Margins
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Vicky Peterwald
Series · 6 books · 2014-2019

Books in series

Kris Longknife's Assassin book cover
#0.5

Kris Longknife's Assassin

2014

Kris Longknife killed Vicky Peterwald’s brother. So Vicky will kill Kris Longknife. Or try. Raised in the shadow of her brother Hank, Vicky now finds herself heir to the Peterwald Empire and hell bent on killing Kris Longknife. When that doesn’t work out, she finds herself shipped off to the Greenfeld Navy as a boot ensign. There she learns she can solve problems without taking her clothes off, and really feel good about it! When Kris Longknife crosses Vicky’s path again, Vicky is ready to help her save Vicky’s dad’s life. Kris Longknife’s Assassin is a long novella, just 50 words short of 40,000 words. It tells the story from Vicky’s perspective of her first run ins with Kris Longknife as well as Vicky’s apprenticeship under Admiral Krätz. It will give the reader a good run up to Vicky Peterwald – Target coming from Ace June 24. Also included is a sneak preview of the first four chapters of Vicky Peterwald – Target.
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#1

Target

2014

The first installment in the Vicky Peterwald series BEAUTY AND THE BATTLEFIELD Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Victoria Maria Teresa Inez Smythe-Peterwald, daughter of wealth and power, was raised to do little except be attractive and marry well. Then everything changed—her brother, her father’s favorite and the heir apparent, was killed in battle by Lieutenant Kris Longknife, daughter of the Peterwald’s longtime enemies. Vicky vowed revenge, but her skill set was more suitable for seduction than assassination, and she failed. Angry and disappointed, her father decided she needed military training and forced her to join the Navy. Now Ensign Vicky Peterwald is part of a whole new world, where use of her ample charms will not lead to advancement. But her father is the Emperor, and what he wants he gets. What he wants is for Vicky to learn to be efficiently ruthless and deadly. Though the lessons are hard learned, Vicky masters them—with help from an unexpected Kris Longknife.
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#2

Survivor

2015

Seeking revenge for her brother’s death, Grand Duchess Vicky Peterwald underwent an unlikely transformation—from pampered heir to naval lieutenant. Now a new challenge looms: Vicky will need to use both her military and political ranks to rebuild war-torn planets, planets ruined both by the Peterwald Empire and by Kris Longknife’s revolutionary quests. But not everyone shares Vicky’s goals. When the death-before-dishonor code of the Navy meets the anything-goes-to-win motto of the Imperial family, Vicky must confront, outwit, and conquer both revolutionaries and her own family to stifle galactic disorder. And nothing stops a Grand Duchess, on or off the field.
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#3

Rebel

2016

Vicky Peterwald is no longer just the heir apparent to an imperial dynasty. She survived naval training and proved her mettle in combat to help the starving people of the ravaged world of St. Petersburg. Now, she is truly a Grand Duchess, leading a growing battle fleet in a rebellion against the tyranny of her stepmother, the Empress. Determined to stop her spoiled stepdaughter’s betrayal from upsetting the balance of power within the Peterwald Empire, the Empress is leading her own armada to St. Petersburg, intent on killing Vicky and every soul on the planet that gave her refuge. But Vicky is her father’s daughter, and it would be a grave mistake to underestimate her...
Dominator book cover
#4

Dominator

2018

Grand Duchess Vicky Peterwald has everything. A loving fiancé who's soon to be her husband, adoring crowds, and she gets to share her golden wedding carriage with Kris Longknife. What more could a girl want? Well, the Emperor, her father, could have showed up to walk her down the aisle, but she's not really bothered about that. Then suddenly, she is. It turns out that he didn't make the wedding because he's broke and living nearly homeless in an abandoned, half built, palace. How'd that happen? News isn't coming out of Dad's side of the Empire, so it looks like Vicky may need a battle fleet to go pay Daddy dear a visit. Oh, and four or six brigades of infantry and tanks. Somebody should have known better than piss Vicky Peterwald off. Now they have, and she won't let anything get in her way of being Vicky Peterwald: Dominator.
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#5

