Edward Hoornaert's Blog, page 49
December 6, 2017
Early Birds Caught the Worm. Yum!
[image error]Yes, I’m writing this post, but even so, don’t ask me what worms have to do with anything. Book worms, perhaps?
A few bookworms early birds have read my sci fi romance, Rescuing Prince Charming, which was released a couple days ago, and I’m tickled pink (just like a worm) at what they’ve said about the book. I wanted to share a few of their kind words.
[image error] [5 stars] . . . hugely entertaining and highly recommended. I haven’t read a romance I enjoyed so much in a long time.
[5 stars] . . . laugh-out-loud dialogue, action, and out-of-this-world sci-fi
[5 stars] . . . balance(s) danger, humour and romance into a journey worth taking.
[5 stars] I could not put this book down.
[5 stars] . . . a very quirky sense of humour that adds an extra dimension to this series.
[5 stars] . . . many steps above the average sci-fi romance novel
Rescuing Prince Charming
Alien Contact for Idiots, book four
She’s no heroine. He’s no Prince Charming.
Dusty Johnson, a self-styled ordinary, everyday woman, responds with extraordinary heroism when saboteurs try to bomb the prototype of Earth’s first starship. Although she yearns to return to anonymity, that moment of courage propels her ever deeper into dangers that tear the scabs off her dark secrets—and thrust her into the arms of the unattainable man of her dreams.
Reese Eaglesbrood, an alien prince, yearns to restore his tattered reputation by guiding the starship project to completion, but his fascination with the unassuming heroine threatens to undermine his fragile authority. Shunning Dusty is necessary, yet unthinkable—and when the saboteurs strike again, she is his only ally against Earth’s most elusive enemies.
Rescue your own prince charming at these fine outlets:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Apple iTunes
Kobo Books
Smashwords
Read Chapter One
Rescuing Prince Charming is available at a special introductory price of $1.99, but that will last only until my father’s birthday, December 15. So save money. Order Rescuing Prince Charming now.
December 5, 2017
You’re dishonest? #MFRWHooks
Welcome to the Marketing for Romance Writers blog hop, Book Hooks. Writers share a short snippet of their works to entice you. Here’s another snippet from my new release, Rescuing Prince Charming.
Searching for a time bomb planted by saboteurs in a prototype starship, an alien male she’s never met got stuck in a narrow tunnel leading. Dusty Johnson, the heroine, is trying to get him unstuck.
She reached his waist, bent her fingers into claws, and pulled. He edged forward. Between the two of them, his slacks edged downward.
“Leave my underpants on, klootch.”
“I’m a respectable woman, not a klootch.” Hysterical laughter threatened to return. “This is an awkward reach, and we haven’t even been introduced.”
Although she knew all three-hundred-and-ten scientists, technicians, and support staff sequestered in this isolated cavern, his voice wasn’t familiar. This confirmed the rumor that the project was changing leaders, and if the new boss belonged to a different clan, he’d bring his own clan’s security people. That was how the aliens’ alternate Earth worked; it didn’t matter how good you were at your job, only what clan you belonged to.
This guy must be a bomb disposal expert. Who else, besides her, would be fool enough to search for a bomb set to go off in a few minutes?
Grunting, she dragged the pants down to his knees. She tried not to notice that he had great muscle tone and that his butt was wow-level firm.
“After this,” she said, panting, “you’ll have to make an honest woman of me.”
“You are dishonest?”
What do you think? Would this hook you if you browsed the book? Be sure to check out the book hooks by other great writers in the Book Hooks blog hop.
Rescue your own prince charming at these fine outlets:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Apple iTunes
Kobo Books
Smashwords
Read Chapter One
December 4, 2017
Blast off!
4 . . .
3 . . .
2 . . .
1 . . .
Rescuing Prince Charming is now live!
[image error]It’s been thirteen months to the day since Newborn, my last book, came out. I ‘celebrated’ that release in hospital, but since then the issues that held me back have slowly and gradually subsided. At a pair of concerts this weekend (including one on an Indian Reservation, appropriately enough, considering my Native Americans from the future), my oboe playing was back up to where it used to be.
