Edward Hoornaert's Blog, page 8

Concentrating on his touch #mfrwhooks

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I, Effing Feline, am starting snippets from my pet human’s Christmas science fiction romance, Alien Contact for a Christmas Nutcracker.

The heroine, Holly is an orchestra conductor hired to conduct a performance of The Nutcracker Ballet for the aliens who’ve come here from an alternate Earth. In last week’s snippet, Holly was introduced to Rafe Sekwa, the lead dancer she’ll have to work with.

Rafe now introduces her to his dances.

“Behold, the orchestra’s new conductor, Dr. Holly Jansen. Say hello and goodbye, because we must quickly practice from latet.” He turned to Holly. “Latet means the head in our language. If you wish, you may watch our rehearsal, as long as you say nothing.”

“Just one question before you begin. What recording are you using? I’ll need a copy.”

The dancers would rehearse to recorded music and get used to the recording’s tempos; any other speed might throw them off, either subtly or disastrously. Holly would sit with the recording and a metronome to time how fast each piece was played. Then she’d listen to the recording over and over until the speeds became part of her heart’s rhythm.

Rafe understood none of this, because he regarded her with open astonishment, as though she’d asked if he breathed water. He held a finger to his lips. “Remember. Say nothing.”

“But I need –”

He touched his index finger to her lips. “Nothing.”

The touch made her eyes go wide. Not just because such forwardness by a stranger was unheard of in the States, at least in front of witnesses, but also because of the electricity that leaped between them. He kept his finger there until any protest she might’ve made was thoroughly smothered then removed it with tantalizing slowness.

Or maybe — and this could’ve been wishful thinking — maybe he’d felt the same zing and wanted to prolong the contact. She should’ve looked at his face instead of concentrating on his touch.

Be sure to visit the hooks by other fine writers in the Book Hooks blog hop.

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Alien Contact for a Christmas Nutcracker

The Nutcracker ballet … for and by aliens?

Holly Jansen, a young orchestra conductor down on her luck, is secretly hired by an alien king to conduct The Nutcracker on Kwadra Island as a Christmas present for his American wife. This big break seems like a Christmas miracle. But after she meets the lead dancer, she wonders if it’s a curse, instead . . .

. . . because the queen has secretly ordered Rafe Sekwa, dancer extraordinaire, to produce a native potlatch ceremony honoring her husband’s ancestors — on the same day, time, and stage as The Nutcracker. The stubborn genius is determined to do so no matter what. Soon Holly finds her ambition melting in the face of her growing admiration and love.

Which will she choose — love or her dreams?

Amazon |  Canada | UK | Australia
Apple iBooks
Smashwords
Kobo Books
Barnes and Noble

Effing Feline asks are *you* as smart as a cat? #wewriwa

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I, Effing Feline, am the owner of a human writer named Ed, aka Mr. Valentine. In his upcoming SFR trilogy, he selected a different romance trope for each of the three books. Can you figure out what trope this snippet suggest?

I’ll warn you that in a beta read of this blog post, of the 100 cats I questioned, 97.38  got the answer right. That’s tough for a human to match!

In the last couple of snippets from book 2 of Ed’s trilogy, Pandora Uncaged, we met Pandora Dayle, the 30-year-old heroine who prowled the cages of a wildlife sanctuary for animals native to this planet Addoray.

Here were meet the hero, Aidan Woodsman. He’s a Search and Rescue team leader, which is an important and respected job on a world whose human colony is only 80 years old. People get lost all the time. He saves them.

Aidan is roused in the middle of the night by a mysterious strangers — but this is no S&R mission. The stranger flies them through the night, heading deep into the wilderness. Aidan demands to know why. The stranger talks first.

“Do you remember Pandora Dayle?”

Aidan gave an involuntary jerk. Then he smiled as warm memories flooded him.

Oh yes, he remembered Pandora. The feel of her velvety smooth cheeks. The peppermint-candy taste of her kisses. At some deep level of his mind, the first stirrings of desire with any woman roused the spirit of Pandora.

She’d been the childhood buddy he caught codfrogs with, then his adolescent crush, then his girlfriend . . . but never quite his lover. She’d wanted to learn about male anatomy and her developing body’s effect on it, and that was all. He happened to be the only guy her age she could experiment on.

