WELCOME TO TRUE AIRSPEED BLOG
Thanks for stopping by the blog of authors Sandy Parks (Mom) and “Skate” Parks (fighter pilot son) where aviation can be shared and discussed, and posting of travel photos often related to our books can be discovered. If you have a story to share or question to ask, we’d love to hear from you.
Sandy
I write fast-paced thrillers with a mix of adventure, suspense, science fiction, and romance. Adventure has always been part of my life. Living with a test pilot husband and two active sons, I learned to fly, dive, and survive bodily torture for fifteen years as a black belt in Kenpo Karate (trained by Robert Vanelli). I knew writing lay in my future since teenage days when I took creative writing classes and wrote high school sports news for the county paper.
I’ve been published by Kensington Publishing Corporation and now indie publish at True Airspeed Press. I’m a member of International Thriller Writers, Mystery Writers of America, and Florida STAR Fiction Writers.
I’m a hydrogeologist by training with an M.S. in geological sciences and have taken further engineering graduate courses in California and Ohio. I’ve taught at a university, worked on a military project related to computers and aircraft flight testing, worked as a design engineer for a civil engineering firm, and have done computer modeling and field studies as a hydrogeologic consultant. I’ve studied in England and Italy, traveled to South Africa, Egypt, South America, and Asia and still travel to places of interest all over the world so I can make my books richer.
Skate
Skate has recently joined True Airspeed blog. As a fighter pilot who loves to read thrillers, he’s taken his passion a step further and started penning aviation thrillers himself. “Skate” is his call sign, and if you’re curious how pilots get theirs, check out his novels when they become available.
He’s not the first aviator in the family. One grandfather worked on airplanes in WWII. A second grandfather was a military pilot, flew in Vietnam, and earned the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award for fifty years of active flying. His father is still working as a test pilot and flies small planes for fun. He has a sibling and cousins that are also pilots and an uncle who was a navigator. As a matter of fact, everyone in Skate’s immediate family has a pilot’s license. You will find his family, including his grandfather and cousin, are contributors at True Airspeed blog.
Writing novels is not new to his family, either. He is the son of Sandy Parks who also writes aviation thrillers and science fiction, and his aunt, Julie Moffett, writes geek and YA mysteries.
His adventures started at the US Air Force Academy where he did his best to hike, fish, and ski in between studies in mechanical engineering. When Skate is not finding new ways to bring the thrills of supersonic flight onto the pages of his books and blogs, he enjoys traveling to find the next perfect setting. He’s traveled in Asia, the Pacific, Europe, South and North America and lived various places around the world like Japan and Korea.
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Do Sandy and Skate write books together? We critique together at the moment, but maybe someday.
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Sandy’s Books
Sandy’s thrillers are award winning. Repossessed collected a 2013 Kiss of Death Daphne du Maurier Mainstream Mystery/Suspense Award, a 2013 Maggie Award for Novel with Strong Romantic Element, and a HOLT Award of Merit.
Taking Risks Series
If you love adventure, a strong heroine and hero, and international locations, travel with me to southern Africa the location for the thrillers in the Taking Risks series.
Back cover Blurb: Helicopter pilot Joni Bell believes her life is once again under control after a failed covert rescue mission two years ago cost the life of a dignitary’s child. Out of the US military and relocated to South Africa, she test-flies a prototype Special Forces craft unaware her past has already caught up.
Her skill set is just what the CIA and South African government need to address a sensitive international issue brewing in the struggling country across the border. They coerce her into flying the craft into Zimbabwe to smuggle out top-secret information secured by wildlife manager Ian Taljaard.
Once in the country, Joni discovers she and Taljaard have different visions for the rapidly changing mission. Her presence in the country is betrayed, another child is put at risk, and a deadly Zimbabwean operative and his team pick up their tail. As they evade capture in bush country, their encounters with the enemy reveal Ian is more mysterious and dangerous than his bio disclosed. With deceptions rampant on both sides and stakes rising, it will take both their skills to slip under the radar of a deadly enemy and escape.
Back cover Blurb: Joni Bell’s life as a former American military helicopter pilot has grown complicated. The only way to rescue a spy she’s come to love and keep a promise to a child whose father is a political prisoner in Africa is to assist the CIA. Can she do all this while keeping one step ahead of a traitor in her midst?
Former Special Forces soldier Ian Taljaard is avoiding Zimbabwean intelligence (CIO). They want him stopped after he aided the imprisoned finance minister in uncovering government corruption and secrets officials need to keep buried. Now Ian’s pressing goal is to find where the CIO is keeping the minister and free him. The last thing Ian wants is for captivating American Joni Bell to risk coming back to where the CIO wants her dead. Yet Joni does return, with support from the American CIA and unwelcome help from a fellow pilot assigned as her escort. Ian fears the duplicitous CIA is hiding the true mission once again and that Joni’s coworker harbors secrets…secrets with the potential to kill.
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Hawker Incorporated Series
The first in Sandy’s Hawker Incorporated Series is REPOSSESSED. Winner of a Daphne du Maurier for Mainstream Suspense and a GRW Maggie for Romantic Elements.
Available in both e-book and paperback at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, iBooks, and KOBO. Enjoy some fast action and fun mixed with suspense and real flying details.
A reclusive boss.
An unemployed pilot.
One billionaire in default.
When Brazilian gem dealer Maximilian Furst stops making payments on his fifty million dollar business jet, “Hawker” Dunlop, reclusive owner of a high-end recovery company, sends a resourceful team to Rio to repossess the aircraft.
Dunlop’s newest hire, ex-military pilot Amelia “Jet” Walczynski, has the perfect skills for infiltrating Furst’s inner circle and flying away the targeted plane. The assignment appears straightforward until Jet discovers Furst is a sociopath and knows she is after his aircraft. Her promised support team, a Greek lawyer avenging his brother’s death, a conman who sidelines as their scout, and a mechanic who paints her nails to match the country of operation, appear a hindrance rather than help. Jet finds it hard to play nice with her teammates when their private agendas put her life at risk. Yet, the closer she gets to Furst and the plane, the more she and her team will have to rely on each other to complete the repossession.
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OUTFOXED, Book 2 in the Hawker Incorporated Series, following Jet, Gregori, Lenny, Roxy, and, of course, their mysterious boss, Graham Dunlop. You may even meet a few more characters to round out the action and keep Jet on her toes.
BLURB:
OUTFOXED is the second book in the award-winning Hawker Inc series.
A plane gone.
A pilot dead.
Hawker Dunlop’s repossession team demoralized and in jail.
Ex-military pilot Jet Walczynski and her crew are back in a mission to repossess an airliner in Ecuador. The mission falls apart when they are betrayed and the team disintegrates. Dunlop’s lawyer, Gregori Demos, sees justice as the best recourse for bringing them back together…if the new mission doesn’t kill them first. Their task—locate the missing aircraft, nab the betrayer, and uncover the people who financed the deadly con.
Hedge fund billionaire Frederic Zinsli has no intention of being stopped in his life-long drive to avenge his grandfather. He has teamed with the dark side of technology, brought in investors, and obtained the perfect instrument to win his fight. When he discovers Dunlop’s repo team on his tail again, he intends to shut them down for good.
Adding to the difficulty, the CIA has taken an interest in this repossession gone wrong and will gladly sacrifice Dunlop’s people in order to uncover Zinsli’s intentions. While Jet’s team fight personal demons and battles to stay ahead of the opposition, time is counting down. As the truth is revealed and Jet’s team is forced to make precipitous decisions, will they succeed or be outfoxed once again?