And now my newest baby is live and bawling for attention, after my best pre-sales ever.
Sepsis is a hard disease to recover from, and though I’ve lived this last year with the volume turned down, I know I’ve been very lucky. And I think it’s official now. I’m back!
Early praise for Rescuing Prince Charming
Mr. Hoornaert’s writing is dynamic, crisp and clever.
. . . science fiction romance that solidly satisfies the criteria of both genres
It has been a while since I’ve read any sci fi romance and Rescuing Prince Charming makes me wonder why I had stopped
From the first page until the last I could not put this book down.
. . . hugely entertaining and highly recommended.
Rescuing Prince Charming was a wonderful surprise.
I haven’t read a romance I enjoyed so much in a long time.
Review links:
Rescuing Prince Charming
Alien Contact for Idiots, book four
She’s no heroine. He’s no Prince Charming.
Dusty Johnson, a self-styled ordinary, everyday woman, responds with extraordinary heroism when saboteurs try to bomb the prototype of Earth’s first starship. Although she yearns to return to anonymity, that moment of courage propels her ever deeper into dangers that tear the scabs off her dark secrets—and thrust her into the arms of the unattainable man of her dreams.
Reese Eaglesbrood, an alien prince, yearns to restore his tattered reputation by guiding the starship project to completion, but his fascination with the unassuming heroine threatens to undermine his fragile authority. Shunning Dusty is necessary, yet unthinkable—and when the saboteurs strike again, she is his only ally against Earth’s most elusive enemies.
Rescue your own prince charming at these fine outlets:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Apple iTunes
Kobo Books
Smashwords
Read Chapter One
Rescuing Prince Charming is available at a special introductory price of $1.99, but that will last only until my father’s birthday, December 15. So save money. Order Rescuing Prince Charming now.
December 2, 2017
Effing Feline and Ildephonse: Countdown Day -1
[image error]I, Effing Feline, have gotten interested in tracking down my ancestors, and I’ve discovered some cats who are worthy of my bloodline. This cat has suffered from horrible press, with some random ungulate stealing his glory. All cats, but few humans, realize that the ungulate was a mere spectator, but he hoofed it quickly to a phone and contacted some dudes who wrote a song about the wrong hero!
We cats get no respect.
Another snippet from Rescuing Prince Charming, Ed’s newest sci fi romance that goes live on Monday. (Does that means it’s now in Ed’s womb? Or dead?) Anyway, Dusty Johnson and an anonymous guard found a time bomb hidden in the prototype of Earth’s first starship. Since Dusty is closer to the exit, she asks for the bomb. He hesitates because she’s a she.
“Like I’m so far away it won’t kill me? Since you can’t disarm it, I’ll have to carry it to someone who can. Hurry!”
He took a deep breath and held out the shoebox. “This goes against my sense of chivalry.”
“Screw chivalry.” She reached for the box—but he pulled it away from her grasp.
“I’ll have you know I’m a gentleman.”
“And the School for Chivalrous Gentlemen taught you that Take off my pants is a polite greeting?”
“Is Please take this bomb off my hands any better?”
Effing Feline here again. BTW, the heroic cat with the bright idea wasn’t named Rudolph, but Ildephonse, same as Ed’s great-uncle. (Don’t you wish you had a relative with that name?) So sing the song the right way, okay? “Ildephonse the red-nosed kit cat…”
When you’re done singing, visit the other writers in the Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday.
Releasing Monday, December 4, 2017
Rescuing Prince Charming
Alien Contact for Idiots, book four
She’s no heroine. He’s no Prince Charming.
Dusty Johnson, a self-styled ordinary, everyday woman, responds with extraordinary heroism when saboteurs try to bomb the prototype of Earth’s first starship. Although she yearns to return to anonymity, that moment of courage propels her ever deeper into dangers that tear the scabs off her dark secrets—and thrust her into the arms of the unattainable man of her dreams.