On his part . . . well, just hearing her name had jolted his spirits to a lighthearted alertness that flitted around his groin before coming in for a hard landing.

Effing Feline here again. If you’re wondering who that “.38 of a cat” in the beta is, it’s the one who’s imagining eating a mouse.

Did you guess the trope? I’d be surprised if you’re as smart as a cat, you know.

Be sure to visit the other great writers in Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday.

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Pandora Uncaged

Tentative title, tentative blurb

Pandora Dayle is her family’s black sheep. She’s rebuilt her battered self-respect by working at an isolated facility for saving animals, but her redemption feels as fragile as a dream. She’ll be okay, though, if nothing traumatic happens.

But when the best friend from her innocent childhood arrives, her insecurities mushroom.

Aidan used to be Pandora’s best friend. As an adult, he’s been a policeman and now a Search and Rescue leader. He adored innocent young Pandora so much he judges every woman by her idealized memory . . . and finds them wanting.

But when he rediscovers the real thing, she’s not at all what he expected.

Booker, a naïve Apprentice Cupid for a secret organization, receives his second assignment: get Pandora and Aidan to mate. It should be easy, because they were best friends fifteen years ago. His strategy: Fly Aidan to her island and tell him to impregnate her.

What could possibly go wrong?

She shoved aside her voyeuristic pleasure #mfrwhooks

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I, Effing Feline, am starting snippets from my pet human’s Christmas science fiction romance, Alien Contact for a Christmas Nutcracker.

The heroine, Holly is an orchestra conductor hired to conduct a performance of The Nutcracker Ballet for the aliens who’ve come here from an alternate Earth. When she first arrived on the aliens’ island, she called her brother, while a Kwadran — the ballet’s arrogant lead dancer — insolently listened in.

It’s now the next day.

Rafe,” Lissette said, “This is Dr. Holly Jansen.”

“Ah yes.” Up close, Rafael Sekwa’s body displayed even more chiseled perfection than from a distance. “The new American conductor. We have met. The young lady has a brother who cares for and advises her.”

Holly thrust her hand out for a shake. “Not doctor Jansen. Just Holly.”

He ignored it and spread his arms. “I am Rafael Sekwa. I also am not a doctor, merely a medicine man.” When he touched her shoulders to embrace her, she shivered even though it was a light hug, almost impersonal. “Call me Rafe,” he said close to her ear. He released her quickly.

She let out a breath and decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. The hug? Many dancers were physical, touchy-feely people. The eavesdropping? It wasn’t his fault he’d been sitting there, though it was his fault for sticking around.

But medicine man? What was that all about? And enhanced, too?

Especially enhanced.

He embraced Lissette more thoroughly. “My petite fingerling. A kiss, my shu-shu.”

Lissette avoided a kiss by turning her cheek with a deftness Holly admired. It was sad, though, that such maneuvers were necessary for dealing with men from other worlds, too.

“I’ll leave you two alone so you can discuss the Christmas opening,” Lissette said.

After watching her leave, Rafe pulled his shirt over his head and wiped his face with it. Holly seized the moment to admire the finely chiseled muscles of his arms and stomach. What a gorgeous Christmas present he’d be for some lucky woman to find under the tree.

He wants to marry Lissette, though, so take a deep breath and cool down, woman. With Rafe half-naked in front of her, that was easier said than done.

She shoved aside her voyeuristic pleasure.

Be sure to visit the hooks by other fine writers in the Book Hooks blog hop.

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Alien Contact for a Christmas Nutcracker

The Nutcracker ballet … for and by aliens?

Holly Jansen, a young orchestra conductor down on her luck, is secretly hired by an alien king to conduct The Nutcracker on Kwadra Island as a Christmas present for his American wife. This big break seems like a Christmas miracle. But after she meets the lead dancer, she wonders if it’s a curse, instead . . .

. . . because the queen has secretly ordered Rafe Sekwa, dancer extraordinaire, to produce a native potlatch ceremony honoring her husband’s ancestors — on the same day, time, and stage as The Nutcracker. The stubborn genius is determined to do so no matter what. Soon Holly finds her ambition melting in the face of her growing admiration and love.

Which will she choose — love or her dreams?

