Vanessa Kier

Okay, I admit it. I'm one of those writers who's been making up stories since I was a girl. Sometimes I shared them, more often the stories stayed inside my head. But then I grew up and the stories became more complex. Finally it got to the point where my head was so full, I had to get the stories out on paper. I started writing down my stories in high school.

Ever since I left West Africa I’ve wanted to set a story there. But I had to wait for the right idea to take root. Eventually, the idea for WAR popped into my head. WAR stands for West African Rangers, an underground resistance organization. The world in which WAR operates is a fictionalized version of West Africa. I spent quite a lot of time researching the history and demographics of the region before I decided on which countries to merge and which countries to split in my new reality. I even drew a map by hand that displays the new countries and their borders.

In this version of West Africa, a vicious group of rebels have emerged, calling themselves the African Freedom Army. Their stated intent is to rid West Africa of all foreign influence and to build West Africa into a stronger, more profitable region based solely on the intellectual and physical strength of its people. Their underlying goal, however, is to turn the region into a staging ground for terrorist attacks against the rest of the world. As AFA grows in power and takes more territory, the corrupt and inefficient governments of West Africa prove unable to successfully defend themselves. With the U.S. and other powers distracted by events in the Middle East and Asia, West Africa is on its own.

WAR is created by a former government official who understands that governments alone are not going to be able to save the region from falling to the rebels. WAR recruits those people brave enough to stand up to the rebels. Military personnel, doctors, journalists, and so forth, these supporters contribute to WAR the best they can, turning it into a sort of Robin Hood organization that offers help to the oppressed while fighting a guerrilla war against the rebels. WAR has also attracted a great number of expats to its ranks, particularly foreign soldiers who see this region as a strategically key spot that must remain free and democratic in order to protect the security of the rest of the world. Most of the foreigners who have aligned with WAR also have personal reasons for staying in West Africa and joining the fight.

This setup allows me to write a multi-national cast. The hero and heroine of the first book are both American. The hero of the second book is Scottish. The rest of the current cast includes West Africans, a South African, a Brit, a Swede, and of course, more Americans.

I’m so excited to be finally able to share this amazing world with my readers!

The first book in this series is WAR: Disruption.