Jessica E. Subject's Blog, page 81

Making Amends in today’s #MidWeekTease from ALIEN ATTRACTION #scifi #romance

Happy Wednesday! Kids are back in school! I’m back to my day time fitness classes, and the weather is much better than it has been for the past week. Woo-hoo!

Now, onto my Mid Week Tease post! Mid Week Tease is an author meme started and hosted by author Sandra Bunino, where authors share snippets from their recent releases, back list titles, and works-in-progress (WIPs). So, please check out my tease and visit the other participating authors listed below.

For today’s post, I’m going to share an excerpt from one of my my upcoming releases, ALIEN ATTRACTION. I finished this story over the weekend, and am aiming for an October 26th release. Last week, you saw the hero and heroine meeting for the first time. It didn’t go so well. Here they are during their second meeting…

Change of plans. Staying away from his neighbor wasn’t going to work. They were bound to run into each other every now and again. And from the look of disdain on her face when she saw him already in the exercise room, there was no way she had purposely followed him. Not unless she’s really good at faking her anger, because it rolled off her in waves. Even more so now.

“I’m sorry.” Oh gods, he’d said it. No turning back now. “I’m sorry for being rude the other night. I’d just had a really bad day and shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

“Whatever.” She sat back down on the bike, not even glancing in his direction.

Her anger never faded, not a single inch, her emotions boring into his temples like an electric drill. She was no actress with the way she projected her feelings. What else had he done to offend her?

“And I’m sorry I took your time in the gym. I’m still learning how things work around here.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She stopped pedaling and stepped off her bike before taking a drink from her bottle. Her emotions retreated, though mistrust still lingered. “I should get cleaned up for work anyway.”

She was leaving already? Chal jumped in front of her. For some reason, he couldn’t stand the thought of her having any negative feelings toward him. “Wait. Do you come down her every day at this time?”

“I try to.” Angela met his gaze then quickly turned away. But Chal didn’t miss the hint of a smile before she did.

“Would you have a problem if I joined you occasionally? Of course, you’d have first pick of equipment. I wouldn’t interrupt your routine.”

A faint blush spread across her cheeks. “No. It’s open to everyone who lives here.”

Stars, she wasn’t easy to talk to. But then again, he hadn’t made the best first impression. He stuck out his hand. Time to start over. “Hi, I’m Chal, your new neighbor. Come here often?”

She choked out a laugh then took his hand. For the first time that day, he sensed a bit of the bubbliness he’d noticed when she’d first opened the door to him. “Angela. And, yes.” Her grip was gentle, but not delicate. She didn’t hold on long, letting his hand fall before sidestepping toward the door. “See you tomorrow morning.”

~ ALIEN ATTRACTION ~

She wants to be more alien.

He wants to be more human.

Born a galaxy apart, will Angela and Chal have a chance at love, or will their extraterrestrial secrets leave them running to stay alive?

You can find Alien Adoration (book 1) here:

       

You can find Alien Admirer (book 2) here:

       

Be sure to visit the other Mid Week Tease participating authors…

 

Jessica E. Subject’s Weekly Writing Update

Hello! As I mentioned last week, I’m going to keep posting weekly writing updates on Tuesdays so you can see what I’m up to. Plus, it helps me to remain on target to reach my goals. So, here’s what’s going on this week….

Alien Attraction is finished!! I started at 20,886 words and finished at 22, 942, a total of 2,056 new words last week. I am spending this week editing the story and will be sending it to my editor on the weekend. I’m aiming for a release date of October 26 with the story available for pre-order two weeks before. Be sure to watch for a sale on the other two books in the series during the pre-order time!

Cosmic Desires is being formatted. It will release in the beginning of October. After much deliberation, I can confirm that ten of my erotica stories will be included in the anthology. There will be a special pre-order/first-week-of-release price before this anthology goes up to its regular price, so stay tuned…

I have news on Cosmic Sutra! This story will be part of the First Lady Loves anthology, which will release September 18th. This story is about a young woman who decides to spend the last year of her university studies on the other side of the universe. But, nothing goes at all as she expected. I’ll be sharing excerpts from this story and spotlighting other stories from the anthology on my blog leading up to and after the release date.