Reese Eaglesbrood, an alien prince, yearns to restore his tattered reputation by guiding the starship project to completion, but his fascination with the unassuming heroine threatens to undermine his fragile authority. Shunning Dusty is necessary, yet unthinkable—and when the saboteurs strike again, she is his only ally against Earth’s most elusive enemies.
Rescue your own prince charming at these fine outlets:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Apple iTunes
Kobo Books
Smashwords
[image error]
Finally, pick up a FREE copy of Alien Contact for Idiots (the first book in the series leading up to Rescuing Prince Charming) at the Invasion and First Contact e-book giveaway.
December 1, 2017
SFR Brigade Showcase — Countdown -2
Once a month, the Science Fiction Romance Brigade’s showcase enables the brigade’s authors to highlight snippets from new works, WIPs, cover reveals or other fun things.
In Rescuing Prince Charming, to be released December 4, I used some of my own ‘backstory’ as my character’s backstory. Sort of.
My first teaching job was at Gilford Island, an isolated island off the northern end of Vancouver Island. If you’ve ever taken a cruise ship to Alaska, you passed Gilford sometime during the night.
[image error]
Many people on Gilford lived in float houses. That’s the school boat I told you about.
Gilford was wilderness back then. To get there, we had to take a float plane flown by a bush pilot. The school had one room for grades 1 through 7, and it was isolated even from the rest of the island. The kids came to school on a school boat — there were no roads, no buses, no cars. Also no stores, neighbors, or television. Not even radio.
In Rescuing Prince Charming, Reese, a First Nations prince from the future, also spent time on Gilford. Here he tells the heroine about his experience.
“Anyway,” Reese said, “after the scandal, I tried to resume my life, but I was a sad joke to all who knew me. After cavorting with any woman who would have me — and a great many women will sleep with a prince — I disgusted myself so much that I left without telling even my brother where I was going.”
[image error]Working hard at ignoring that she was one of a great many women, Dusty kept her voice level. “Where’d you go?”
“To Gilford Island, up in Canada. It’s an insignificant Kwakiutl Indian settlement, but I loved it. It taught me who I really am.”
“Because your Eaglesbrood ancestors were Kwakiutl?”
“From the equivalent of Gilford on our Earth, yes. Because we were forced to turn Kwadra into a fortress, I’d never been to the ancestral island. It’s beautiful up there. The ocean, the mountains, the forest, the wildlife . . . everything’s breathtaking.
“The villagers weren’t what I expected — the aboriginal way of life Kwadrans glorify is hundreds of years in their past — but they accepted me as one of their own. They knew about the scandal, but blamed Marianne. They cheered my subsequent bedroom exploits with high-class white women as though they were personal victories.”
Dusty made a choking noise in the back of her throat. He didn’t seem to notice.
“I even learned to use a canoe. One grey, drizzly day, I paddled from Gilford to Ghost Island. In aboriginal times, the Kwakiutl buried their dead there in low wooden sheds, because the soil was too thin for graves. As I struggled through the forest, seeking nothing but solitude, I kicked a skull into a rivulet.”
She sucked in an audible intake of breath.
“It wasn’t frightening.” Although Reese’s face was close, his gaze was far away. “Holding that moss-covered skull was . . . I haven’t told this to anyone, but holding that ancient bone, talking to it even, felt holy. Does that sound insane?”
For the record, I did no skull-kicking during my year on Gilford.
“I haven’t read a romance I enjoyed so much in a long time.”
— Lisabet Sarai, Beyond Romance
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Apple iTunes
Kobo Books
Smashwords
A word from our sponsor
Be sure to check out the other great writers in the Science Fiction Romance Brigade’s showcase.
Countdown to Prince Charming: Day -3
[image error]It’s now just three days until the release of Rescuing Prince Charming. Today I’m sharing a short snippet from the section where the main characters have been kidnapped — and here they fight back.
Where was Reese? Where?
