Holding Cover by Erin Penn
I’ve decided what I will be doing for NaNo 2016. I will get “The Swan and the …” series out of my head and onto paper. It is about a male shapeshifter (a swan) and various women he meets in the shifter world – the Pussy, the Hawk, the Dolphin and the Dragon. The first story should run a bit over 10K each, each one getting longer, with the last closer to 30K – for the total of 50K – the Nano Goal. Urban Fantasy Romance genre.
Book Cover from Amazon
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The Tentacle Affaire by Jeanne Adams
She doesn’t believe in magic.
When human Slip Traveler Cait Brennan’s routine mission to retrieve a lost interstellar pet goes FUBAR, she ends up hip-deep in a plot to kill five US Senators that puts Earth’s entire population at risk. If she can’t uncover who’s behind the conspiracy and keep her alien employers a secret, she’ll be terminated—permanently.
He doesn’t believe in aliens.
Haunted by a devastating failure in another city, magical Enforcer Aiden Bayliss is relentless in protecting the DC area from dark entities. He’ll destroy the powerful force that’s taking out key politicians, whoever—or whatever—it is. And, in spite of the white-hot attraction sizzling between them, his main suspect is one curvy mystery named Cait.
With everything Aiden believes in question, and Cait squared off against a deadly assassin, both must choose. Uphold their oaths and lose each other forever, or stand together and die.
MY REVIEW
A sci-fi urban-fantasy romance police procedural. Yep, a mashup of genres. She works for aliens, he works for wizards, separately they keep the peace and secrets, together they need to solve a string of murders and fight their attraction.
While not really sold as a romance, the book has more the feel of that genre than the billed “Urban Fantasy.” But it is, unquestionably, both in strong measure. Initially the magic and aliens don’t mix, the characters had already accepted one huge change in their reality, accepting a second is not easy. But far too soon (I personally would have loved to have more friction before romantic fire), assassins, political intrigue, nosy neighbors, and abandoned pets (capable of destroying the entire Chesapeake water system) prove that it doesn’t matter what you believe, reality is real whether you are dodging a magic death bolt or alien ray run.
Clearly the start of a series, I look forward to the next one.
Book Cover from Amazon
In the mood for Romantic Science Fiction with the feel of Victorian England? Then head on over to Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s Liad Universe where everyone is polite and most people end up with a happily-ever-after. The stories combine action and love stories with spaceships and aliens (you have to meet the Turtles and their version of Space Travel!). The writing team has been together since the 1980’s and work best in the long form. They have a lot of short stories out as well, and I have read most of them.
One of their biggest challenges in making a living through writing has been publishers. But it seems like they finally found a good home with Baen and are producing at the volume level they had always wanted to. I do prefer their earlier manuscripts where the editing trimmed them down to a crisp pace. Their more recent manuscripts follow the current “vogue” of wide-ranging stories with multiple story lines; more of an epic fantasy feel for their new century stories rather than the old century of space opera. It takes a while to get up-to-speed if you haven’t read the previous books. Some of the recent books work as stand-alones and others do not.
They have other universes they have created and one needs to be careful not to go down those rabbit holes unless you really want to read the material. I found the first book of the Fey Duology book off-putting. I expected another sweet romance, and this is anything but. But with over a dozen novels and scores of short stories (get the Omnibuses, they are cheaper) you can live in the Liad Universe for some time.
So if you see Liad Universe on the cover, you are all good. If you see anything else, double-check by reading the Amazon teaser to make certain the format is to your taste.
You can follow them through their multiple websites:
Sharon Lee’s website – http://sharonleewriter.com/
Clan Korval’s (from the Liaden Universe) – http://korval.com/
The Splinter Universe, a genre fiction site where some of their unpublished works are available – http://splinteruniverse.com
Image Courtesy of Jeremy Ricketts at Unsplash.com
Cropped by Erin Penn
Joelie cinched the saddle girdle tighter, letting the town’s mayor attempt to make him change his mind. You would think after raising her from birth, she would know only one person got him to change him mind about anything. Finally he interrupted, “Jillie, hon, your mom ain’t goin’ to last through winter and I can’t stop that. Travel may end it sooner, but she will see something she wants to see.”
“Dad, she is barely conscious. She isn’t going to notice anything, and it’s a full day’s travel even with my horse.” The five foot nothing blond dynamo argued. “Shouldn’t mother die in the comfort of her own bed?”
Satisfied the horse was ready and everything was packed for the journey, the old farmer went into his one-room house. “Your mom has never been one to choose comfort.” He sat in a chair to change his boots and add a second pair of socks.
“At least let me see if the priest from Riding-in-the-Mud can help give travel ease.” The young woman trailed her father into her childhood home.
Joelie stood, pulling on a traveling cloak. “Magic helped the first year, but now the Tester has placed this challenge before us. We can do this on our own.” Touching the pile of skin and bones swathed in blankets, Joelie stroked his wife’s cheek. “Sarah, time to go.”