BOGO SALE! Right now, you can get my story Crash Landing for FREE when you purchase Taken by the Billionaire Alien Next Door at Coffee Time Romance.

Beneath the Starry Sky in audio is still on tour. You can find the schedule here. Also, the ebook is on sale for 99¢ at Amazon and All Romance for the duration of the tour.

Taken by the Billionaire Alien Next Door is now available and on tour. Tour dates can be found here.

GOALS FOR THE WEEK ~ I’m going to finish editing Alien Attraction and send it off to my editor. I will format Cosmic Desires for ebook and print, so I can get my print cover. I will work on updating the back matter of my other self-published titles. AND, I will start plotting my next project. I’m going novel-length with this one.

  

BOGO FREE Sale on two Jessica E. Subject titles @CoffeeTimeRoman #ebook #erotica

Exciting news! This week only, when you buy Taken by the Billionaire Alien Next Door at Coffee Time Romance, you get Crash Landing for FREE! So, hurry over and grab this great deal! Sale ends September 12, 2015.

  

#SFRMonday: Will their romance survive the alien planet? STAR CRUISE: MAROONED by @VScotttheAuthor #scifirom

Please welcome Veronica Scott with her latest release. Be sure to check out the amazing book trailer as well.

STAR CRUISE: MAROONED

by Veronica Scott

Meg Antille works long hours on the charter cruise ship Far Horizon so she can send credits home to her family. Working hard to earn a promotion to a better post (and better pay), Meg has no time for romance.

Former Special Forces soldier Red Thomsill only took the berth on the Far Horizon in hopes of getting to know Meg better, but so far she’s kept him at a polite distance. A scheduled stopover on the idyllic beach of a nature preserve planet may be his last chance to impress the girl.

But when one of the passengers is attacked by a wild animal it becomes clear that conditions on the lushly forested Dantaralon aren’t as advertised – the ranger station is deserted, the defensive perimeter is down…and then the Far Horizon’s shuttle abruptly leaves without any of them.

Marooned on the dangerous outback world, romance is the least of their concerns, and yet Meg and Red cannot help being drawn to each other once they see how well they work together. But can they survive long enough to see their romance through? Or will the wild alien planet defeat them, ending their romance and their lives before anything can really begin?

AVAILABLE FROM 

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iBooks  | Paperback

 

 

On the beach, there was chaos. An eel, easily two feet in diameter and eight feet long, lay convulsing on the sand, Red’s hunting knife buried to the hilt in one eye. The crewman had the medkit open beside him and was struggling to staunch the blood flow from Sharmali’s lower leg, while she lay on a red-stained towel and moaned. Callina was standing beside them, trying to help. The other men and women milled on the beach nearby, drinking and talking in too loud voices. As Meg headed for the injured passenger, the Primary intercepted her.

“Miss Antille, I demand to know how something like this could happen.” Purple in the face, he waved a hand at Sharmali. “I paid top dollar, if not an exorbitant price, for a safe, enjoyable cruise for myself and my guests, and now the poor girl’s had her foot eaten!” He was so upset he was spitting.

“On behalf of the Line, I certainly apologize, sir. We do everything we can to ensure the safety of our guests under all circumstances, but if she swam beyond the sonic barrier—”

“She was standing in three inches of water right next to me,” Finchon said. “That monster could have just as easily gotten my foot.”

“The barrier’s off,” Red informed her, not glancing up from his task. “Can you argue with him later? I need your help.”

Meg ran to his side, the Primary matching her step for step, yelling at her about lawsuits and refunds. She tried to stem the tide of his vitriol so she could concentrate. “Sir, please, let us assist Sharmali, and then I’ll be happy to discuss the legalities.”

Trever, the retired pro athlete, came forward and took his host by the arm, shoving a drink into his hand and drawing him aside. Meg took a deep breath of relief and knelt beside Red. “What do you want me to do?”

“Apply pressure to the wound for a minute while I see what antivenom we’ve got.”