Amazon |  Canada | UK | Australia
Apple iBooks
Smashwords
Kobo Books
Barnes and Noble

Effing Feline loves life #wewriwa

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I, Effing Feline, love my life. I know I complain a lot, but hey, that’s my hobby. I love being world famous as the World’s Most Litterary Cat(c). And I LOVE Thanksgiving dinner!

What do you feed your cat on holidays?

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I’m continuing with snippets from Book 2 in Ed’s upcoming SFR trilogy, Pandora Uncaged. In last week’s snippet, we met Pandora Dayle, who likes to walk around the Colonial Wildlife Containment Center at night. Here we learn where she’s going.

Her destination was whatever cage was empty. Nowadays there were lots of them, because this facility on a tiny island within swimming distance of the wild, uninhabited South Ocean coast was slowly dying. No one cared about the health and welfare of creatures native to this world. No one but her.

Or so it seemed.

Under Chang He’s rays, the cages were invisible, because their walls were made of transparent, sound-permeable glasteel. Except for smells that humans had no words to describe, a cage felt perfect. She could lie inside with fingers laced behind her head, staring up as wind or rain or anything tried to get at her, only to fail and leave her dry and safe. Untouched. Yes, the cages were things of beauty despite being nearly invisible.

Actually, they were beautiful because they were invisible, yet people agreed they existed. People said, or at least thought — she could see the thoughts behind their eyes — that the invisible cages that hemmed her in existed only in her mind, which was as wary as that of any animal.

Those people were wrong.

Or so it seemed.

Color key Red = first ten lines, Green = extra lines, which you can skip if you’re bored or need a catnap.

Effing Feline here again. If you’re interested in beta reading this book, click here to send Ed an e-mail. I get a morsel of turkey for each e-mail, so send him two messages. Or ten!

And be sure to visit the other great writers in Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday.

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Pandora Uncaged

Pandora Dayle is her family’s disgraced black sheep. She’s rebuilt her battered self-respect by working at an isolated facility for saving animals, but even after six years, her redemption feels as fragile as smoke. She’ll be okay, though, if nothing derails her.

But when the best friend from her innocent childhood arrives, her insecurities mushroom.

Aidan used to be Pandora’s best friend. As an adult, he’s been a policeman and now a Search and Rescue leader. He adored innocent young Pandora so much he judges every woman by her idealized memory . . . and finds them wanting.

But when he rediscovers the real thing, she’s not at all what he expected.

Booker, a naïve Apprentice Cupid for a secret organization, receives his second assignment — get Pandora and Aidan to mate. It should be easy, because they were best friends fifteen years ago. His strategy: Fly Aidan to her island and order him to impregnate her.

What could possibly go wrong?

You up there. Go away. #mfrwhooks

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I, Effing Feline, have been selecting snippets from my pet human’s WIP, The Seven Foot Cupid. We haven’t met the cupid yet, but today my feline literary genius has inspired me to introduce another important character.

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On a planet with a new human colony, unexpected dangers abound. Ember Dayle is one of the intrepid people whose job it is to deal with the unexpected . . . but today’s her first day back after an accident. The plastic surgery to her face looks good, but it doesn’t look like her. Ember continues to explore the strange new hole in the ground that forms a ‘skylight’ into an important cave.

Meanwhile, down in the cave her destiny awaits her.

Tyler Estrella didn’t know how many tens of thousands of years this volcano had been extinct, but he sincerely hoped it stayed extinct—because he was inside it. Or at least inside one of the tunnels that had carried lava from the caldera to the sea.

He couldn’t see much of his surroundings—too dark—but what he could see was like a fairy’s dusk. With his flashlight off, the only light came the small skylight and the bioluminescent lichens clinging to the walls and ceiling. The lichens gave the tube a lovely, dim ambience as he ate his sandwich—two pieces of pumpkin-grass bread with slices of spiced onion-brute lunchmeat.

The meat was canned, of course. These were field rations. Thousands of lichens glowing at the same time made it possible for him to see the field rations, though just barely.

He was four-thousand feet up Mount Addoray, the most massive volcano in the known galaxy. Not the tallest—an extremely gentle slope led up to a summit only about seven-thousand feet high—but its lava had been so watery it spread out to create the largest landmass on this planet.

