I would be remiss if I did not express my sincere appreciation to Deseret Book Company for their acceptance of my first novel, Dangerous Legacy and for our continuing professional relationship.
Sheri Dew, currently President and Chief Executive of Deseret Book, was instrumental in bringing me into DB's stable of outstanding authors. I am most grateful to Sheri and appreciative of her continuing support.
I cannot say enough about my editor, Richard Peterson. We have worked together on five books, each of which is a far better product because of his skill and commitment. My deepest thanks, Richard.
Click on any of the books above to read excerpts from opening scenes.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gordon Ryan was born in Brooklyn, New York. He spent his early years in Staten Island, New York, the middle childhood years in Tampa, Florida, and his teenage and young adult years in San Antonio, Texas. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in Political Science and has completed graduate work in public administration. He also holds certification from the Community Associations Institute as a Professional Community Association Manager, (PCAM.)
As a young man of nineteen, Gordon served with the 1st Recon Battalion, United States Marine Corps. Several years later, after a mission to Norway with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he served with the United States Air Force during the Vietnam conflict, assigned to a medical facility in Bangkok.
Since those early years, Gordon has spent much of his adult life overseas in Norway, England, Thailand, Taiwan, New Zealand and Dublin, Ireland, where he was assigned to the American Embassy in the tumultuous mid-70's. He has also lived in about a half dozen states on both the east and west coasts of America, including the far reaches of Alaska.
He wrote his first novel, Dangerous Legacy, in 1993, while living in New Zealand, as he now recalls it, ". . . to do something new and different before I turned fifty." Despite the early morning reluctance to get out of bed, a hectic schedule that Gordon (and thousands of other writers) finds necessary to assure a daily quiet time to write, once the writing bug took hold, " . . . I wondered why I hadn't discovered the joys of creating fiction many years earlier."
Following the publication of Dangerous Legacy, Gordon hit his stride and jumped to the best seller list with the phenomenal Threads of Honor, a true story of an incredible American flag and the American space program. That success was followed by a robust family saga in three volumes, entitled Spirit of Union, the historical chronicle of a feisty Irish larrikin who immigrated to New York in 1895, and a beautiful, sixteen-year-old Norwegian girl whose family had joined the LDS church, destined for Utah.
The first words that eventually became Dangerous Legacy have now expanded to eight published novels, several additional manuscripts in developmental stage, and "more stories in my head than I will ever have time to write." Gordon continues to write almost daily, describing his good fortune in becoming a published novelist as "second only to the birth of my children, and one of the more fulfilling experiences of my life."
After twenty-five years of municipal administration with three appointments as a City Manager in Washington State and Alaska, Homeowner Association management with three appointments as Chief Executive in California and Utah, Gordon and his wife, Colleen Sterling of Christchurch, New Zealand currently live in Utah.
