Monday, April 30, 2018

Redshift: A story of Love, Understanding, & Willpower by AR DeClerck


A Journey Through Time & Space

She came into the world screaming and left it much the same way. A hole of unimaginable force and pressure had opened up the fabric of reality, swallowing her as the whale swallowed Jonah.



Interesting way to start a love story, right? The characters were already in love, the hard part was over, and they had forever before them to explore that love. Except, the universe had different plans for Rand Hazen and Muriel Matthews. During their study of the mysterious wormhole at the edge a small Nevada town, Muriel is ripped away from 2018 and thrown into the far, far future. Heartbroken, Rand is determined to get her back, even if it means jumping into the hole himself.

What Rand and Muriel find on the other side of the Tempus Motus is a world quite unlike the one they left behind. There is no law, no government, and humanity is clinging to life with the tenacity of an ant who does not know he is drowning. En masse, the remaining population of Earth are doe-eyed sheep with lives and minds automated by time and engineering. A few have broken free of the mindlessness that haunts the other inhabitants of the last city of Pavitra, and they live at the edge of the savage, empty desert that surrounds them. Muriel and her friend PAL are taken in by the outlanders, while Rand finds himself in the heart of the city. He will do anything to find her and take her home, even if it means burning the last vestige of human civilization to the ground to do it.

I had so much fun writing this story. It’s a long and winding tale of love and redemption for both my characters and the people they encounter in the future. The last city is in danger of destruction and Rand and Muriel have the power to save it, but will they? Rand is desperate to find her and even refuses to say her name until he sees her face again. Would he choose the last remnants of humanity over her?

There’s a lot of science in this book, and Rand and Muriel are both extremely intelligent. What we learn is that no amount of understanding of the way things work ever makes the universe seem fair. If they can find each other and unite the city-dwellers with the outlanders, it’s possible they can save the human race from the devastation that is headed their way. I enjoyed studying the theories surrounding temporal physics, electro-physics, and cosmology in order to put Muriel and Rand in the worst possible situation. How could they survive? Was human ingenuity enough to forestall what was coming?

Rand and Muriel’s love story is told through their memories of the past, and that’s atypical of most romance novels these days. There’s no doubt that they love each other deeply, but circumstances have aligned to tear them apart time and time again. Is the universe trying to tell them that they will never find that happiness they long for?

One of my favorite parts of REDSHIFT are the supporting characters. Rand and Muriel make many exotic, interesting friends during their adventures in the future. Nothing really changes, though, and it’s still hard to know who to trust. Are the “savage” outlanders really the fierce, untamed group of nomads that the city-dwellers claim? Are the docile, seemingly-innocent city-dwellers as innocent as they appear? One of the best parts about this story is that RAND DOESN’T CARE. All of these interesting and possible dangerous things are happening around him and his sole focus remains Muriel. Always Muriel. It’s endearing and completely insane, all at the same time! Muriel’s friend PAL (Patrick Alan Landers) is another character I can’t wait for readers to meet. PAL is a young boy from the Nevada town, who gets thrown through the Tempus Motus with Muriel. PAL is mature, thoughtful and strong. Without him, Muriel would have been lost a few times.

All in all, REDSHIFT is a story of love, understanding and willpower. No man ever set out with such resolve in his heart as Rand Hazen. He is determined to the point of self-destruction and I hope readers love him for it, even as they curse him. The future of humanity is grim, but its not the amenities of the world around us that makes us fight for survival. We fight for the people we love.

As always, I’m honored to have been invited back to Liza’s blog to talk about my stories! I hope you enjoyed today’s discussion. If you read REDSHIFT, please let me know what you think. I would love to talk to you about your thoughts on the future I laid out.

Find me at:


Author Bio:

AR DeClerck: Wife. Mother. Healthcare Professional. Reading ninja. Food assassin. All-around goofball. Self-proclaimed nerd.
AR writes books about the power of love. You might find her penning a sci-fi romance, a steampunk novel, or even a cozy mystery but you can always be sure the story is filled with romance and adventure.

Friday, April 27, 2018

Meet Drogan, the sexiest, coolest, smartest and nicest sentient you'll ever meet.

MEET DROGAN

This was the original cover, only it didn't match the other covers of the series, so sadly I changed it.


