Robert Grey is an ordinary man caught in extraordinary circumstances. He is about to “walk the plank” into middle age, and he has traveled to Venice, Italy, with his wife, Rachel, to resuscitate himself and his marriage. Venice is where he came of age twenty-seven years ago, and he hopes returning there will quiet the demons clamoring inside his head. But when he visits his old hotel, he tumbles through time and returns to the Venice of his youth. Rachel has disappeared, and his Euros and credit cards are useless.

All seems lost until he meets Lucrezia Vicentino and her family and embarks on a series of thrilling and frightening adventures. He attends secret festivals sponsored by the Vicentinos for the elite families of Venice. He helps Lucrezia face the jealousies of an ex-lover and the threats of a rival family that wants to gain control of the festivals. And he tumbles through time again, to the 17th or 18th century, where he makes a remarkable friendship and faces life-changing challenges.

He manages to return to Lucrezia’s world, but he cannot find his way back to Rachel’s, and the more he becomes involved with Lucrezia and her family, the less likely it seems that he ever will. Then, the spell-binding world Robert has entered turns violent, and he must run for his life.

In 1906, San Francisco has reached the peak of its golden age. Fortunes have created a society that attracts European opera singers and cordon bleu chefs. It is a world defined by elegant balls, oysters, and champagne. There are darker sides to the city as well. The Mission district south of Market Street houses tenements where shanties huddle together and rats plague the streets. And nearby sits Chinatown, an endless warren of dark alleys that offers gambling, prostitution, and opium, all controlled by vicious gangs, called tongs.

Into these disparate worlds steps Marta Baldwin, a young woman who has shunned her own social background to help the poor. She is confronted by a hypnotist, a man who mesmerizes young women from the tenements and delivers them to the tongs in Chinatown to work in their brothels. Marta escapes his hypnotic trance, but when her assistant, Missy, goes missing, Marta fears she has been taken by this evil man. She seeks the help of Byron Wagner, San Francisco’s most prominent citizen. Marta finds herself drawn to Byron but knows his high social standing prevents any possibility of a relationship between them.

Marta becomes caught in a whirlwind of opulent balls, opium dens, brothels, and police raids in Chinatown. She cannot deny her feelings for Byron, but she must save Missy and protect her new friends from harm. For lurking in the shadows is the hypnotist. He has become obsessed with Marta and will use all his guile to ensnare her. When he threatens those she loves, Marta is determined to stop him, even at her own peril. Will her boldness entrap her? If so, how can she hope to escape the man’s hypnotic embrace?

Two boys discover a forty-year-old skeleton, and an old man trudges through a San Francisco park to the Fior d'Italia Restaurant. Thus begins a story filled with love, political intrigue, and murder.

The Separatist is two parallel stories: one about Julia Rice, a newspaper reporter, and the other about Mr. Andersen, an eighty-year-old man who roars into her life like an aging lion. Mr. Andersen was once a separatist, a man hired by clients to sever relationships, but he had to flee the country to escape a Chinese warlord, Liu Kwong. Now, he has returned, and he offers to tell his story to Julia so he can bring Kwong to justice and closure to his life. When she hesitates, he promises in return to help her find her father who abandoned her as a small child. Julia accepts his proposal and enters a sinister world where danger and romance await her.

Julia learns that Mr. Andersen was hired forty years ago by Kwong to sever relationships with a woman, Kathy Griffith, who he claimed was his mistress. However, Andersen discovers Kwong's real motivation is to prevent Kathy from exposing his illegal smuggling operations, and if Andersen is not successful, he will "get rid of her" some other way. Mr. Andersen does not like the idea of working for Kwong, but a woman's life is in danger and he cannot refuse. As Andersen investigates Kathy, he falls in love with her and faces an agonizing dilemma. To save her life, he must compromise Kathy's reputation so that Kwong can blackmail her, but if he fulfills his contract, he will destroy her trust in him and lose her anyway.

Like Andersen, Julia is trapped by her own past. She knows her father roams the country promoting fraudulent real estate schemes, but despite his unsavory character, she hopes to find him someday. But as Julia navigates the twists and turns of the separatist's perilous world, she makes startling discoveries that shake her confidence and nearly cost her her life. She has no choice, however, but to continue down the path laid out for her by Mr. Andersen, for she knows it is the only way to bring closure to her own past and hope for the future.

Sigourney’s Quest is a novel about a courageous woman, a lost 7th century Buddhist manuscript, and a harrowing journey through Tibet. The manuscript must be brought home by Sigourney Phillips to the Tibetan monastery from which it was taken one hundred years ago. During her quest, she reads the diary of Anne Hopkins, an Englishwoman who secretly entered Tibet by posing as a pilgrim. It was Anne who took the manuscript from Tibet to save it, and her diary provides insight and inspiration to Sigourney during her own journey. The two women’s spirits become intertwined as Sigourney undertakes ordeals similar to the ones described by Anne.

Sigourney’s Quest is filled with physical, emotional and spiritual trials. She must evade Chinese officials and spies who are trying to prevent the manuscript from being returned, outwit the political intrigues of Tibetan monks, and undertake extraordinary hardships. But the novel is more than an adventure. It is a story about lost hope and personal rebirth. Sigourney has watched her own life unravel, and returning the ancient manuscript becomes her quest to find the self-confidence and inner peace to build a new one. She must strive to achieve her own Nirvana, just as the Tibetans have done for centuries. Her future and the future of Tibetan Buddhism depend on her success.

"Gordon Snider has written a story that teems with adventure, danger and hope. He strives to show his readers a land that is climatically harsh, but populated with a culture that is friendly, and warm, a people who live their lives steeped in the mysticism and ceremonies of their beliefs."
--Jenny Salyers, Front Street Reviews 

If you would like to read The Separatist or Sigourney’s Quest, please visit your local book store. Or, you can order online through this website.