Sharon Ahern Books in Order
Explore Sharon Ahern books in order, with short summaries, related series, and simple where to start advice for her thrillers, horror, and survival fiction.
Last updated: July 6, 2026
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Publication Order
25 books
The Takers
by Sharon Ahern
1984
Adventurer Josh Culhane and scholar Mary Mulrooney chase a deadly power across ancient ruins, myth, and human history. Their hunt ends beneath Antarctic ice, where an impossible discovery could change the world.
River of Gold
by Sharon Ahern
1985
Josh Culhane and Mary Mulrooney follow an ancient map from Istanbul into the Brazilian rain forest. Their search for a lost city leads through ransom plots, tribal danger, and secrets stranger than legend.
Miamigrad
by Sharon Ahern
1987
Miami has fallen to Soviet and Cuban invaders, and resistance is rising from every corner of the city. A renegade CIA man and a KGB agent become crucial to stopping an even bigger catastrophe.
Yakusa Tattoo
by Sharon Ahern
1988
Ed Mulvaney, a Chicago cop and ex-Green Beret, dives into a mob deal gone bad when the Yakuza seize a gangster's grandson. Rescue, revenge, and an abducted undercover officer pull him into a deadly war of blades and bullets.
Kamikaze Legacy
by Sharon Ahern
1990
Chicago cop Ed Mulvaney chases a killer into a tangle of terrorism, missing technology, and secrets dating back to World War II. The trail runs from Brazil to Japan and keeps widening with every answer.
WerewolveSS
by Sharon Ahern
1990
A Nazi experiment to create the ultimate SS killers refuses to stay buried. This horror thriller mixes occult science, wartime evil, and a desperate fight against predators that are more than human.
The Golden Shield of Ibf
by Sharon Ahern
1999
A Virgin Enchantress flees assassins in the realm of Creath while an FBI agent on Earth hunts a terrorist bomber. Their paths converge in a fantasy adventure about prophecy, magic, and the last fight between good and evil.
Summon the Demon
by Sharon Ahern
2001
Josh Culhane and Mary Frances Mulrooney land in a Charleston nightmare of voodoo, zombies, and a rogue submarine. With a hurricane building and Mary taken captive, Josh has to stop a plot that could devastate the coast.
The Illegal Man
by Sharon Ahern
2004
When a car bomb shatters John Benson's carefully built life, he is forced to uncover who wants him dead. The search pulls him toward rivals, spies, and a buried identity from a past he cannot outrun.
Written in Time
by Sharon Ahern
2010
A strange old photograph suggests that Jack Naile and his family somehow existed in Nevada in 1903. What starts as a mystery becomes a rough, well-armed time-travel adventure into the old West.
The Freeman
by Sharon Ahern
2012
In a United States under Soviet occupation, a resistance movement searches for the right leader to fight back. The novel blends invasion thriller, underground war, and big-stakes Cold War adventure.
Shades of Love
by Sharon Ahern
2013
Even John Thomas Rourke can mishandle a mission when marriage, misread signals, and wounded pride get in the way. This short Survivalist story mixes domestic friction with behind-enemy-lines danger and Natalia's timely help.
Siege Perilous
by Sharon Ahern
2013
Father Damascus Santini, an ex-Special Forces priest released from his vows, is drawn into a hunt for the Holy Grail. The story blends relic adventure, faith, and danger in classic Ahern pulp style.
The Inheritors of Earth
by Sharon Ahern
2013
After years of hard-won peace, John Thomas Rourke faces a new threat in a world reshaped by glacial ice. Old evils return in unfamiliar forms, and even the Survivalist may be facing dangers he cannot plan around.
Earth Shine
by Sharon Ahern
2014
Michael Rourke tries to rebuild accountable government while alien forces and human traitors push Earth toward chaos. With politics failing and extinction on the table, the Rourkes are dragged back into the breach.
Light Dreams The Survivalist Short Story Collection Book 3
by Sharon Ahern
2014
This short collection returns to the Survivalist world through brief stories that widen the cast and setting. It is a good pick if you want smaller visits to the Rourke universe between the bigger novels.
Once Upon a Time
by Sharon Ahern
2014
Before the war that defined the series, John Thomas Rourke and Hank Frost are pulled into a double conspiracy with national stakes. This shorter pre-apocalypse story gives readers an earlier look at old loyalties and coming danger.
The Quisling Covenant
by Sharon Ahern
2014
Fresh attacks, kidnappings, and betrayals shove the Rourkes into another brutal conspiracy. Secrets buried in the ice near Mount Rushmore may decide whether humanity faces slavery, extinction, or one more chance at freedom.
Deep Star
by Sharon Ahern
2015
John Thomas Rourke is missing, deadly enemies are hunting the next generation, and plague spreads through a battered world. The search for answers points toward Deep Star, a massive Russian undersea facility that may hold him.