Gulping against her nausea, Meg set her hand on the makeshift bandages and pressed hard. “You said the barrier was off?”

“Must be. There was more than one of these things right in the shallows at the beach. We were lucky no one else got attacked. I got her out of the water as fast as I could so the blood wouldn’t attract other predators.” He sat on his heels, frowning, holding an inject. “This is only a generic. Will it work on eel venom?”

“It’s all we’ve got on the shuttle. It’ll have to hold her until we get to the ship’s sick bay.”

As he gave Sharmali the inject, Meg eyed the wound with deep misgiving. The woman’s leg was definitely swelling and there were ugly purple streaks advancing toward her knee. “This is my fault,” she said.

“How do you figure?” Red applied a light tourniquet.

“I should have known if the ranger station was closed, the barriers might be shut off, but I didn’t check.”

“Well, keep your voice down, the Primary is pissed off enough right now. Don’t add fuel to his fire. We’d better get her to the shuttle and hustle offplanet, to the ship. What did you find out?” He turned to take more towels from Callina with a murmured thanks and wrapped the oversize, gaily colored fabric around Sharmali. “She’s going into shock, gotta keep her warm.”

“Drewson said he hadn’t heard anything. I called the ship myself, but we got interrupted. Signal failed or something.” Meg rose as he did, admiring the smooth manner in which Red lifted the injured woman, not jostling her.

“We’ll know soon enough.” He shifted Sharmali to lie more comfortably against his chest and walked away as if her weight was nothing to him. “Guess it’s our turn to leave the equipment behind, at least temporarily.”

“Oh, Lords of Space, of course.” Meg grabbed the cleaning supplies bag, since the blasters were in there, thankfully unneeded. She detoured to flip the switch turning off the power grid, dropped the bag inside the nearest robo’s storage cavity to leave her hands free, and then caught up to the guests at the base of the walkway leading to the landing pad.

The rumble of the shuttle’s engines caught her by surprise. How could Drewson possibly know about the emergency? As she decided he must have checked the beach-facing vidscreens for some reason, the tenor of the sound changed from warmup to full power. In disbelief, she saw the shuttle rising from the pad.

“What the seven hells is he doing?” Red yelled.

“Stay clear, don’t get caught in the backflare,” Meg screamed, pulling at the guests. Most shrank away from the landing pad, but the Primary strode up the ramp, shaking his fist and yelling curses at the pilot. Red set Sharmali in the sand and sprinted to tackle Finchon before he got crisped. The two men rolled on the ramp, the ungrateful host trying to punch Red.

As the crewman laid their passenger out with a swift right hook to the jaw, the shuttle cleared the trees and shot into the sky, leaving them behind in the blink of an eye.

“Now what?” Callina said, shielding her eyes with one hand as she watched the shuttle grow smaller and smaller in the sky. “He won’t forget to pick us up later will he?”

“Of course he won’t,” Meg said, fear making it hard to enunciate. The captain would send Drewson or someone to collect them. He wouldn’t abandon half his passengers and two of his crew, would he?

 

Best Selling Science Fiction & Paranormal Romance author and “SciFi Encounters” columnist for the USA Today Happily Ever After blog, Veronica Scott grew up in a house with a library as its heart. Dad loved science fiction, Mom loved ancient history and Veronica thought there needed to be more romance in everything. When she ran out of books to read, she started writing her own stories.

Three time winner of the Galaxy Award, as well as a National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award, Veronica is also the proud recipient of a NASA Exceptional Service Medal relating to her former day job, not her romances!

Blog | Twitter | Facebook

Long Weekend Savings ~ 30% rebate on ALL Jessica E. Subject titles at All Romance!

Happy Labor Day weekend! All Romance eBooks is kicking off the weekend with a sale. Buy any eligible title at All Romance from September 5-7, 2015, and receive a 30% rebate in the form of eBook Bucks to use toward your next purchase.

You can find my titles (2 pages) at All Romance here.

Happy reading!

