Excerpt from The Island of Stolen Dreams, my adult action/adventure novel:

"Stabbing pains shot through the bottoms of Kate’s feet, awakening her instantly.  In terror she tried to scream, but no sound came.  Scrambling upright amid her heavy shackles, she tried to make sense of her surroundings. The cold dampness of the prison floor only served as an agonizing reminder that the last 24 hours had not been merely a dream, but a living nightmare.  Kate strained to see in the suffocating darkness, but there wasn’t even an insignificant glimmer of light.  All she could hear was the metallic sound of the irons that bound her ankles as she shifted her position.  She waited in silence, finally crying out as something sharp and pointed stabbed at her bare toes once more.   Again and again, she was pierced by some unknown source until her feet felt wet and sticky with blood.  Kicking out reflexively in panic, she made contact with something alive and slick with fur; a rat!  She heard the screech of anger as it scampered away, but it wasn’t long before it returned with more of its blood-thirsty companions." 

Excerpt from Temarrian Bound, my adult science fiction/fantasy novel:

"Alena had the sickening feeling that she was being watched. Of course, she was constantly being observed each and every day due to her regrettable situation in this nightmare of an intergalactic science center that was nothing more than a glorified space zoo.  But this time was different, she wasn’t being looked at from behind the glass of the observatory, she was being watched from somewhere inside her biome enclosure.  The hair on the back of her neck bristled as she turned and found herself facing a pair of intense amber-orange eyes that wore the expression of both anger and yearning, like a wild, caged beast of prey. The man glared unashamed… almost predatorily at her through the glass.

          He was definitely human, but by far the most otherworldly- looking of the menagerie of humanoids that she had seen inhabiting the primate section of this despicable science center.   Alena stared boldly back at him while hurriedly taking in his physique, his features, his demeanor.   His skin was bronze to golden in color.  He was well muscled and looked dreadfully powerful.   His burning orange eyes, unkempt shoulder length hair and grim set mouth made him look all the more wild and discomforting.  Alena shuddered and turned away, searching for a place to conceal herself from the unwanted attention, wondering aloud if her situation could be any more miserable." 

Excerpt from The All-Seeing Eye, my young adult science fiction/fantasy novel:

"Ron stopped, sucking in the stale air that was becoming harder and harder to breathe.  At first he thought that his travels had been in vain, for there seemed to be nothing there.  Had he made a wrong turn somewhere?  But at that moment he noticed a strange stone fastened to the wall on one side of the passageway.  Carefully Ron examined it with his flashlight, but the stone seemed not to belong in the cave at all.  It was extraordinary with an eye in the center surrounded by bizarre patterns that came alive as Ron touched them.  He was completely unprepared for what happened when he turned the strange stone.  He leapt backwards in alarm as a doorway appeared and the darkness of the cave was illuminated instead by the brightness of a billion suns.  Even more astonishing was the great rushing noise that came from the door.  It sounded like hundreds of thousands of gallons of raging water, tumbling over a waterfall in a thunderous roar.  Ron’s senses felt like they might explode as he turned the stone once again.  The door closed as suddenly as it had opened.  He stood against the wall; his chest heaving, his blood racing, his mind alive with wonder.  It didn’t take him long, however, to steel himself against what he had to do.  He knew that the answers to everything that he ever wanted to know lay on the other side of that door.  Whatever peril lay ahead, whatever there was on the other side, Ron just had to know."