternity.
Chapter 1
1968
Six foot four with a buzz cut and two stars on his shoulder, Major General Lou Rollins hopped into the mud-covered all-terrain vehicle. Strapped with every weapon and tool a military man on an alien hunt might need, he revved the crappy government engine. Easterly wind lifted pinpricks of rain droplets left behind from last night’s rainstorm. They found their home on Lou’s face. No waiting for them to evaporate. Passivity was for civilians. He shook the spit-like water off and hocked a loogie to send a message. Don’t mess with an armed man on a badass far out mission.
Lieutenant General Dowd’s leathery face flashed before Lou’s mind’s eye.
He grunted. An invisible scar where Army-career-suicide had pressed the barrel of an M14 to his temple niggled at him. His credibility was about to bleed out on the side of Highway 35. And it was worth every AB+ pint.
Lou unrolled the coffee stained map from the passenger’s seat. He pulled it taut until the wrinkles disappeared. Sliding the tactical flashlight from his belt, he turned the illumination on. Thin paper appeared translucent against the darkness. He traced his finger along the route from where he was to where he needed to be. His sense of direction was stellar. Lou was a human compass, reading the stars to find his way at night. The map verified his hunch. Due west. He crumbled the sheet and tossed it on the floor. No stinking wood fibers would make a bit of a difference. It was time to trust his gut. And the universe.
He pressed the gas and plodded along the uneven land. If evidence of those bastards existed, he’d damn sure be the one to find it. He didn’t give a rat’s ass if it was those little gray men. Shit. He’d take anything inhuman with or without a heartbeat, whether they had hearts or not. He meant anything. The green kind. The reptile kind. The insect kind. The kind he hadn’t yet imagined. Not because he was crazy. But because they existed. Any quantum physicist worth his PhD would agree. Tonight was Lou’s one shot to prove to those pompous assholes whose butt cheeks were sewn together that they didn’t corner the market on intelligent life in the universe. Not a chance in holy Hell.
White-knuckling the steering handles, Lou slammed his size twelve boot on the gas pedal. His two front tires barely jumped before landing back on the marshy ground with a splash. Mission-popping-a-wheelie-for-kicks had failed. The damn UFO had crashed in the worst possible spot—three miles from the ocean, knee deep in the wetlands after an East Cost deluge bordering on a tsunami.
His pulse quickened. Sure as shit…a futuristic, disc-shaped invader belonging on the other side of the universe could be taking a nap in his backyard. The urge to yell Yee Haw nearly took over. He threw his shoulders back instead. No mountain man here.
Strictly highbrow Army all the way. Although his deviant shadow self disagreed.
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