Assignment One
For 25 years, Jack Hathaway has covered up the sins of Washington, D.C.’s political elite with a cool steadiness, unmatched in the harsh world of politics. But upon returning home early from a trip to Florida, he catches his wife Tara in a heated tryst with another man. His heart shatters, flipping his entire world upside down. Jack searches for answers about his wife’s infidelity while confronting tragedies of his past. Just as he begins to fully unravel the mystery of Tara’s deception, a bullet rips through his chest leaving him barely clinging to life. Can the man who buries the country’s darkest secrets uncover the truth about Tara and find out who tried to kill him? Or will he be the one who ends up getting buried? November Sky begins a five-book thriller series where loyalty is rare and betrayal is all too common.
Assignment Two:
In November Sky: Secrets and Lies, the antagonistic force is Washington, D.C.’s corrupt political machine, a dark web of power and deceit that ensnares fixer Jack Hathaway. It’s embodied by three figures: his father-in-law, Maryland Governor Julian Campos, a cutthroat politician driven by ruthless ambition to dominate the political world; Tara Hathaway, Jack’s unfaithful wife, whose affair shatters his trust, her betrayal rooted in insecurity, and Agent Mills, a relentless FBI agent driven by a burning obsession to capture the elusive fixer who’s skirted the law for years. Campos manipulates with icy precision, using Jack to crush threats in order to maintain power. Tara’s betrayal, born of personal discontent, strikes with emotional volatility that threatens to destroy Jack from within. Mills pursues with unyielding focus, his rigid principles clashing with Jack’s moral ambiguity. Each exploits Jack’s tragic past, intensifying the web of betrayal and danger around him, forcing him to confront uncomfortable truths while fighting for redemption in a city where loyalty is a myth.
Assignment Three:
November Sky: Secrets and Lies
November Sky: The Truth About Tara
Jack Hathaway: Under the November Sky
Assignment Four:
November Sky: Secrets and Lies fuses The Perfect Marriage’s first-person tale of a D.C. attorney’s unraveling marriage, rocked by her husband’s affair and a murder accusation, with The Helsinki Affair’s suspenseful espionage, where a CIA officer navigates D.C.’s corrupt intelligence world and her father’s hidden past.
Assignment Five:
A skilled fixer buries the darkest secrets of the country’s political elite with skill and precision, but when he finds his wife of sixteen years in another man’s arms, his world shatters, and the events that follow threaten his very existence.
Assignment Six:
Trigger: Returning early from visiting his mother in Florida, Jack steps onto the porch of his Bethesda, Maryland home when an icy sense of dread stops him dead in his tracks. One glance through the window reveals his wife Tara in the throes of passion with another man. The sight—her flushed face, his shadowed form—slices through Jack like a blade, breaking his heart and shattering his trust.
Reaction: His pulse hammers, fists clenching with rage as he fights the urge to barge in and beat the guy senseless as Tara looks on in horror, but his fixer instincts kick in. He takes a deep breath to gather himself, then retreats into the shadows, the betrayal searing his mind and the pain of his heartbreak moves through him like shards of glass. His hands shake through the rush of adrenaline as he calls Larry, a trusted associate, asking him to tail the man and track Tara’s movements. He needs to know not only who the man is, but why his wife has strayed. What other secrets might she be hiding?
Jack’s secondary conflict arises from his uneasy alliance with Agent Mills, a longtime FBI adversary, to find Mills’s missing daughter, Heather, clashing with disapproval from his trusted associate, Lynn. As a skilled fixer, Jack thrives on loyalty and control, but teaming with Mills—a man who’s chased him for a decade—strains his professional instincts and risks his reputation in D.C.’s shadowy elite circles. Lynn’s angst, rooted in her distrust of Mills and her protective loyalty to Jack, creates tension, forcing Jack to navigate conflicting allegiances while pursuing a dangerous job involving Ray Knapp, a sleazy car dealer tied to Heather’s disappearance. This social conflict pits Jack’s fixer pragmatism against his strained relationships, amplifying the stakes of his mission.
Trigger: Jack picks up Lynn at her Silver Spring house, briefing her on the plan to kidnap car dealer Ray Knapp and interrogate him at the Middletown, Maryland cabin to uncover leads on Heather’s disappearance for Mills. Lynn’s eyes narrow, her voice sharp with irritation, as she snaps, “You’re working with Mills? That FBI prick who’s been hunting you forever? Are you insane, Jack?” Her disapproval stings, accusing him of betraying their bond by aligning with an enemy.
Reaction: Jack grips the steering wheel, his jaw tight, as Lynn’s words cut into his psyche. He defends his choice, explaining Mills’s desperation for Heather and the potential to gain an FBI ally, but her skepticism—calling Mills a “snake”—gnaws at him. His fixer instincts urge him to stay focused on the Knapp job, but Lynn’s grief stirs doubt, making him question if he’s risking too much trust. As they drive toward Knapp’s dealership, Jack’s stomach churns, torn between proving Lynn wrong and fearing her warnings about Mills might be right, the tension threatening to fracture their partnership.
Assignment Seven
Washington, D.C. and its Maryland region hum as a living force in November Sky: Secrets and Lies, a sprawling stage where the polished marble of monuments and grand facades veil a web of corruption and buried secrets. D.C.’s commanding presence, radiating from Capitol Hill’s scheming elite, binds every corner of the narrative, its tension shadowing Jack Hathaway’s every move as stakes climb daily, his fixer precision steadfast against mounting betrayals. Maryland’s varied terrain—Bethesda’s sleek suburbs, Frederick’s rough-edged bars, Middletown’s desolate wilds—grounds the story, each location vibrant yet tethered to D.C.’s unrelenting grip, where power and deceit intertwine like ivy on ancient stone. Lincoln Park on Constitution Avenue, its ancient oaks and weathered black benches encircling a towering Lincoln statue at its heart, glows under sunset’s amber wash, the air thick with Capitol Hill’s distant hum of corruption, a fitting place for many of Jack’s covert meetings. Downtown Bethesda’s neon-lit streets surge, bar signs flickering over sidewalks, the crisp air heavy with unseen threats and the faint echo of danger always nearby. Jack’s Bethesda home, a modern colonial harbors betrayal behind expansive glass windows. In Frederick, the Tipsy Microphone Karaoke Bar, Jack’s cash-laundering front, thrums with off-key singers and soulful voices under neon glow, its raw edge and worn barstools masking illicit schemes amid the clink of whiskey glasses. Middletown’s weathered cabin, tucked in the Blue Ridge foothills near Sharpsburg’s blood-soaked Antietam fields, stands resolute, its circular gravel driveway crunching underfoot, squeaky hardwood floors echoing blood, sweat, and tears of past struggles, a faint whisper of peace lingering amid the chaos of its grim history. The early 1900s Dupont Circle brownstone, its faded red brick and blue door weathered by time, heavy with memories of past tragedy, its creaking stairs and dusty corners a ghostly echo of old wounds. Flashbacks to Ann Arbor, the University of Michigan’s campus bursts with ivy-wrapped halls and lively quads under rustling fall leaves, the Big House—Michigan Stadium—roaring with maize-and-blue football crowds, its sprawling stands and thundering cheers a vivid memory of Jack’s younger days, charged with ambition and innocence. This region’s clash of D.C.’s grand schemes, Maryland’s suburban glitz and rural grit, and Ann Arbor’s nostalgic past forges a cinematic world, each setting alive with the weight of the burden Jack carries with him everywhere he goes, the city’s character as relentless as his own battles.