So I changed it to this:



I’ve a great deal of characters I love in The Multiverses Series, but my favorite is Drogan, because in book 1 he saves his people from extinction when he is just a two-foot-long child and transports them to a new world where they will thrive.  Then later, in book 4, he saves all the humans on Terranue, although most of them don’t even realize that.

So let me tell you a bit about Drogan…

First, I’ll tell you what Drogan isn’t: He’s not human, but neither is he a merman. He’s a water based, blue-skinned humanoid. Yes, his toes and fingers have a thin layer of skin between the fingers that goes about halfway up the digits to improve swimming in the ocean. His nails are sharp curved claws, which make it easy to grab fish. He also has both gills and lungs so he can swim deep in the ocean or walk on dry land.

When Drogan reaches his full height (slightly taller than a human) he joins the crew of an Outbound ship. Unfortunately, no matter how nice he is, the crew hates him and Captain Longfellow has to drop him off on a space station.

Drogan comes very close to dying on the station, but the Gods intervene and he’s rescued by a pack of dire wolves the station uses to quell riots. Turns out the dire wolves are much nicer than the humans who live on the station. Upon learning about poor Drogan, the wolves share their food and water and keep him safe from harm during his stay in their basement lair.

Once he recovers, Cass, the ghost, helps to sneak him back onto Longfellow’s ship. She can’t enter him into the ship’s database because ghosts can’t type. So Drogan is not technically a crewmember and thus is never paid for his work, but on the positive side he remains healthy and better yet, Zousan’s evil father Cronus stops trying to kill him since he believes the fellow is already dead.

Finally, when Sojourn comes on board, Drogan makes his first friend among the humans. And they’ll remain friends forever. Thus proving, the inability to make friends was not Drogan’s fault, only the rest of the crew are a bunch of hateful Xenophobes and jerks.

What I love most about Drogan is that despite his amazing brilliance, he does not value his life over others and is most humble and caring to all. This is unusual for someone this smart. Extreme brilliance usually comes with arrogance and a lack of empathy.

Drogan’s total focus is on preserving The Path of Light so all creatures will have a happy future. This is his calling, and he is willing to die for it, which he proves over and over. I cannot count the times he nearly dies or does die. Fortunately, he is highly valued by the Gods, and they have directly saved him, or instructed others to do so many times.

Someday in the future, I have great hopes he will meet a female who will be his mate forever. His chances are much greater in the Search for Sentients Series, because he will be top science officer, many of the crew will be female, and there won’t be a single Xenophobe in the crew of what is unquestionably the finest ship that humans have ever flown.


Drogan designed it so they can cross both dimensions and multiverses with ease. He understands quantum physics better than any sentient alive.

 I had planned to write a whole new series as noted above, only this particular series didn't catch on with my readers. The people who did read it, loved it. I think the problem might have been book 1 is a bit campy with little water babies.  But I needed to tell the odd birth of those water babies before the story could progress. 

If it ever starts getting reads again, I'll start writing the next series that carries the story further into space. 


Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Cailin Briste Shares Her New Release: How to Steal the Pharaoh’s Jewels

Cailin Briste Shares Her New Release: How to Steal the Pharaoh’s Jewels

I’m thrilled to back in the Multiverse to share about my new release: How to Steal the Pharaoh’s Jewels: A Thief in Love Suspense Romance, Book #2.

What can I say? All my heroes and many of my heroines get physically hurt in my books. The list of things I’ve done to characters includes: poisoning, rape (man by a woman), being shot at, being shot, attempted rape, and falling from a great height after being shot. In Cade I came up with two more ways to put my characters in danger. The first happens at the very beginning of the story. The second would be a spoiler, so you’ll have to buy the book and read it to discover what else I do to Cade and Bassinae.

Here’s a bit about Cade’s encounter with a dump truck from the first chapter of How to Steal the Pharaoh’s Jewels.

With a grunt of approval, Cade noted the route change had worked. The road ahead was less congested, so he relaxed back into his seat and picked up speed. A parking garage lined the left side of the street with office buildings on the right. He checked the time and glanced in the rear-view mirror. “Want some music?”

