The Pawn Stratagem

Yesterday, Steven Bauer was just an ordinary guy. Today, he is the White Pawn, a combatant in a nightmarish game of chess. To survive the deadly Black Queen, Steven must pull together the rest of his pieces. The Knight, a grieving teenage boy caught up in a web of gang violence. The Queen, a young woman at death’s door, her body ravaged by leukemia. The Bishop, a disgraced priest haunted by visions of the game. The Rook, a suicidal drunk reeling atop a storm-ridden skyscraper.

Powerless and scattered across the centuries with no way to return to their own time, they wrestle with their fates: Steven and Niklaus, banished to the Florida coast of 1945 as a deadly hurricane threatens to tear the state apart. Archie and Emilio, struggling to survive the bitter winter and flying bullets of 1890 Wyoming. Audrey and Lena, entangled in the mob violence of 1930s Chicago as a specter from the past makes an ominous return.

Returned from their banishment across the centuries, Steven Bauer and the forces of the White must now rescue their abducted loved ones from the forces of darkness. Across North America, the Black have come out of hiding, occupying one national landmark after another with hostages certain to attract their enemies’ attention. Backed into a corner, Steven and his friends have no other choice but to fight for their lives and the lives of everyone they love.