Find a Sexy Alien Next Door & win a #Kindle with the LABOR OF LOVE HOP #LOLHop #giveaway

From sweet to dark, divas of romance work their fingers to the bone for your reading pleasure in the Labor of Love Blog hop from 9/4-9/6. Come join me and enter to win a Kindle with new, heart-pounding titles just for you!

Happily ever afters only come after heart-breaking work, and this Labor Day weekend, we are celebrating our written labors of love by giving our readers a chance to win a brand-spankin’ new Kindle with our personal bests. That’s right, you could win all of our books! Aren’t you excited? We are! So here’s your chance, just click the link below to enter our giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

While each story I write is close to my heart, I’ve decided to share the second book from my alien romance series, Alien Next Door, ALIEN ADMIRER. Alien Next Door was inspired by Bif Naked’s song Spaceman. I was cleaning and an idea popped in my head. I couldn’t shake it, so my heroines in this series find themselves living next door to a sexy hunk who turns out to be an alien. And the line “Come rescue me” happens for every heroine, too. The third book in this series will release in October 2015.

He fills her with forbidden longing…

Widowed for over a year, Sera longs for the company of her younger, sexier neighbor, the one man she can never have—unless she plans to rob the cradle. It’s too dangerous…

She’s the only one for him…

Adam never wanted to settle down…until Sera. But even when her children give him the green light, he must prove age is an alien concept…

Will Sera give him a chance, or will Adam be left in the cold, never more than her alien admirer?

        

Far too soon. Sera never should have started dating again. Her stomach had twisted and churned all day, but she shrugged it off as nerves. Until her date arrived, that is. He kissed her cheek in greeting, and a cold chill traveled down her spine. She wanted to hurl every time he touched her after that.

A wave of relief swept over her when he dropped her off. Date over. Never to happen again. Or at least not anytime soon. With Melody and Zach still up when she arrived home, she’d paid Angela, then tucked them into bed. All alone once more, she sat on the porch, again wishing for company. The disastrous evening proved she wasn’t ready to date.

What’s wrong with me?

She gazed next door at the loft above the garage. Adam. Why did her pulse race whenever she thought of him?

She didn’t feel uncomfortable around him, not until she decided to go to dinner with Peter, a man she’d met at the grocery store. Then guilt ate at her. She feared asking Adam to watch her kids while she went out on a date. But why would he want to? What young man wanted to be strapped down, babysitting on a Friday night, when most went out drinking and picking up girls? Their own age.

Her chance to live that life had come and gone. She had little ones, and they always came first. Her libido had to wait until they’d grown up and left the house. By then she’d be an old maid—and long out of the dating world—too dried up and bitter to want to hunt for a boyfriend. She slumped deeper into the wicker chair. Life sucks.

The deep, throaty rumble of a motorcycle caught her attention. Adam coming home. Probably with some young floozy on the back of his Harley. The back of her throat ached at the thought, and she stood. I don’t need to see that. Her fantasy, the one thing left that brought a smile to her face at the end of the day, would end if she watched him escort another woman into his home.

She didn’t escape fast enough. Adam pulled into their shared driveway before she grabbed the door handle. At the sight of the empty spot behind him, she breathed a sigh of relief. In her dreams he wouldn’t leave her for another woman.

He waved, and she waved back, filled with a sudden giddiness. Geez, what is it about him that makes me feel like a teen again?

Without another glance, he disappeared into the garage. She remained on the porch, staring like a fool. These fantasies have to stop. He had no reason to give her a second thought, at least not in the way she hoped.

Time to go inside and purge him from her mind. Plenty of celebrities her own age to take Adam’s place and ravage her in bed.

She pulled open the screen door.

“Sera?”

Every muscle tensed. She circled slowly, expecting him to disappear if she turned too fast.

Standing at the bottom of her porch, he clutched the railing, one foot on the first step. “How was your date?” His eyes were hard, far different from the gaze he’d given her when holding her in his arms the day she’d gone skinny-dipping. But her love life wasn’t any of his business.

She threw up her arms. Who am I kidding? “It was horrible.”

Do you think these two will ever get together? Find out in Alien Admirer, book 2 of my Alien Next Door series.