At that moment a large dump truck came barreling out of an exit of the parking garage. Cade swung right and hit the brakes hard, hoping to lessen the inevitable impact, but even with the protection devices built into the vehicle this would be a brutal collision. Safety foam inundated the foot wells of the car, and the air ballasts deployed. The scree of metal and the splintering of the car’s plastic shell, filled Cade’s ears along with a sound like the roaring thunder of thousands of wild animals stampeding toward him. One thought struck him. No pain. And then the world winked out.

The next he knew, someone was shouting his name and agony radiated from his pelvis. The gray airbags that held him in place deflated while before him the mangled remains of the windshield gave him a partially obstructed view of the front end of the dump truck, an irresistible force that even Gerald St. Croix couldn’t have stopped. The left side of the car was crushed and had been pushed into the passenger side. Cade had been displaced two-and-a-half feet to his right.

A voice sounded behind him. “Cade. We’re going to get you out of there. Hang on. They’ll have to cut you out.”


How to Steal the Pharaoh’s Jewels
By Cailin Briste
A life of crime won’t stop best friends from becoming lovers, but their pasts are another thing.
Cade’s fantasy is to seduce his best friend if he isn’t murdered first.
His comfortable routine as a member of Sebastian St. Croix’s cat burglar team is shattered the day he’s pinned in a crushed car. In a moment of clarity, before everything goes dark, he realizes he’s in love with his best friend, a woman who has sworn off intimate relationships for life.
It’s taken Bassinae years to overcome a past filled with physical abuse and embrace the truth that she is a powerful, capable woman in her own right. Tamping down a case of nerves, she’s ready to take on a larger role as a thief in Sebastian’s next caper. If only Cade would stop acting like a lovelorn idiot. She needs her best friend’s support to help steal the Pharaoh’s jewels.
Set in the distant future, this sci-fi suspense romance has action and adventure as well as a sizzling romance.


How to steal the Pharaoh’s Jewels

This is an intriguing story that comingles making matters right with taking back your life.

All too often, women become prisoners in abused relationships. This happened to Bassine when she was young. Fortunately, she escaped her abuser and established a self-defense and help center for abused women called DO IT NOW. She is also an employee of Sebastian's, who steals items from other thieves.  Still, there was something missing in her life.

When Cade almost dies in an inexplicable ‘accident’ Bassine takes care of him. Then when she gets injured, and Cade attempts to protect her by staying away from her, Bassine finally confronts the truth that she loves Cade, and she is finally ready to love again.
There are many issues to deal with since nothing is easy for Sebastian and his staff...or his mother for that fact. Especially, keeping the staff alive.

Still, with a bit of cleverness, they manage to recover jewels from the impenetrable vault in the most intriguing way, while teaching yet another woman to be strong. I love stories that have strong women in them. And this one is packed full of them!

And yes, there is explicit sex, which is well done, but the near-death moments and the clever heist were my fav parts.




About Cailin Briste
Cailin Briste writes science fiction suspense romance. Her first series is set in the Tallavan sector of the Federation where the men of Tallav are the marshals that provide protection and justice to the planets in this far off the beaten path are of space. While fighting crime, they also must come to terms with matriarchal system of their home planet, Tallav. Tricky because each is heavily involved in the BDSM lifestyle. Book one is her Dom, book two is her male submissive, and book three due out in July 2018 is her sadist.
Her second series, A Thief in Love Suspense Romance series, began with a cat burglar who puts together a team to steal priceless art and antiquities from other thieves. Sebastian is a Robin Hood character whose Maid Marion is his equal on the rooftops of their futuristic city. The second in the series is the love story of two others on his team, Cade and Bassinae. Once again the team are breaking into someone’s home to take back something that rightfully belongs to someone else, but this time they are also trying to stop a murder.
More books in each series are coming as is a new series about a pair of dragon shifters hatched from the same egg and the man they love, bounty hunter Brody Simmons.

Cailin’s Links


Saturday, April 21, 2018

Eva Caye shares her thoughts about how to create better people

Why do people like animals more than they like other people?   
It's because animals don't LIE.

"Oh, that's obviously been Photoshopped."

"Did you hear they can mix and mimic your voice and dub it to anything?"

"So, how many times did the president lie this week?"