Passion Island.

Humanity’s home.

Tyler’s home.

There was a sudden noise, though there was no one to cause it. A dull thud. Then another.

The unexpected sounds startled him so much he dropped his sandwich. It seemed he had company,

By the time he reached the skylight, three lumps sat on the cave’s floor. They were partly covered by a rainfall of dirt, but he recognized rucksacks. All holidays end, as the saying went. That didn’t mean he had to like the end of his blessed privacy.

He shaded his eyes to stare up at the intruder’s boots and legs dangling into the skylight. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called, “You up there. Go away, damn it.”

Be sure to visit the hooks by other fine writers in the Book Hooks blog hop.

The Seven Foot Cupid

Book One in the Passion Island Trilogy

A locked-in-together romance

Ember prides herself on handling anything her newly colonized planet can throw at her. After a head injury shakes her confidence, she’s determined to prove herself again. She gets her chance when she’s ordered to explore a mysterious new cave.

Tyler, an explorer from a rival town, is given the same task. Like Ember, he’d been in an accident – – but his entire team died, leaving him drowning in survivor’s guilt. When he meets Ember, he’s drawn not only to her beauty and toughness, but by how well she deals with her accident.

Booker, a naïve Apprentice Cupid for a secret organization, receives his first assignment: get Ember and Tyler together. His strategy: lock them in an abandoned cabin together so they ‘get to know’ each other.

He doesn’t realize he’s locked them in with . . . something else. Something dangerous. Something no human has ever seen.

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This is a hint of what will happen soon.

Effing Feline invokes Egyptian gods #wewriwa

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I, Effing Feline, don’t understand why some humans consider themselves superior to cats. Sure, you’re bigger. Sure, you have opposable thumbs. Sure, you can open cat food cans. BUT your persistence is rather pitiable. When I decide to take a nap, I NAP! I don’t change my mind and clean my butt, instead.

Unlike Ed, my pet human, who  decided last week I should choose selections from his Christmas tale, Alien Contact for a Christmas Nutcracker. But I used this book last year, and he figures many of you may remember it. (As though his writing is all that memorable. Hah!)

So instead I’m going to select from a WIP. You’ve seen some snippets from Book 1 in his upcoming SFR trilogy. Here’s the opening of book 2, tentatively title Pandora Uncaged.

Color key:

Red=first ten lines
Green=additional lines, which you can skip if you’re bored or need a catnap

Late at night, when the others were asleep and Chang He, the brightest moon, floated over the world, Pandora Dayle would sometimes creep outside and walk the unpaved paths between the cages. She walked stealthily, quietly. If she didn’t, the animals would howl or screech or trill the alarm and wake someone up.

It had long since become a game to her. Could she sneak past the cute little boothies without waking a dozen of them?

How about the hideous yet innocuous shymonsters, whose rumbling bellows could awaken even the dirt under her feet?

Or so it seemed.

And then there were the chasm cats. In the beginning, they were the hardest to sneak past, because darkness was their time to pace and prowl. Now, though, they were co-conspirators.

They stopped pacing to follow her with their eyes, and if Chang He’s gentle light found their faces, their eyes glowed red. But they said nothing. That was because they’d been caged here for years, like her, and they knew she wasn’t worth raising an alarm.

That delighted Pandora. She wanted very much to be not worth raising an alarm. Just let her sneak through life, please, like an invisible ghost.

Effing Feline here again. Ed is telling poor little me what to do yet again. By all the Egyptian gods, he is getting bossy! He says to pass along that he is looking for beta readers for this book. Click here if you’re a glutton for that punishment.

There. I did it, Ed. Are you happy now, you slave driver?

Be sure to visit the other great writers in Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday.

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Pandora Uncaged

Tentative title, tentative blurb

Pandora Dayle is her family’s black sheep. She’s rebuilt her battered self-respect by working at an isolated facility for saving animals. Her redemption feels as fragile as a dream, but she’ll be okay if nothing traumatic happens.

But when the best friend from her innocent childhood arrives, her insecurities mushroom.

Aidan used to be Pandora’s best friend. As an adult, he’s been a policeman and now a Search and Rescue leader. He adored innocent young Pandora so much he judges every woman by her idealized memory…and finds them wanting.