And because I don’t want your To Be Read pile to wither away over the holiday weekend, one lucky commenter will win an e-copy of ALIEN ADORATION, the first in my alien romance series, Alien Next Door. (This is the story included on the Kindle. If the winner is the same, I will allow them choice of another back list title.)

Whatever shall you comment on, you ask? Well, let’s celebrate your greatest accomplishment of the year! Just post your favorite accomplishment of 2015 in the comments below and I’ll announce our winner on September 7, 2015. Contest is international except where prohibited by law. Must be 18 or older to enter. Good luck!

 

Thank you for join joining our Labors of Love Blog Hop. To see who’s participating, click the link below and work your way through our participating authors:

 

The ZEGA Lottery ~ Will you survive? SURVIVING TERRANUE by @Liza0Connor #scifi #newrelease

Turns out, when humans expanded out into space, they took their love of lotteries with them, only the winnings are much higher. Even after taxes, you can afford to buy your own planet, custom terraformed to your wishes. But the chances of winning have worsened.  Your chance of winning the

The Zega Lottery

is infinitely small.

First you have to choose, in proper sequence, 700 lottery symbols.

If you err and use the same symbol twice, you are automatically disqualified.

But let’s say you manage to qualify.

The likelihood of guessing all 700 symbols in proper order is so small that no one has yet to win it. EVER! It’s unlikelihood is so large, that it takes a quantum computer to even calculate the odds, and since those computers are doing more important things, The Zega Lottery is not required to tell you how very unlikely your odds are of winning, but the words ‘infinitely unlikely’ is a good placeholder.

But let’s say you are a poor goat herder on the planet Corrian 2, and you dearly want to build an electric fence to keep out the werewolves on the planet. So with great optimism, you spend your last dollars on a Zeta Lottery Ticket, and Gods above, your 700 symbols match perfectly to the winning numbers.

Naturally, the first thing you do is throw a party and tell your friends. Naturally, they all hit you up for a loan. Next, if none of them stole your ticket, you take it to the local lottery shop and declare yourself a winner. Oddly, they just roll their eyes.

Turns out, to claim your prize, you must travel to the planet LottoLuck.

Sadly, nowhere on the ticket does it lists where the planet resides, not even the galaxy it resides in.

Good news, there are investigators who have determined where it is and will sell you that information for half your prize money, and they do provide their addresses if you wish to go hire them.

But you don’t want to give away half your hard earned work (It’s really hard not duplicate one of the seven hundred symbols and place them in precisely the right order). So you try to locate where LottoLuck is located by using the galaxynet at the public library and when that doesn’t work, you sell all your goats and buy time on the darknet. There you find its location…in a black hole. There is also advice on how to get in, if you are willing to pay. Goatless and out of money, you return home and offer to share your winnings with the town if they will help you find out how to get inside a black hole.

Not to drag this out forever, I’ll forgo the town negotiations. Even when you get the money to pay for dark advice, all you learn is that entry into a black hole is easy. Getting out…not so much, unless the ship you have chartered has the code that shuts down the destructive gateway between universes. Upon returning to the cheaper galaxynet you discover three facts: 1) you can’t afford the cheapest berth on any ship possessing the proper codes. 2) The Grand Prize had a 3 day claim limit, so even if you found a ship, you couldn’t get there in time, since it would take over a year to arrive and 3) poor townspeople really don’t like having their money wasted.

And thus ends the hard life of the very first unlucky Zega Lottery winner.

“Wait…what if I used one of the lawyers?” You ask.

That turns out to be even worse. The tiny worded contract, in indecipherable legalese holds you responsible for all cost required to obtain the prize. However, they do have a ship that is in the proper galaxy and can reach the site in the 3 day time limit. They also have the ability to send the lotto card via a mail entanglement carrier. So the Zega Lotto will have to pay up. Bad news: you will be billed for far more than your half share, resulting in a judge awarding ‘your partner’ your share as well and you’ll spend the rest of your life in a debtors slave camp.

(Being murdered by your former friends turns out to be the best way to go.)

