ROBERT ADKINS
There are Stories History Forgets on Purpose.
They’re not the ones with generals and flags, or victories measured in treaties.
These are the stories that happen in alleyways, in letters that never arrived, in the pause before a protest turns violent. They are the quiet stories, buried under the weight of cables and cover-ups, of revolution slogans and regime change.
It is a story of power without memory, and of love without protection. And of silence, heavy, weaponized, and finally, undone.
Some truths take decades to surface. Some wounds write themselves down. And some voices wait, not to be avenged—only to be heard.
Robert Adkins
COMING SOON
The Mirror Empires
From coup to revolution, from king to exile, The Mirror Empires is a searing literary epic that traces the soul of a nation in the shadow of empire. Spanning four decades of Iranian history, this sweeping novel unfolds through tyrants and poets, spies and dreamers, as power tightens and memory slips through its fingers. At once intimate and panoramic, this is a story of resistance, betrayal, and the silent courage of those who refuse to forget.
Spanning four decades of Iran’s turbulent 20th-century transformation, The Mirror Empires is a sweeping literary epic of ambition, betrayal, and endurance. From the rise of Reza Shah in 1921 to the CIA-backed coup of 1953 and the gathering storm of revolution in 1963, this novel explores the human cost of empire and the struggle to control a nation’s memory.
It begins in Tehran, with a coup that reshaped the modern Middle East, planned in boardrooms in Washington and London, executed in the streets by soldiers, gang leaders, and men in suits who never had to fire a shot.
But this story isn’t about the Shah, or Mossadegh, or even the West’s long shadow.
It’s about those caught in between.
Counter Dead
Don McDowell is a brilliant theoretical mathematician completing his PhD at Yale. The death of his fiancée drives him from New Haven into a tangled relationship with the image of his fiancée he thinks he sees in her mother. Escaping to Washington, DC, Don finds a home at Treasury and is then recruited by the CIA. A beautiful, intriguing surgeon from Lebanon rekindles his feelings, but a transfer to Mexico City, still reeling from the Kennedy assassination, promises further time alone.
A chance meeting with the wife of the Argentinian Ambassador, her startling beauty and clear distaste for her husband, complicate his life when she invites him to Nuestra Academia. A school she runs for girls on the Pacific coast, hours from Mexico City. The spacious hacienda overlooking the Pacific becomes their sanctuary until it is compromised, potentially leading to a deadly trap. A devastating set of documents indicting her husband in a scheme of currency manipulation against the Mexican Peso brings death, deception, and a bullet deflected by passports, as events push him to confront feelings, life, and a new talent.
Finally burying the past, Don finds himself on the streets of Saigon during the TET Offensive as he moves forward with a plan to trap a spy and infiltrate North Vietnam, changing the course of history.
Grains of Diplomacy
Lieutenant Cooper McGrath’s world revolved around his team until the day they were lost during their last mission, a burden he knew would haunt him forever. As he made his way home, a single memory, a fleeting flash of light, changed his course. In Hawaii, he crossed paths with a captivating flight attendant whose brief encounter set the stage for a life-altering journey.
That memory ignited a chain of events that led him through the thick jungles of Vietnam, where he uncovered a covert operation, eventually landing him in the heart of the Kremlin. A catastrophic explosion in the skies over New York added yet another twist to his life, but amid the tragedy, an old flame was rekindled. Together, they sought refuge in the mountains, where the vibrant hues of sunset gradually faded into somber grays. Despite his attempts to leave his tumultuous past behind, the threads of destiny continued to unravel across generations.
Cooper was forced to confront traitors, the Russian Federation, and a war in Afghanistan. From the idyllic shores of Hawaii to the solemn grounds of Arlington Cemetery, and the halls of the Kremlin to the distant jungles of Southeast Asia, McGrath followed a trail laid years ago, where his destiny would be forever altered.
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Works in Progress
A Box of Medals
A sweeping tale of courage, identity, and the forging of a young soldier’s soul in the fires of the Great War
Born into the poverty-stricken coalfields of Appalachia, a boy from Virginia grows up with little but grit, heart, and a restless hunger for something more. At just sixteen, he lies about his age and joins the U.S. Army, finding himself stationed in the remote cold of Alaska—far from home, yet not far enough from the weight of the past.
But when war ignites across Europe, duty and adventure call him further. Drawn to the chaos of the Western Front, he crosses the Atlantic to enlist with the British Army’s famed Gloucester Regiment, determined to make a difference in a world on fire.
Through the mud of Flanders and the fury of trench warfare, he grows into a man, one shaped by loyalty, loss, and the strange fraternity of war. When the United States finally joins the conflict, he rejoins the U.S. Army, only to find that fate has more in store: a battlefield romance with a spirited nurse, a brush with death, and an act of valor that earns him the Croix de Guerre.
Set against the backdrop of one of history’s most devastating conflicts, this is the unforgettable journey of a young American who finds both purpose and peril far from home—and discovers that sometimes, the fight worth taking is not just for country, but for who you choose to become.
Religion is a Candle
One child’s death on a bloodstained Beirut street sets off a chain of events that will reshape the Middle East, and the world.
In the summer of 1982, Lebanon teetered on the edge of collapse. As the Israeli invasion engulfs Beirut in chaos, sectarian violence spills into the streets. Amid this unraveling, a young boy is brutally murdered in the Sabra neighborhood, a moment of horror that ripples through the fractured city and ignites old vendettas. Behind the scenes, tensions simmer between U.S. diplomats and their Israeli counterparts, culminating in a devastating suicide bombing that claims the lives of American embassy and CIA personnel.
Amid the turmoil, a brilliant young Lebanese surgeon, trained in the West and quietly connected to U.S. intelligence, returns to her homeland hoping to heal more than just wounds. But her efforts to restore order, guided in part by her grandfather, a revered Shiite cleric, draw her into a volatile political game. As she navigates a web of rival militias, foreign powers, and personal loyalties, her choices spark a chain of unintended consequences.
What begins as an effort to stabilize a broken country becomes the accidental birth of one of the most dangerous terrorist movements of the modern era.
This is a story of ambition and idealism, of unintended legacy, and of how individuals, caught between duty and history, can shape the future in ways they never imagined.
Exile and Return
A novel of empire, revolution, and the people caught in between.
In the shadow of American intervention and a crumbling dictatorship, Exile and Return follows the human cost of the empire’s second act, Iraq. From the 1980s through the early 2000s, this powerful companion to The Mirror Empires tells the story of a fractured nation through exiles, operatives, imams, and insurgents, each navigating loyalty, identity, and loss as war redefines what home means. Moving from Baghdad to Langley, Najaf to London, the novel traces how the echoes of revolution cross borders, how ideals become weapons, and how the long arc of history bends not just through power, but through people who dare to return.
At its heart: a monarch convinced of his divine mandate, a firebrand cleric sowing the seeds of theocracy, and a web of foreign agents watching history slip through their fingers. But the true soul of the story lies with the students, mothers, merchants, and dissidents, each drawn into a rising tide of grief, faith, and fury.
Spanning over 15 years and told through dozens of interwoven voices, from Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to Ayatollah Khomeini, from MI6 handlers to CIA analysts, from bazaari merchants to radicalized youth, Exile and Return is a sweeping historical epic about how power unravels, how myths are made, and how revolutions devour their children.
Where truth is redacted, and memory is a battlefield, the question remains: Who gets to write history?
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