Some girls get trust funds. Jenna Gonyea got a relentless, inherited itch for the truth – and a box of redacted files that just made it worse.

Inspired by his parents’ secret CIA lives, John Gonyea weaves a fictionalized narrative that guides you deep into where the CIA, big-tech, and the church all collide. Creatively transforming his family’s memoirs into an espionage tale, Gonyea leans heavily into the infectious charm of his perceptive daughter Jenna and her journey for the truth.

In the heart of Texas, 26-year-old Jenna Gonyea thought her biggest problem was keeping her freelance AI business ahead of the next Silicon Valley unicorn. Then a single offhand remark from her father about growing up in a mental hospital cracks open a family secret that refuses to stay buried.

Jenna is sharp, restless, and doggedly focused. Her striking appearance and youth leave strangers underestimating her at their peril. She built Roger, her custom deception-detection AI, because the world lies too easily and she’s done letting it slide.

One phone call about Perry Point VA Hospital—where her CIA grandmother and psych resident grandfather lived in the 1950’s—turns curiosity into obsession. Old letters, cassette tapes, and yellowed memos reveal that her grandparents weren’t just witnesses to MKUltra; they were inside it. And the program never really ended. It went deeper, darker, and far closer to home than Jenna ever imagined.

Now someone is willing to kill to keep it running. A whistleblower needs protection. The countdown is ticking. Jenna, with the help of her new-found ally Paul and her refusal to look away—finds herself racing assassins, hacking classified systems, and chasing the same ghosts her grandparents once served.

The deeper she digs, the uglier the question becomes: Were Jerry and Helen Gonyea patriots who believed they were saving the country from communism, or complicit participants in a machine that learned to devour its own? And if the darkness is in her blood, can she expose it without becoming it?

Misguided Patriots is a propulsive, present-day conspiracy thriller about inherited secrets, the weaponization of truth, and one brilliant, unstoppable woman who will burn the whole house down rather than live with a lie.

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