But when he rediscovers the real thing, she’s not at all what he expected.

Booker, a naïve Apprentice Cupid for a secret organization, receives his second assignment: get Pandora and Aidan to mate. It should be easy, because they were best friends fifteen years ago. His strategy: Fly Aidan to her island and tell him to impregnate her.

Aside from little things like a hurricane and the revelation that he’d led the police squad that burned down her brothel, what could possibly go wrong?

Effing Feline #wewriwa

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I, Effing Feline,

 

 

Color key:

Red=first ten lines
Green=additional lines which, you can skip

 

Effing Feline here again. .

 

Be sure to visit the other great writers in Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday.

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Paper thin rocks to stand on #mfrwhooks

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I, Effing Feline, my pet human’s WIP, The Seven Foot Cupid. I’ve asked you before for donations of fresh salmon, but I got nothing from you. Nada. Ne rien. Zippo. Ungrateful meowzers!

Being a cat of great optimism, I’m going to try again. This time, all I ask from you is a comment. That’s all.

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On a planet with a new human colony, unexpected dangers abound. Ember Dayle is one of the intrepid people whose job it is to deal with the unexpected . . . but today’s her first day back after an accident. The plastic surgery to her face looks good, but it doesn’t look like her.

Ember continues to explore the strange new hole in the ground that forms a ‘skylight’ into an important cave..

Ember unclipped the multi comm from her belt and adjusted it with a quick, sure touch. “Audio recording is now on,” she said into the comm. “This is Ember Dayle, senior encroachment officer and team lead, examining skylight AQ-49.”

She spoke the date, spatial coordinates, and her assignment number. Then she videoed the hole from several angles. “The hole cuts through…” She paused to take measurements with the multi-com’s lidar, which illuminated the rock with laser light and measured the reflection with a sensor. “Eighteen inches of basalt?” she said incredulously.

That was paper thin. Fear of falling if the ground crumbled threatened to overcome her, but she managed to beat it back.

Why was the hole round?

Answer: because someone had drilled it, obviously.

But who? And why?

She could guess the answer to the last question. This spot was miles from the nearest permanent habitation. Someone had wanted no witnesses to anyone going into this illegal skylight, which gave them access to the long, tunnel-shaped cave.

Be sure to visit the hooks by other fine writers in the Book Hooks blog hop.

The Seven Foot Cupid

Book One in the Passion Island Trilogy

A locked-in-together romance

Ember prides herself on handling anything her newly colonized planet can throw at her. After a head injury shakes her confidence, she’s determined to prove herself again. She gets her chance when she’s ordered to explore a mysterious new cave.

Tyler, an explorer from a rival town, is given the same task. Like Ember, he’d been in an accident – – but his entire team died, leaving him drowning in survivor’s guilt. When he meets Ember, he’s drawn not only to her beauty and toughness, but by how well she deals with her accident.

Booker, a naïve Apprentice Cupid for a secret organization, receives his first assignment: get Ember and Tyler together. His strategy: lock them in an abandoned cabin together so they ‘get to know’ each other.

He doesn’t realize he’s locked them in with . . . something else. Something dangerous. Something no human has ever seen.

Effing Feline hisses #wewriwa

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I, Effing Feline, am a cat. Amongst other things, all of them magnificent, that means I do NOT like to be told what to do!

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So I got pretty hissed when Ed, my pet human, told me that this had to be the last snippet from his WIP, The Seven Foot Cupid. He tells me he wants to start highlighting a Christmas story.

Christmas? It hasn’t even snowed yet here in Arizona!

Ember Dayle’s job is to exploring a suspicious new hole in the ground that pokes right through to ceiling of the cave (lava tube, actually) that is very close to the surface. Before she can use her high-tech rappel vest, though, the rocks underfoot crack and she falls.

Luckily the rappel vest stops her before she hits rock bottom — but not before she slams into Tyler Estrella, who is already down there, exploring the tube for another settlement.

Color key:

Red=first ten lines
Green=additional lines which, you can skip

“I’m awake, I’m awake . . . sort of.” He blinked. “So you can stop shaking me.”

She didn’t—and she wasn’t, he realized, trying to revive him. She was just trembling and jerking violently like a person traumatized.

