The Health Physicist's Clearance
A Nuclear Submarine Romance

About this book:

Dr. Jesse Vance doesn't do gray areas. As a civilian radiological auditor for Naval Reactors, her job is absolute compliance—measure the millirems, verify the shielding, sign the log, and leave. But aboard the USS *Michigan*, the reactor compartment is hiding a secret that shouldn't exist: a deliberately falsified shield-tank reading, a sabotaged instrument loop, and a shipyard conspiracy dumping contaminated water into the Thames to meet a drydock bonus. The only person who can help her prove it is the one man she's forbidden to trust: Lieutenant Commander Daniel Mercer, the boat's brilliant, razor-disciplined Chief Engineer—and the only person who makes her dosimeter read higher than background.

Dan Mercer has spent fifteen years earning his gold dolphins and a shot at his own command. He knows every weld, valve, and procedure aboard *Michigan* like scripture. He also knows that signing off on Jesse's emergency transmission to the four-star Director of Naval Reactors will torpedo his career before breakfast. But when the choice is between his future and the integrity of the plant he loves, there's never been a question. As the midnight watch turns into a covert investigation through steam-heated tunnels and locked junction boxes, the professional firewalls they've maintained for two years begin to melt—because the most dangerous radiation on board isn't coming from the core.

In the silent service, boundaries are survival. But some half-lives can't be calculated, and some clearances require a leap of faith. *The Health Physicist's Clearance* is a high-stakes nuclear thriller wrapped around a slow-burn romance where technical precision meets human heat, set deep inside the steel hull of an Ohio-class submarine where one wrong reading—or one right touch—changes everything.