Footsteps thumped. A fist smacked flesh. Another gunshot, followed by the tinkling of broken glass.
She wobbled to hands and knees, determined to rescue Reese even if it cost her her life.
“Dinna shoot!” whined Sir George. The sir title must be a lie, she thought groggily. Surely no real Scottish peer would say dinna.
She struggled to her feet. Hair blocked her vision. When she pushed it aside, her hand came away drenched in blood. She hated blood, especially her own—but she ignored it. No time. She tried to assume a martial arts crouch, but her head whirled, and she slumped weakly onto a bench, instead.
It took a while to realize there were no more shouts or gunshots. The battle was over.
And the good guys had won.
Rescuing Prince Charming will be available next Monday, December 4, so you have only four more days to pre-order. Not much longer than that to save money, either. The special release price of $1.99 will last only until my father’s birthday, December 15. So order Rescuing Prince Charming now!
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Apple iTunes
Kobo Books
Smashwords
“I haven’t read a romance I enjoyed so much in a long time.”
— Lisabet Sarai, Beyond Romance
And be sure sure to snag your free copy of Alien Contact for Idiots during the First Contact science fiction group giveaway!
November 30, 2017
There’s a hole in the bucket #mfrwauthor
For week 48 of the Marketing for Romance Writers yearlong blog hop, the writing prompt is:
Five Things on my Bucket List
Unfortunately there are zero things. I don’t have a bucket list.
Not because I intend to live forever, but because I don’t like to borrow trouble from the future by worrying I might die with desires unfulfilled. Unfulfillment is inevitable, frankly. Even if I had a bucket list and did everything in it, new desires would sprout like weeds to take their place:
When I started writing, I wanted to see if I could actually write a book (a non-fiction programming tome).
When that desire was fulfilled, I wanted to publish the book.
When that desire was fulfilled, I wanted to write a novel.
When that desire was fulfilled, I wanted to published the novel.
When that desire was fulfilled, I wanted to get past the ‘second-novel jinx’ I’d read about.
When that desire was fulfilled, I wanted to get past the ‘three-novel barrier’ I’d read about.
Etc.
Until I’m told I’m dying in six months, there’s a hole in my bucket list, dear Liza, dear Liza, there’s a hole in my bucket list and it’s constantly being refilled. Here are some of my current desires:
I want to give my latest child, due date December 4, a healthy start in life.
I’d like to take a river cruise from Switzerland to Amsterdam.
I’d love to go on a week’s writing retreat to the Banff Centre for Art and Creativity.
I want to the make the perfect oboe reed so I play well at next weekend’s concerts.
And I’d really love to shake the bug that’s put me under the weather today.
[image error]
What about you?
Write a comment about your bucket list — and then check out the bucket lists of the other writers taking part in this blog hop.
As I hinted above, I want my latest offspring to do well in life. Maybe it will. Rescuing Prince Charming’s first reviewer, MFRW’s own Lisabet Sarai, ended her review this way:
I haven’t read a romance I enjoyed so much in a long time.
Cool!
Rescuing Prince Charming
Alien Contact for Idiots, book four
She’s no heroine. He’s no Prince Charming.
Dusty Johnson, a self-styled ordinary, everyday woman, responds with extraordinary heroism when saboteurs try to bomb the prototype of Earth’s first starship. Although she yearns to return to anonymity, that moment of courage propels her ever deeper into dangers that tear the scabs off her dark secrets—and thrust her into the arms of the unattainable man of her dreams.
Reese Eaglesbrood, an alien prince, yearns to restore his tattered reputation by guiding the starship project to completion, but his fascination with the unassuming heroine threatens to undermine his fragile authority. Shunning Dusty is necessary, yet unthinkable—and when the saboteurs strike again, she is his only ally against Earth’s most elusive enemies.
Rescue your own prince charming at these fine outlets:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Apple iTunes
Kobo Books
Smashwords
Countdown to Prince Charming: Day -4
[image error]It’s now just four days until the release of Rescuing Prince Charming. Today I’m going to let you in on a little secret about the book. It has to do with religious experiences — non-denominational moments of spiritual transcendence that seem to open you up to the whole world.
