One question I’ve been asked is why I wrote Shadow Extraction, the companion novella to Stolen Secrets.
The answer is simple: I couldn’t leave Olivia out.
By the time Stolen Secrets begins, Olivia and Simon are on their honeymoon. While the main story unfolds, Olivia is largely off the page but I knew readers wouldn’t want one of the series’ favorite characters to simply disappear. So I gave her a mission of her own.
Rather than taking place after Stolen Secrets, Shadow Extraction runs alongside the events of the novel. It gave me the opportunity to explore what Olivia was doing while the rest of the team was fighting their own battles. It also allowed me to bring back one of her mentors, first mentioned briefly in a flashback in Living Secrets, and to pay tribute to the intelligence partner who spent years working in the shadows beside her.
Writing Shadow Extraction reminded me how much I enjoy fast-paced missions, international settings, and action-driven stories. That experience sparked an entirely new direction for me as a writer.
In many ways, Shadow Extraction became the bridge between the Mirror Estate world and my newest venture, The Mercer Files, an action-adventure thriller series that grew from the inspiration of following Olivia on one more mission.