Implacable

2019

Grand Duchess Victoria Peterwald wants her Empire back. If you're the one who's holding any part of it hostage, you really want to be somewhere else. Quick! Vicky has cleared Dresden of the so-called Security Specialists of the Bowlingame crime family. Every Redcoat is dead on that planet … and good riddance. Vicky thought she had killed that family twice: first when the Empress and her dad died at the Battle of Cuzco, then when she captured all the uncles and brothers who'd done their best to keep the government going. Still, the snake of that kleptocracy refuses to die! If Grand Duchess Vicky wants her Empire back, be she an autocrat or a constitutional monarch, she needs to root those snakes out of every hole they've crawled down. The only question is where to go next. While her army prepared for the invasion of Lublin, Vicky figured Oryol would only be a small police action. Yes, the planet had dropped off the net, but all they have are a regiment of Redcoats without tanks. What happens when a police force faces no resistance . . . and goes bad? Just how sick and depraved can men become when they are the law, and no one can stop them from satisfying their every vicious whim? Worse, what price will a Grand Duchess pay to put an end to that wretched hive of scum and villainy? Read By Dina Pearlman.

Author

Mike Shepherd
Mike Shepherd
Author · 40 books

A pseudonym used by Mike Moscoe. Mike was born in the Philadelphia Navy Yard Hospital—and left that town at the age of three days for reasons he does not presently recall. But they had to draft him to get him back there. He missed very little of the rest of the country. Growing up Navy, he lived about everywhere you could park an aircraft carrier. Mike was one of those college students who didn't have to worry about finding a job after graduation. In 1968, his Uncle Sam made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Two days into boot camp, the Army was wondering if they might not have been a bit hasty. Mike ended the day in the Intensive Care Unit of the local Army hospital. Despite most of Mike’s personal war stories being limited to "How I flunked boot camp," he can still write a rollicking good military SF yarns. Mike didn’t survive all that long as a cab driver (he got lost) or bartender (he made the drinks too strong) but he figured he could at least work for the Navy Department as a budget analyst. Until he spent the whole day trying to balance the barracks accounts for paint. Finally, about quitting time, a grinning senior analyst took him aside and let him in on the secret. They'd hidden the money for refitting a battleship in that little account. Slowly it dawned on Mike that there were a few things about the Navy that even a kid who grew up in it would never understand. Over the next twenty years, Mike branched out into other genres, including instruction memos, policies, performance standards and even a few labor contracts. All of those, you may notice, lack a certain something. Dialogue ... those things in quotes. In `87, Mike’s big break came. He landed on a two year special project to build a digital map showing where the trees, rivers, roads, Spotted Owls and other critters were in western Oregon. The list went on and on with no end in sight and two years became ten. Since there was no writing involved in his new day job, Mike had to do something to get the words out. He signed up for a writing class at Clark Community College and proudly turned in a story ... Star Wars shoots down the second coming of Christ. Two years later, Analog bought "Summer Hopes, Winter Dreams" for the March, 1991 issue. Four years later he sold his first novel. In the ten years since then, Mike’s turned in twelve novels and is researching the next three. Mike's love for Science Fiction started when he picked up "Rocket Ship Galileo" in the fifth grade, and then proceeded to read every book in the library with a rocket sticker on its spine. Mike digs for his stories among people and change. Through his interest in history, he has traces the transformations that make us what we are today. Science launches us forward into an ever changing universe. Once upon a time, the only changes in peoples lives came with the turning of the seasons and the growing wrinkles on their brows. Today, science drives most of the changes in our daily lives. Still, we can't avoid the pressure of our own awakening hormones or hardening arteries. Mike is happiest when his stories are speeding across thin ice, balanced on the edge of two sharp blades, one anciently human, the other as new as tomorrow's research. Trained in International Relations and history, salary administration and bargaining, theology and counseling, Mike is having a ball writing about Kris Longknife ... coming of age while the world her grand parents built threatens to crash down around her ears. These are books I think you’ll love ... and my granddaughter and grandsons too! Mike lives in Vancouver, Washington, with his wife Ellen, his mother-in-law and any visiting grandkids. He enjoys reading, writing, watching grand-children for story ideas and upgrading his computer—all are never ending.

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