I had a spiritual, or religious, experience that remains incredibly vivid in my memory. No, I didn’t talk to God. My experience derived more from science that any gospel.
One day, while hiking, I stepped over a rotting log and the ground shook slightly underfoot. Not an earthquake — a quaking bog.
I knew what quaking bogs were and how they were formed over thousands of years when peat moss slowly spreads over the surface of a pond until it forms a lid over the pond. Plants take root on the lid — grasses and shrubs — until the bog looks like terra firma.
But it isn’t. It’s several feet of dead peat covering stagnant water.
When I stepped onto that squirmy ground, the understanding of what had caused it flooded me with an awareness of nature’s patient workings. It wasn’t a ‘logical’ understanding, but an emotional connection to time itself. To nature. It was a feeling of awe, and no words can do it justice.
All because of a stupid little quaking bog.
The hero and the heroine in Rescuing Prince Charming have each had a religious experience, and in one scene they discuss these intensely personal moments. In yesterday’s post, Reese explained his experience, involving an ancestor’s skull. Today it’s Dusty’s turn.
[image error]“A few years ago, I hiked in the Tucson Mountains to see the sunrise—and nearly stepped into a rattlesnake den. Twenty-one snakes were sprawled across the rock. Like a stupid idiot, I froze and counted them.”
“Yet you survived.”
“They didn’t move. Desert nights are cool, so they lay motionless, awaiting the warmth of the sun. It’s funny, but I felt at one with nature, with all of creation, past, present, and future. I felt God’s presence in that tangle of rattlesnakes.” She covered her mouth, trying to suppress a self-conscious giggle. “Your religious experience was a lot saner than mine.”
After a moment, her giggle escaped.
He frowned and tilted his head to one side. “If I made a joke, I don’t know what it was.”
“I’m picturing you holding Yorick’s skull. You know, like Hamlet.”
Rescuing Prince Charming will be available next Monday, December 4, so you have only four more days to pre-order. Not much longer than that to save money, either. The special release price of $1.99 will last only until my father’s birthday, December 15. So order Rescuing Prince Charming now!
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Apple iTunes
Kobo Books
Smashwords
“I haven’t read a romance I enjoyed so much in a long time.”
— Lisabet Sarai, Beyond Romance
And be sure sure to snag your free copy of Alien Contact for Idiots during the First Contact science fiction group giveaway!
November 28, 2017
Countdown to Prince Charming: Day -5
[image error]It’s now just five days until the release of Rescuing Prince Charming. Today I’m going to let you in on a little secret. It has to do with backstory.
BACKSTORY a history or background, especially one created for a fictional character in a novel.
I used some of my own ‘backstory’ as my character’s backstory. Sort of.
My first teaching job was at Gilford Island, an isolated island off the northern end of Vancouver Island. If you’ve ever taken a cruise ship to Alaska, you passed Gilford sometime during the night.
[image error]
Many people on Gilford lived in float houses. That’s the school boat I told you about.
Gilford was wilderness back then. To get there, we had to take a small float plane. The school had one room for grades 1 through 7, and it was isolated even from the rest of the island. The kids came to school on a school boat — there were no roads, no buses, no cars. Also no stores, neighbors, or television. Not even radio.
In Rescuing Prince Charming, my upcoming near-future sci fi romance, my hero (Reese, a First Nations prince from the future) tells the heroine (Dusty, an American tech writer) his backstory. Namely, what he had learned while spending time on Gilford Island.
“Anyway,” Reese said, “after the scandal, I tried to resume my life, but I was a sad joke to all who knew me. After cavorting with any woman who would have me — and a great many women will sleep with a prince — I disgusted myself so much that I left without telling even my brother where I was going.”
[image error]Working hard at ignoring that she was one of a great many women, Dusty kept her voice level. “Where’d you go?”