This is the burden of language: lies.  This is also the burden of history, that things will change into their opposites.  Instead of a noble, upright citizen being elected in as president, we have a man who can not only lie on the fly but also change his mind from a previous position in a flash.

Religion used to be the purveyor of morality.  Even then, the first five commandments basically came down to respecting and revering 'authority'.  Blasphemy was considered the greatest sin you could commit -- the one unforgivable sin!  And now the forces of religion are waning in the world.


But now, looking all around us, the brazen immoralities stand out.  Greed?  "Banksters!" someone shouts.  Sloth?  "Welfare!" someone shouts.  Pride? Wrath? Lust? Envy? Gluttony?  You almost don't even have to open your eyes, just open up a browser and find the local news. 

We've already come to accept the normalization of evil.  Politicians openly accept bribes by lobbyists, and when accused of some crime, they deny all responsibility for their actions.

Even everyday people have normalized their selfish, greedy, slothful, or outright evil acts.  "Yeah, well, I want to use plastic bottles!"  We even excuse our everyday actions that have been called into focus as wrong.  I have a vegan friend whom I've forbidden to post any more meat-is-cruelty-to-animals videos because seeing an abused animal slingshots me into a depressive episode... which burns her because I eat meat and, according to her, refuse to see the error of my ways!

 Brutality and violence surround us, everywhere, such that it's more acceptable to show people getting shot and stabbed and blown up in movies than it is to see a loving couple take their clothes off together and get happy.  Not only that, but one of my long-term pet peeves with the science fiction industry is their penchant for end-of-the-world tropes and good-versus-evil, with an overwhelming number of evil people lead by the Most Evil Man Ever (Or 'meme', haha!).  Thankfully, most of them end with the Good Guy conquering him, at least staving off the evil to a nebulous future.

So, what can we do about it?  How can we bring the normalization of good back into our focus?  How can we make a dent in the evil surrounding us, to label it as evil and promote what is good in its stead?

I believe we have to do it with literature, with books and film and stories, whether written or made into audios.  What we have to do is capture the popular imagination by modeling decent behavior, showing a character changing due to bad decisions and their subsequent consequences.  Or maybe the character grows away from evil (ignorance) as they're being influenced by a truly good person, and recognizes s/he, too, can move away from destructive behavior toward constructive behavior.




  That has been my goal with the To Be Sinclair series all along.  My characters are real, everyday people dealing with real, perhaps extraordinary situations, but rarely a situation you can't actually imagine happening.  I've had a lot of people say things like, "You should get them made into movies -- they're so realistic!"

My current work-in-progress, Civility, is the thirteenth and final book of the series, and for the first time, I have intelligent 'aliens'.  Also for the first time, I have an older female protagonist, 57-year-old Princess Elizabeth Sinclair who, for all her brilliance, still manages to make a mess of her private life.  I have a second protagonist who has self esteem issues, swinging between pride and humiliation as much as she does balancing a private life with being a public figure.

These are all realistic battles that everyday people fight.  How do you choose the person to spend your life with?  How do you balance work, school, and leisure?  What happens when your best friends start dating your little sisters?  When do you put your foot down, and how severely should you mete out the punishment?  How do you deal with your first real and utterly devastating loss?

I believe we should emphasize these things in our literature, rather than the Chosen One who none of our readers will ever be, or the Grand Sacrificial Choice that our readers will (hopefully!) never need to make.  They need help and modeling to overcome everyday problems, such as how to turn away unwanted attention from the opposite sex without endangering themselves, or balancing two separate but equally important duties.  One step at a time, we should be giving them the tools to improve their lives, and hopefully reclaim our world from the Dark Forces of Evil, who are simply individuals just like us, who can also change.

Plot bunny:  How can an undeniably evil person change his/her ways, and can s/he redeem him/herself from the past? 

*Alternate history:  Hitler surrenders and asks what reparations he can perform.  How do you respond?*

~  Namaste  ~

Eva's social media and book links:







Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Saving Terranue by Liza O'Connor



The Oddities of Terranue

There’s a lot of strange issues with the planet Terranue.

First, the entrance into Terranue is very rough, far rougher than it should be. And the pilot could tell you if you’re friends with him, that the roughness occurs when they fly into a thick orange haze. But why is there a thick haze? When they land the sky is blue and the sun is shining.

