Fast-paced space thrillers about survival, found family, and the long way back from the dark.
Ariane Amann writes about Dana Manley — ISA agent, former assassin, and the most stubborn woman in the sector. The books are quick, twisty, and full of trouble. But beneath the chases and the politics, they're about something real: surviving the worst, carrying the grief, and building a life worth living anyway.
"Grief and joy can coexist — and both can be true at the same time."
Ariane AmannOne woman, four books, and a galaxy that won't let her rest.
Meet Dana Manley: ISA agent, former assassin, and the woman the Senate really should have left alone. Across four books she pulls apart galactic conspiracies, outruns the people who want her dead, and fights to protect the family she's built. Tense, propulsive, and honest about what surviving actually costs.
The whole series is available now on Kindle. Direct sales from this site are coming soon.
Paperback editions of the full series are available on Amazon.
Writing became my refuge from the world at a very early age. And while I know why I retreated into worlds of my own then — and still do now — it has never got any clearer where the love of words and languages comes from. No one in my family, on either my mother's or my father's side, has been a writer, or even someone who dabbled with languages. But wherever it comes from, it gives me joy, and pleasure, and a way to earn my own living as a journalist.
For a long time I convinced myself that daily, journalistic writing was the thing I was best at. Life got busy — work, pregnancies that failed, babies — and I set the creative writing aside for a while.
During that time I went through a couple of traumatic experiences that would send anyone to their knees. I've seen so much death, so much heartbreak, so much loss. Thankfully, I found the strength to drag myself to therapy for years, I worked through all of it, and I came out the other end feeling okay with life. There are some things I will never get over, and that's okay. A lot of this has seeped into my writing. I know that it's okay to fall apart when something horrible happens to you. I know you have to do the hard work to keep your will to survive alive. And I know you can find a life so worth living, even if some of the hard things never leave. Grief and joy can coexist, and both can be true at the same time. They are for me.
My characters have histories that aren't all happy and bubbly — most of them, anyway. They go through the dark, face their deepest fears, and come out even stronger. I can take them, and my readers, by the hand and walk them through the steps towards healing, because I've been there. I've walked in their shoes; I know how much it hurts, and I know there are days you won't have the strength to fight for a new life.
My trauma probably won't be yours. Each one is different — equally valid, equally hard — but the steps to work through it are the same, whatever the cause. For me, the only way out was through: facing it head-on, walking myself through it again and again until I understood what had happened. Doing that has saved me more than once. The trauma doesn't go away, and neither does the grief, but you can build a life around them — one where they take up less and less space, walking quietly alongside you and resurfacing every now and then. And that's okay. I put a lot of that into my books, the trauma and the healing both, because it's what I know best.
I didn't always have the strength either — and yet, here I am.
"I want to be Manley! What a character. Sassy, smart, always has the answer. I loved this book and can't wait to follow Manley in her next adventure."
"Going behind the scenes on a mission with Manley was exactly the kind of immersive experience I love in a spy thriller. Her struggle to move past her last mission felt raw and real, making the trauma feel personal."
"The female empowerment arc against the corrupt establishment is extra timely. The insights into Manley's family and her golden-retriever spouse are a great way to humanise the story and character."
What stays in, what gets left out, and why the healing matters more than the wound.
Former assassin, fierce friend, devoted mother — and far more complicated than her past suggests.
What twenty-odd years of journalism taught Ariane about lying convincingly in fiction.
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