Leigh Rose is the American Fiction Author of the ©”Legends on the Rise Novel Series” for which she received the Massachusetts Cultural Council Award in Literature (2023).

“Riveting… Page-turning…The pacing is swift, the action scenes are cinematically developed, and Rose’s moving, assured prose keeps the pages turning.” The Prairies Book Review, February 24, 2022

The Legends on the Rise Novel Series is a trilogy of three books that recount the lives of two, distant cousins connected by a secret lineage, and a dowry: A decoratively carved ebony chest of rare gemstones acquired during the French colonial slave trade.

The Legends… series is a trilogy of fiction that explores the life of the Reiss and Freedman bloodline as descendants search for the truth about the acquisition of their heirloom dowry acquired during the French colonial slave trade.

In Mistaken Legacy, Book 1, in the Legends on the Rise Novel Series, Juliette Reiss-Marston inherits a dowry belonging to all Reiss women in their bloodline upon her engagement. Shortly thereafter, Claude Freedman, a distant cousin she had never met contacts Juliette about knowing who the dower is and that he had inherited her ancestor’s memoir that discloses the acquisition during the French colonial slave trade, and her connection to the Freedman family. Claude is a descendant of Luis Freedman, a slave Juliet’s fourth great grandfather, Captain Françoise Jules Reiss III had freed.

In Heiress and Epithet, Book 2, in the Legends…series, Claude visits Paris, France, to meet and mend the long-standing differences with the Reiss family and to disclose the truth about Juliette’s inheritance, all along Interpol is investigating the Reiss family for international fraud since learning the dowry of gemstones stolen from their rightful owners, the French Crown. In a state of anxiety, Juliette, Claude and their closest friends help hide the dowry of gemstones until they can figure out how to clear the Reiss family name, not knowing a forgotten for dead Reiss descendant and high-ranking official had made a deal with the French government for the family’s immunity.

In Children of the Alliance, Book 3, in the Legends on the Rise Novel Series, explore the men’s journey from 1754 -1810, on three continents, and in three cities, Toulon, France, Senegal, West Africa, and St. Augustine, Florida, as they struggle with keeping their mixed-race families together during the French colonial slave grade.

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©Double Orphan is a story about the survival of journalist, Angie Olivetti. Angie is a descendant from a long line of book publishers and journalists. The family is from the historic neighborhood of North Beach, California. The San Francisco community with a divided history since the 1848 California Gold Rush.

Angie’s father, Luke Olivetti, had won the Pulitzer Prize for his article on the transnational crime syndicate, Sonora cartel. Since the publication of Luke’s article, gang leaders ordered his “hit” if and when he entered Mexico. In 1990, Angie is eight years old and survives the brutal murder of her parents by Sonora cartel members, when the family are taking their usual vacation, in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico.

The novel opens in 2013, and after Angie graduates from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. She is now senior editor for the San Francisco Headline’s (SFH) U.S. & World Report division, when she receives a call from Arturo Lopez, a Mexican miner claiming he witnessed the cartel smuggling natural gas and crude oil over the U.S. border for a Texas refinery. A federal offence, Arturo is seeking asylum for his family of four for witness testimony.

Angie jumps on the whistleblowers claim and takes the story. With a team of SFH journalists, Ice Shadow Wolves, and Federales, the team goes undercover and investigates the mining sting at Burgos Basin, in northeastern Mexico, to rescue the Lopez family hiding out from cartel death threats, in the Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains.

Everything goes as planned until Angie’s Uncle Johnny shows up, and when Angie discovers a family secret about her parent’s death…

©Murder at Sweet Life Inn is a comedic-noir fiction novel set in 2015 with flashbacks about the Forni family and their descendants. Luna Forni, is the owner of the inn and when she is found to be a suspect in a murder at her inn she contacts her cousin, Eanna Tasso, who lives with her family in Princeton, New Jersey. Eanna thinks the Campobasso police have jumped to conclusions based on a theory presented by guests at the inn that they heard wood warbler distress calls on the night of the murder. Everyone in Campobasso knows the Forni descendants are master warblers; skilled songster that can imitate warbler bird calls.

As the investigation into who murdered the couple goes cold, Chief Alessandro Ricci requests all city residents and visitors take part in a “tilling contest” that can imitate the wood warbler. When they come up empty, detectives request forensic DNA analysis on potential suspects. Unable to make a match with Italy’s Sistema di Indagine—Italy’s Investigation System, investigators are drawn to use Forensic Genetic Genealogy and Familial DNA to eliminate Luna Forni as a suspect. Genetic Genealogy uses DNA testing and historical records to build a family tree and trace ancestry. Familial DNA matches sections of DNA between individuals to see if they are biologically related. Will Luna Forni be exonerated…?

©Special Agent: Valentine Day is a spy thriller about Ned and Maggie Stiles. A married couple living and working in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Ned is an at-home-dad and brilliant software engineer, while Maggie is a biochemist working on a classified special project for the CIA.

When the couple are invited to speak at “Moscow’s 2007 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence,” Maggie goes missing. Ned surmises his wife’s disappearance has everything to do with the classified project she is working on for the CIA; a project Ned knows nothing about because of its secrecy.

After a yearlong CIA investigation into Maggie’s disappearance, the agency tells Ned, “Maggie was kidnapped may be deceased.” Angry that he has to bury his wife, and the mother of their two boys, Darius and Lukas, without a body, Ned is not convinced the CIA is telling him the truth. Suspecting foul play, Ned patents, AI-QFP, an Artificial Intelligence & Quantum Forensics Program he swears will find Maggie alive and will bring her home.

Five years later, the CIA find out that Ned is applying for a patent for AI-QFP, and offer him their top position, Director of Artificial Intelligence. Feeling as though he has no other choice but to accept the position, Ned joins the CIA to gain access to Maggie’s classified file that he inputs into AI-QFP.

With his team of experts, Ned discovers he is right. Maggie is still alive and on a mission in Moscow to intercept “The Wolf,” Dmitry Volkov, a former CIA foreign asset gone rogue and who wants to steal the CIA classified project Maggie developed to sell to terrorists: A biohybrid robot that mimics human behavior “in real-time.” In the wrong hands, it will lead to massive world-wide fatalities…

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EDUCATION

MA University of North Carolina (2010)

BPM Florida Atlantic University (2005)

BFA University of North Florida (2003)

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leigh@lroseauthor.com