Mars hasn't always been red.
Once it was covered by oceans.
It was blue, hospitable, inviting.
Then everything changed, but something remained . . . waiting.

Third book in the science fiction series "Red Desert".

The joy of finding the small community living in Ophir is soon shattered by the news coming from Houston about the loss of contact with Station Alpha. In fact for more than a day now, no life signs have been detected inside the habitat.
So, together with Jack, Anna sets out for Lunae Planum again. She's assailed by dread about Robert's and Hassan's fate, and also by doubts concerning their involvement in the death of both the Isis mission commander and, most of all, his wife.
However, having to face Michelle's murderer is only the first of her problems.
Torn between the desire to return to Earth and the ambition of getting the credit for her scientific discoveries, Anna will see her feeble certainties waver several times, until the revelation of a more devious danger concealed by the Red Planet: an invisible enemy, whose mysterious intent menaces her existence and the one of the only person who is still at her side.

The previous books are:
"Red Desert - Point of No Return" (book 1);
"Red Desert - People of Mars" (book 2).

The final book is "Red Desert - Back Home".

Follow Anna Persson (@AnnaPerssonDR) on Twitter!

--- This is the third book in a series of four and it ends with a cliffhanger. ---

This book is written in British English.
About the Author: Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli is an Italian science fiction and thriller author.
She has lived in Cagliari (Sardinia, Italy) since 1993, earning a degree in biology and working as a writer, sci-entific and literary translator, and freelance web copywriter. In the past she also worked as researcher, tutor and professor's assistant in the field of ecology at Dipartimento di Biologia Animale ed Ecologia of the University of Cagliari.
As a cinema addict, she started by writing screenplays and fan fictions inspired by the movies.

She has written original fiction since 2009.
Between 2012-2013 she published a hard science fiction series set on Mars and titled "Deserto rosso".
The series, which includes four books, was also published as omnibus in December 2013 & hit No. 1 on the Italian Kindle Store in November 2014.
"Deserto rosso" was published in English, with the title "Red Desert", between 2014 and 2015.
The first book of the series is "Red Desert - Point of No Return"; the second is "Red Desert - People of Mars"; the third is "Red Desert - Invisible Enemy"; and the final book is "Red Desert - Back Home".

She also authored three crime thrillers in the Detective Eric Shaw trilogy - "Il mentore" (2014), "Sindrome" (2016), and "Oltre il limite" (2017) -, an action thriller titled "Affinità d'intenti" (2015), and four more science fiction novels titled "L'isola di Gaia" (2014), "Per caso" (2015), "Ophir. Codice vivente" (2016), & "Sirius. In caduta libera" (2018).
"Il mentore" was published in English by AmazonCrossing with the title "The Mentor" in 2015 (it hit No. 1 in the Kindle Store).
"Affinità d'intenti" was published in English as "Kindred Intentions" in 2016.

All her books have been Amazon bestsellers in Italy so far.

She's also a podcaster at FantascientifiCast, an Italian podcast about science fiction, an Italian Representative of Mars Initiative, and a member of the International Thriller Writers organization.

She's often a guest both in Italy and abroad during book fairs, including Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino (Turin Book Fair) and Frankfurter Buchmesse (Frankfurt Book Fair), local publishing events, university conventions as well as classes, where she gives speeches or conducts workshops about self-publishing and genre fiction writing.

As a science fiction and Star Wars fan, she is known in the Italian online community by her nickname, Anakina.