 

Surviving Terranue

by Liza O’Connor

 Leading a colony of frightened people on a new world is rarely easy. The human colonists of Terranue have as their leader, Tamsarandem, the only Soul-bond of Three that has ever existed. Unfortunately, some perceive the innate kindness in the shaman’s choice of leaders as a weakness, thus, challenges begin. From the moment they arrive on the planet, self-survival instincts take hold among the colonists, putting the survival of the colony at risk.

To survive, they must act for the good of the colony rather themselves, even when their natural instincts tell them to do the opposite. First, they must befriend the dominant intelligent life form on the planet, long-haired blue cattle, only slightly smaller than the blue bull Tamsarandem brought with them. Second, they must find a way to survive three of the planet’s five seasons. Otherwise, they’ll be baked, frozen, and pummeled to death. Third, they must protect themselves from the giant bears, saber tooth lions, and T. rexes that roam their planet. But worst of all, deep within the planet, a seed of evil grows, waiting to devour every living creature on the surface.

Every day in their new paradise is a challenge to survive. Despite all the advantages the Gods have provided, success is neither easy nor certain, and people are rarely as good as they need to be.

 

Zousan worried over the twenty-six percent probability of The Path of Light succeeding in every single universe. It made no sense! The chances of the same percentage occurring was less likely than every sentient being in existence choosing the correct zega lottery’s seven hundred game symbols. No. This had his father’s hand written all over it. Damn Cronus! Why couldn’t he just be proud of his son’s success? Why was he driven to crush and devour his children? Was his ego so fragile?

While Zousan wasn’t crazy about most of his offspring, he certainly didn’t spend a second on conniving ways to destroy them. He just left them behind when his father allowed him his own multiverse. He happily escaped the man’s tyranny, taking his one sweet offspring, Athena, with him. While his other children were a pain in the ass, he absolutely adored his talented, brilliant daughter.

Without her, he would have failed early on, since she was the only one Cronus had ever shared the secret of creating life with. Fortunately, his father adored Athena and had showed her how to make life when she was but a little girl, long before Zousan demanded his own multiverse which he assured his father would be far superior to his.

“Pane have you found the source of trouble?” he asked his top shepherd.

Pane was the result of one his worthless Gods sharing a bit too much love during Zousan’s efforts to stop sentient beings from killing each other. Normally, God DNA would take precedent, resulting in a handsome new baby God. However, in this case, the sentient being’s DNA proved better than the worthless God’s, so Pane’s appearance resembled an orangutan. However, he was without doubt the finest shepherd Zousan had ever known. The fellow had a soothing baritone voice, great instincts, superb work ethics, and a true compassion and wish to not only keep his sentient beings alive, but to ensure they were happy and thriving.

 

AVAILABLE FROM

Book 3: Surviving Terranue ~ Amazon

Book 2: Surviving Outbound ~  Amazon

Book 1: The Gods of Probabilities ~  Amazon

All books are free for KU subscribers

 

Liza is a multiple genre author of 16 novels. A Late Victorian Series, The Adventures of Xavier & Vic, plus a spinoff, A Right to Love, is an ongoing series.    A Long Road to Love is a humorous Contemporary Disaster Romance series of five books. She has two single books. One is a humorous, bad boys contemporary novel with ghosts, called Ghost Lover, the other is Untamed & Unabashed, a spinoff from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Now, she’s rolling out her Science fiction series (with romance & humor) called The Multiverses. The first four books are slotted for last half of 2015.  In addition she hopes, if she hasn’t dropped from exhaustion by then, to re-release a sometimes humorous/suspense thriller called Saving Casey.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT  LIZA O’CONNOR,

Investigate these sites:

Liza’s Multiverse Blog

Liza’s Blog and Website  | Facebook  | Twitter

The damn hot guy next door #MidWeekTease from ALIEN ATTRACTION #scifi #romance

Happy Wednesday! Can you believe it’s September already? Next week, my kids will be back in school, and I’ll be back to my regularly scheduled programming.