Everyman
by Sharon Ahern
2015
Paul Rubenstein tells the story of John Thomas Rourke from the viewpoint of an ordinary man who had to grow into courage. It is part memoir, part survival tale, and a fresh angle on the larger Rourke saga.
Lodestar
by Sharon Ahern
2016
As corrupt leaders, neo-Nazis, aliens, and long-buried enemies close in, the Rourkes race to find John Thomas Rourke before it is too late. Michael and Paul must decide how much they are willing to risk to save both family and humanity.
America Undead
by Sharon Ahern
2017
In a grim alternate America, rival vampire factions are battling for control while the government rots from the inside. A resistance fighter and an ancient vampire join forces to expose the undead grip on the country.
Demons and Monsters
by Sharon Ahern
2017
Paul Rubenstein keeps telling the Survivalist saga from the ground level, showing what it looked like to stand beside John Thomas Rourke. This volume tracks more of the family's wars, losses, and hard choices as the world keeps breaking.
Blood Moon
by Sharon Ahern
2018
Old legends are now facts, and John Thomas Rourke faces a crisis where Atlantis, UFOs, and alien forces collide. Survival takes more than firepower as the Rourkes try to steer the world through another violent change.
Operation Phoenix
by Sharon Ahern
2019
Two more attacks put the Rourke family on the edge, and Michael and Natalia stop waiting for the next blow. As they go hunting the people targeting them, the fight for survival turns personal again.
Where should I start?
If you want post-apocalyptic action first: The Inheritors of Earth → Earth Shine → The Quisling Covenant → Deep Star
If you want a companion view of the Rourke world: Everyman → Demons and Monsters
If you want globe-trotting adventure: The Takers → River of Gold → Summon the Demon
If you want harder crime thriller energy: Yakusa Tattoo → Kamikaze Legacy
If you want standalones with a twist: Written in Time → The Illegal Man → America Undead
Author bio
Sharon Ahern is an American novelist, born in 1948, whose name is closely tied to fast-moving adventure fiction, post-apocalyptic survival stories, and the long creative partnership she shared with her husband, Jerry Ahern. She grew up in Chicago, and one detail turns up again and again in accounts of her life: she met Jerry on the very first day of high school. That friendship lasted, deepened, and eventually turned into a marriage, a family, and decades of co-writing.
They really built the work side by side.
Before the novels took over, Sharon worked in public relations at Illinois Bell Telephone and also did newspaper stringer work. That mix makes sense when you look at the books. Her stories move quickly, but they also lean on research, odd facts, and the kind of background detail that comes from someone who likes digging until a scene feels solid.
That research streak was a big part of her role in the partnership. Sharon has spoken about being the one happy to dive into reference books, and later online sources, whenever a story needed grounding in a place, a period, or a subculture. She interviewed people about subjects as varied as voodoo practices and biker gangs, which helps explain why books like The Takers, River of Gold, and Summon the Demon feel so eager to pull in history, folklore, travel, and danger all at once.
She also worked as a professional photographer, with magazine work published widely, and that visual side seems to fit the fiction too. Ahern scenes tend to be concrete. You can usually picture the weapon, the vehicle, the alley, the ruins, or the bad weather rolling in. Jerry wrote firearms and gear columns for magazines, and Sharon handled photography for that side of their work as well, so the novels grew out of a household where storytelling, research, and practical detail all fed each other.
Readers usually meet Sharon Ahern through the books she wrote with Jerry. The Takers and River of Gold show one side of the partnership, globe-hopping adventure with relics, lost places, and a cheerful willingness to mix myth with gunfire. The Yakusa Tattoo and Kamikaze Legacy lean harder into thriller territory, with Chicago cop Ed Mulvaney getting dragged into international trouble. Then there is Written in Time, a later novel that folds a family mystery into a time-travel trip to old Nevada. Across very different setups, the appeal is similar: brisk pacing, big stakes, and characters who keep moving even when the situation gets strange.
The other major pillar is The Survivalist world. Jerry created John Thomas Rourke, but Sharon was part of that larger body of work for years, and after Jerry died in 2012 she continued the saga with family friend and writer Bob Anderson. Books like The Inheritors of Earth, Earth Shine, The Quisling Covenant, Deep Star, Lodestar, Blood Moon, and Operation Phoenix kept the Rourke story going. Everyman and Demons and Monsters also revisit that universe from the perspective of Paul Rubenstein, giving the bigger saga a more personal angle.
Family sits near the center of all of it.
That may be the clearest thread in Sharon Ahern's career. Even when the books are wild, with invasions, occult plots, lost cities, or alien threats, they usually come back to loyalty, endurance, and the question of what people do for the ones they love. For many years Sharon and Jerry made their home in Georgia, and she has also been described as someone who enjoys reading, antiquing, and gardening in the long Georgia summers. That sounds right for a writer whose books can be loud and pulpy on the surface but are often anchored by home, memory, and partnership.
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