Her blue eyes focused on his for the first time in days, reassuring him that the love of his life was still with him and he was doing the right thing. Picking up the blankets and padding, he carried the precious bundle out. Despite her having been several inches taller than him and outweighing him most of their joint lives, the last two winters of illness had taken their toll and now she was lighter than a grain sack.
****
Two days of frozen purgatory guiding a horse through his normal, slightly illegal, hunting grounds finally ended. He had never been one to understand how the King could own the entire forest. He was pretty sure the White Stag ruled it.
Jolie had wrapped Sarah tightly during the day and provided her his heat at night. He wanted to carry her during the day as well, or ride the horse and provide her needed warmth, but he needed to break the trail for the horse and he fell too many times.
The horse went to the edge of the water without prompting and Jolie started pulling what was left of his wife down. He heard a whisper and leaned closer in. “Are we there?”
Seeing clear eyes and ruby checks, Jolie gave thanks to the Tester for giving him a final moment with her. “Aye, we have arrived.”
Twenty years ago, she had laid into him during one of their few arguments, saying he did not have a romantic bone in his body. Sarah had just finished a round of afternoon sickness, since morning sickness was not enough for his exceptional wife, and the additional weight at six months on her swelling feet looked painful even to him after spending the day in the field. It took time to get her to this location then, but never did she ever question his romance again. Partially because if she did, he would have dragged her the long hike there and back to revisit this place.
Sitting on the edge of a boulder half-in and half-out of the waterfall pool, he settled his forty-year old woman in his lap and let her look around. A magical spring feed the creek a little further up. The water stayed a constant fifty degrees, creating a pool warm in winter and cool in summer. The steam rising from the waterfall coated the branches nearby with crystal ice. A few flashsprite made the glade their home during the winter, and danced among the branches setting off rainbows of color. The Valley-Home water lily floated pure white from a dozen different locations in the perfect blue of the pool. Green grass grew at the edge of the pool, where the warm water pushed back the hoar frost.
Valley-Home lilies could never be moved from their home water pool. He tried for years to transplant some from the spring to the irrigation pond in the north fields until Sarah had requested he “stop killing the flowers, you fool. I can remember their scent just fine.”
Joelie held Sarah, rotating her head from where it rested on his shoulder throughout the day and sunset so she could see everything. He feed her bits of trail meat after chewing it soft. At night the flashsprites danced faster among the ice, snow, and blue water. The world was a blaze of color and the jasmine-like scent of the Valley-Home released at full strength just before the white flowers closed for the night. Sometime after sunset Sarah slipped away.
(Words 814; first published 6/19/2016)
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Steel’s Edge by Ilona Andrews
Charlotte de Ney is as noble as they come, a blueblood straight out of the Weird. But even though she possesses rare magical healing abilities, her life has brought her nothing but pain. After her marriage crumbles, she flees to the Edge to build a new home for herself. Until Richard Mar is brought to her for treatment, and Charlotte’s life is turned upside down once again.
Richard is a swordsman without peer, future head of his large and rambunctious Edger clan—and he’s on a clandestine quest to wipe out slavers trafficking humans in the Weird. So when his presence leads his very dangerous enemies to Charlotte, she vows to help Richard destroy them. The slavers’ operation, however, goes deeper than Richard knows, and even working together, Charlotte and Richard may not survive…
MY REVIEW
An awesome contemporary romantic “urban” fantasy. Last of the four book series, the manuscript can be stand-alone or enjoyed at the end of a long reading marathon. At this time I have only read books one and four.
Ilona Andrews, a husband and wife team, write banter like they took notes during a few of Benedict and Beatrice (Much to do About Nothing by Shakespeare) private arguments. Sexy, funny, witty. The men of the series are warriors and the women stand by their side with their special abilities, kicking ass and maybe even scarier than the male loves; Charlotte, the heroine of Steel’s Edge, certainly is the more dangerous of the two. All the heroes and heroines are strong people.
And the worldbuilding is delicious. It isn’t so much political intrigue as sociological intrigue. Unless you know how to move through the society, you got problems. In the first book it was trying to fit in with the isolated Edgers, and in the fourth book maneuvering through the challenge of a three-hundred-year old aristocratic society – it isn’t a Victorian novel on manners, but picking the right color gown can mean the difference of getting in to see the person you need to assassinate.
Steel’s Edge is clearly a three-act book – the first on the Edge dragging Charlotte out of her hidey hole back into the land of the living and personal hurt, the second an unholy absolutely amazing preparation for and then battle at a slaver’s town, and finally going after the big slave bosses who move at the very top of society. In each act Charlotte’s and Richard’s relationship develop further and the stakes get higher.
I loved meeting up with the children from Book 1 – George and Jack – again in Book 4. They have grown older, now full teenagers and on the cusp of adulthood. And I may forgive the Andrews the first major death of the book … if they write two more romances set in the Edge. I want to see who George, Jack, and even Sophie end up with.