And onto my Mid Week Tease post! Mid Week Tease is an author meme started and hosted by author Sandra Bunino, where authors share snippets from their recent releases, back list titles, and works-in-progress (WIPs). So, please check out my tease and visit the other participating authors listed below.

For today’s post, I’m going to share an excerpt from my upcoming release, ALIEN ATTRACTION. This excerpt is where the hero and heroine meet for the first time. The heroine is an alien, the daughter of the hero and heroine from Alien Adoration, and the sister to the hero in Alien Admirer. I am almost finished the last chapter of this story, and I’m planning an October release.

 

Peeking through the peephole, she gasped at who she saw. A guy. And a damn hot one from what she could tell through the tiny hole. Shoulder-length brown hair, a prominent nose, and radiant green eyes. Though his scowl left her wanting to sneak away from the door and pretend she wasn’t at home.

When he raised his fist to knock again, a burst of courage swept through her. The stranger had no right to make her feel trapped in her apartment. Angela yanked the door open before he made contact. “Can I help you?”

He jumped back, his scowl momentarily gone. “You’re Angela Jones?”

“Yes….” How did he know her name when she’d never met him before? Usually it was the other way around. People knew her face, but couldn’t get her name right if their lives depended on it.

The stranger held out a couple of envelopes. “I believe this is your mail. Seems the postal carrier put them in my box instead of yours.”

She reached and took them from him. “Thank you.” Maybe it was a good thing the mail lady kept mixing up her box in the lobby with her neighbors. That was how she’d ended up meeting sweet Mrs. Kersley before the handsome man in front of her. Now, she could get to know him better. “You…. You’re new here, right? Would you like to come in for coffee?”

“No.” He furrowed his brows, looking even more disgusted than he had through the peephole. “See that this mix up doesn’t happen again. I don’t want this to be a daily trip. I have better things to do.”

What an asshole! Like she had any control over where her mail was put. As he turned away, Angela slammed the door behind him. The mail mix up had happened for as long as she had lived there. Mrs. Kersley hadn’t minded bringing it over. Angela would often make extra food and invite her for dinner when she did stop by. She doubted the same would ever happen with Mr. Too Busy. Time to get the computer out and switch everything to e-billing with the hopes of never running into him again.

With a huff, she turned around and headed back to the window. Lights flickered to her left. She spun toward her bedroom where blue and red beams danced across her walls and ceiling. What the hell?

A few cautious steps, and she reached the doorway. Peeking inside, she searched for the source of the luminescence. Inside her closet, the box she’d tucked in the back corner less than an hour ago, lay on its side and the orb in the middle of her floor, lighting up her bedroom like a disco. What had caused it to fall over? And why was it flashing two colors? According to her father and brother, it pulsed with lights of red or blue, not both. Knowing her luck, the orb had little life left, giving one last show before it finally died.

Shaking her head, Angela picked up the extraterrestrial object, not at all surprised it stopped flashing with her touch. Why would it all of a sudden start working for her after so many years anyway? Stupid ball. She tossed it back in the box and used her food to shove it to the far corner of her closet. Time to face the fact she was alone in the big city, with no help from anyone or anything in keeping her ancestry a secret. She simply had to keep everyone at a distance, which wasn’t too difficult lately, and when her work contract expired in a few weeks, she would consider moving elsewhere rather than sign a new offer of employment. Because she had no chance of finding her soul mate here, not when people chose to ignore her rather than invite her to group events. Didn’t seem to matter than she did carry more human DNA than her brother.

~ ALIEN ATTRACTION ~

She wants to be more alien.

He wants to be more human.

Born a galaxy apart, will Angela and Chal have a chance at love, or will their extraterrestrial secrets leave them running to stay alive?

You can find Alien Adoration (book 1) here:

       

You can find Alien Admirer (book 2) here:

       

Be sure to visit the other Mid Week Tease participating authors…

 

Summer Writing Goals ~ Update #6

Hello! Time for the last summer writing update. I’m still goingt to continue this every Tuesday, as it keeps me accountable. I find that even when I don’t have time to write, I fit time in so I can prove that I’ve written something during the week. I didn’t get a lot of writing done this week, but I came close to reaching my goal. Plus, I finished writing and sending out all of my blog posts and interviews for the two tours going on right now.