He tried to take a deep breath, but she weighed too heavily on his chest. “At least get off me.”

She didn’t do that, either. Maybe she couldn’t? Even though he’d cushioned her landing at considerable expense, she seemed to have gotten the worst of the tumble from the world of sunshine.

And maybe she’d fallen, rather than attacked him. Addoray was peaceful, an idyllic Garden of Eden with no wars or criminal gangs roaming the wilds beyond the settlement walls.

Her chest pinned his right arm, but he moved his left around her shoulders and touched her with the wary gentleness he’d use on an unfamiliar dog. The touch seemed to soothe her rigors, so he stroked her cautiously.

Effing Feline here again. Even if it snowed, I wouldn’t be able to play in it like the frigid feline below. Have I ever told you I’m a house cat and never, ever get to go outside. Sigh.

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Be sure to visit the other great writers in Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday.

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The Seven Foot Cupid

Book One in the Passion Island Trilogy
A locked-in-together romance

Ember prides herself on handling anything her newly colonized planet can throw at her. After a head injury shakes her confidence, she’s determined to prove herself again. She gets her chance when she’s ordered to explore a mysterious new cave.

Tyler, an explorer from a rival town, is given the same task. Like Ember, he’d been in an accident – – but his entire team died, leaving him drowning in survivor’s guilt. When he meets Ember, he’s drawn not only to her beauty and toughness, but by how well she deals with her accident.

Booker, a naïve Apprentice Cupid for a secret organization, receives his first assignment: get Ember and Tyler together. His strategy: lock them in an abandoned cabin together so they get to know each other.

He doesn’t realize he’s locked them in with . . . something else. Something dangerous. Something no human has ever seen.

Nothing to Fear, just a Job to Do #mfrwhooks

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I, Effing Feline, am the world’s most literary cat. Plus I can type, which ain’t easy without fingers. I’m talented!

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On a planet with a new human colony, unexpected dangers abound. Ember Dayle’s job is to deal with the unexpected. She prepares to rappel down the strange new hole leading to a cave — and fear of falling makes her jam an extra anchor into a crack in the thin rocks roofing the cave.

Although I can’t see it,” she dictated, “lidar says the floor of the tube lies forty-two feet down. I’ll transmit the data I’ve gathered before I go down.” She put the comm unit on automatic and clipped it to her belt.

To test the firmness of the rocks, she jumped in place—though not very high, just in case. The ground didn’t shake, didn’t swallow her. So far so good.

She dropped rucksacks filled with supplies down the hole, one at a time. She shined a flashlight down to check that they’d landed safely. Again, so far so good.

She pulled a metal claw from her rucksack. A coil of thin Strongstrand was attached to the claw, which she spiked into the ground and then stomped on to make sure it’d hold her weight. She did the same for a second coil and claw. After she attached the cables to her vest, motors built in to the vest would lower her to the tube’s floor slowly and gently. Or at least they were supposed to.

The breeze picked up. When it wafted across the hole, it was like blowing across an open bottle, making the skylight groan as though laughing at her pitiful little precautions. Disliking being mocked, she took out a third claw and stomped it into the ground, just in case. The claw slipped in a little too easily, as though it had found a fissure in the rock. When she tested it, however, it stayed put. It would do.

“Nothing to fear,” she whispered as she scooted on her bum to the hole. “Just a job to do.”

Be sure to visit the hooks by other fine writers in the Book Hooks blog hop.

The Seven Foot Cupid

Book One in the Passion Island Trilogy

A locked-in-together romance

Ember prides herself on handling anything her newly colonized planet can throw at her. After a head injury shakes her confidence, she’s determined to prove herself again. She gets her chance when she’s ordered to explore a mysterious new cave.

Tyler, an explorer from a rival town, is given the same task. Like Ember, he’d been in an accident – – but his entire team died, leaving him drowning in survivor’s guilt. When he meets Ember, he’s drawn not only to her beauty and toughness, but by how well she deals with her accident.

Booker, a naïve Apprentice Cupid for a secret organization, receives his first assignment: get Ember and Tyler together. His strategy: lock them in an abandoned cabin together so they ‘get to know’ each other.

He doesn’t realize he’s locked them in with . . . something else. Something dangerous. Something no human has ever seen.