“To Gilford Island, up in Canada. It’s an insignificant Kwakiutl Indian settlement, but I loved it. It taught me who I really am.”
“Because your Eaglesbrood ancestors were Kwakiutl?”
“From the equivalent of Gilford on our Earth, yes. Because we were forced to turn Kwadra into a fortress, I’d never been to the ancestral island. It’s beautiful up there. The ocean, the mountains, the forest, the wildlife . . . everything’s breathtaking.
“The villagers weren’t what I expected — the aboriginal way of life Kwadrans glorify is hundreds of years in their past — but they accepted me as one of their own. They knew about the scandal, but blamed Marianne. They cheered my subsequent bedroom exploits with high-class white women as though they were personal victories.”
Dusty made a choking noise in the back of her throat. He didn’t seem to notice.
“I even learned to use a canoe. One grey, drizzly day, I paddled from Gilford to Ghost Island. In aboriginal times, the Kwakiutl buried their dead there in low wooden sheds, because the soil was too thin for graves. As I struggled through the forest, seeking nothing but solitude, I kicked a skull into a rivulet.”
She sucked in an audible intake of breath.
“It wasn’t frightening.” Although Reese’s face was close, his gaze was far away. “Holding that moss-covered skull was . . . I haven’t told this to anyone, but holding that ancient bone, talking to it even, felt holy. Does that sound insane?”
For the record, I did no skull-kicking during my year on Gilford.
Rescuing Prince Charming will be available next Monday, December 4, so you have only four more days to pre-order. Not much longer than that to save money, either. The special release price of $1.99 will last only until my father’s birthday, December 15. So order Rescuing Prince Charming now!
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Apple iTunes
Kobo Books
Smashwords
“I haven’t read a romance I enjoyed so much in a long time.”
— Lisabet Sarai, Beyond Romance
And be sure sure to snag your free copy of Alien Contact for Idiots during the First Contact science fiction group giveaway!
Let the Prince Charming Countdown begin!
— Lisabet Sarai, Beyond Romance
It’s five days until the release of Rescuing Prince Charming, but the first review is in!
Rescuing Prince Charming is hugely entertaining and highly recommended.
[image error]The release date is next Monday, December 4, so you don’t have a lot of time to pre-order. Or to save money, either. The special release price of $1.99 will last only until my father’s birthday, December 15.
…science fiction romance that solidly satisfies the criteria of both genres.
This comment pleased me, because I did a fair amount of scientific research to write this book — and then I removed 99.9% of the research. Much of what’s left is bafflegab (that’s a technical term for ‘imaginary pseudo-science’), because I tiptoed into the unknown and the unknowable: what, exactly separates one time-thread from another. So don’t worry — you don’t need to understand alternate quantum theories!
Though the book does not contain any explicit scenes, the powerful connection between them is both emotional and physical. I loved both characters, especially Dusty, whose intellectual curiosity and quick wits make her a true heroine despite her beliefs that she’s ordinary.
Growing up as I did in working class surroundings, there was social pressure against standing out or acting as though I was better than anyone else. That’s the kind of pressure I imagined that Dusty had experienced.
[image error]
Rescuing Prince Charming
Alien Contact for Idiots, book four
She’s no heroine. He’s no Prince Charming.
Dusty Johnson, a self-styled ordinary, everyday woman, responds with extraordinary heroism when saboteurs try to bomb the prototype of Earth’s first starship. Although she yearns to return to anonymity, that moment of courage propels her ever deeper into dangers that tear the scabs off her dark secrets—and thrust her into the arms of the unattainable man of her dreams.
Reese Eaglesbrood, an alien prince, yearns to restore his tattered reputation by guiding the starship project to completion, but his fascination with the unassuming heroine threatens to undermine his fragile authority. Shunning Dusty is necessary, yet unthinkable—and when the saboteurs strike again, she is his only ally against Earth’s most elusive enemies.
Rescue your own prince charming at these fine outlets:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Apple iTunes
Kobo Books
Smashwords