Beneath the Starry Sky in audio is on tour. You can find the schedule here. Also, the ebook is on sale for 99¢ at Amazon and All Romance for the duration of the tour.

Taken by the Billionaire Alien Next Door is now available and on tour. Tour dates can be found here.

As for Alien Attraction, I started at 18,560 words and finished this week at 20,886, for a total of 2,326 new words.

Formatting Course – I’m finished. I highly recommend Meredith Bond’s course if you ever get a chance to take it.

Marketing Workshop – I attended a workshop with Mark Lefebvre from Kobo Writing Life on Saturday, and then I was on the panel discussion afterward with Deborah Cooke and Zoe York. Not only did I help others with marketing ideas, but I also learned a lot and have a long list of things to do and changes to make.

NEW PROJECTS ~ I have started working on Cosmic Desires, a short story anthology that will release this fall. After the workshop, I’m also anxious to plot out my next project. Both Deb and Zoe have given me a lot to think about and added excitement for it. Stay tuned!

GOALS FOR THE WEEK ~ I’m hoping to finish Alien Attraction, get Cosmic Desires ready for formatting in ebook and print. Plus, I want to cross many things off of my long to-do list.

  

#SFRMonday: Check out A BRIEF HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION ROMANCE by Heather Massey @ThGalaxyExpress #scifirom

Please welcome Heather Massey, whom you will know from The Galaxy Express. Today, she is giving us a peek into A Brief History of Science Fiction Romance.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF

SCIENCE FICTION ROMANCE

by Heather Massey

How did science fiction romance evolve? That’s the question behind A Brief History of Science Fiction Romance.

Women have always been creating and consuming speculative fiction. Sci-fi romance is one example of such efforts.

This brief, easy-to-share document presents core information about the fascinating history of sci-fi romance, a genre with roots in fan fiction, Star Trek, and the passion of countless women determined to assert their interest in SF-romance hybrids. This collection of essays is a mix of original content and information culled from the author’s blog, The Galaxy Express.

Download your free copy from Smashwords.

 

 

How did science fiction romance evolve? That’s the question behind this ebook.

The title says A BRIEF HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION ROMANCE, and I do mean brief! The goal is to preserve the core information about SFR’s history in an easy-to-share document. This collection of essays is a mix of original content and information culled from my blog, The Galaxy Express. Where applicable, I included a link to the original post.

Preservation of this knowledge is of paramount importance since it’s an example of many missing narratives, namely, the roles women have played in speculative fiction since Frankenstein was a gleam in Mary Shelley’s eye. Women have always been creating and consuming speculative fiction, yet accounts of their efforts are either ignored or written out altogether. Even giants of the science fiction literary field, like Octavia E. Butler, are rarely invoked with the same amount of respect and frequency as their male counterparts. Even more erasure has been happening to LGBQT and non-white female authors.

Another reason preservation is important concerns the need to validate the stories many women enjoy reading. The concepts of love and romance—never mind that they’ve been the subjects of scientific research—haven’t been traditionally valued as “speculative” enough and therefore are deemed unimportant by many in SF publishing and fandom. Romantic love with an upbeat ending expressed with a female gaze was a frontier SF feared to tread, and it showed. So fewer people view romantic SF and sci-fi romance as legitimate stories than might otherwise be the case.

Whether this aversion to exploring and reading about romance in a technology-based setting is based on a fear of women’s sexuality and sexual needs, the concept of a Happily Ever After, or outright sexism/misogyny, the end result is marginalization of epic proportions. Therefore, A BRIEF HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION ROMANCE aims to establish a course correction, even if by only a degree.

 

 

Heather Massey is a lifelong fan of science fiction romance. She searches for sci-fi romance adventures aboard her blog, The Galaxy Express and is the Releases Editor for the Sci-Fi Romance Quarterly.

She’s also an author in the genre. To learn more about her published work, visit heathermassey.com. When Heather’s not reading or writing, she’s watching cult films and enjoying the company of her husband and daughter.

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