Second, there are T. rexes, giant grizzly bears the size of elephants, and saber-tooth lions roaming about the planet.

Third, there are five seasons, three of which are deadly.

Marybell, the organically grown sentient computer, carbon dates the planet and it is considerably older than the universe it is in. How is that even possible?


There are also blue bulls on the planet (Sargon), who look a great deal like the large blue bull that Tamsarandem (a Three-bonded soul) brought with them, and the oldest bull claims he can remember back to the very first big bang. That’s a great deal older than this universe.

Also Zousan’s father, the conniving cheating Cronus, has planted something terrible inside the planet that will destroy everything in a short while.

As matters play out, from these facts, Marybell postulates the following: a) The First God is alive, b) doesn’t like cheaters and c) supports The Path of Light.

Or maybe they’re just incredibly lucky? In the Multiverses, anything can and will happen.

What do you think?  Could an ancient planet just appear in a new universe?




Surviving Terranue
By
Liza O’Connor

 Blurb

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.


Excerpt

Pane relays the facts he’s determined to his captain:
“The planet has several lethal lifeforms, some sentient, some half sentient, and some not so bright.”

“Start with the sentient,” Zousan ordered.

“There are large blue cattle, much like the blue bull that accompanied Tamsarandem.”

“That’s odd.”

“Not really. A DNA analysis we did twenty years ago indicated the bull called Blue is the same species, only healthier, larger, stronger, and smarter.”

“Well, that’s not going to make him popular,” Zousan grumbled.

“On the positive side, he’s not a smartass,” Pane offered.

“Which means…?”

“He is more likely to dominate and take control of the other bulls rather than barb with witty comments. Assuming that is his intention, I left tablets for the shaman to help assist him in succeeding in his tasks. I thought this important given the huge pile of bones that lay in their valley.”

Zousan didn’t like the sound of that. “Explain, please.”

“The planet appears to have had or still has T. rexes. The foliage is very dense in some places and I’m not able to get a read if they still exists. However, there are over a thousand skulls of T. rexes in one section of the blue bulls’ valley, some of them recently dead, so I suspect, they still exist and the bulls, while considerably smaller, have some way to kill them.”

“Have you picked up any signs of a live one?” Zousan asked. His anger flared recalling how several of his idiot Gods got into a competition supersizing everything on planet Zepwick. What a bloody nightmare that had been. Fortunately, the planets cyclical deep freeze took care of the problem. While some of the animals survived, they did so in smaller size. While still lethal, they at least didn’t eat an entire campsite of humans for each meal.

“The scan didn’t pick up signs of live ones, but as I said, the foliage is preventing clear scans of the planet.”

Sales Link
Surviving Terranue
Surviving Outbound
The Gods of Probabilities
All  books are free for KU subscribers



About Author
Liza is a multiple genre author of 40+ novels.

After ten years of doing nothing but writing novels, she is now attempting to publish 11 books a year in various genres: Contemporary, Historical, Western, Sci-Fi, Paranormal and crossovers between one genre to another. Fearless and determined, she strives to find books you will love.

Liza’s favorites books in her library are:
A Late Victorian Series, The Adventures of Xavier & Vic, plus a spinoff, A Right to Love. This is an ongoing series with book 9 coming out soon.  

 A Long Road to Love is a humorous Contemporary Disaster Romance series of five books.

There are many more books she adores as well
Check below if you are intrigued...

Social Networks
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Sunday, April 15, 2018

Surviving Outbound By Liza O'Connor




Leaving Earth and traveling through space to an unknown planet is not an easy choice to make. However, Earth can no longer support the mass of humans it holds. Except for a few protected enclaves, the human race is starving and society has fallen into the hard truth of KILL OR BE KILLED.

Knowing this day would come, the shamans have a ship ready to leave.
They now only await for their prophecy to occur.



Surviving Outbound
By
Liza O’Connor
 Blurb
With the prodding of her dead soul-bond’s spirit, Saran and their giant blue bull leave their farm in search of a handler so Blue can escape Earth and travel outbound. The man Saran meets and falls in love with is her dead soul-bond’s husband, and their spiritual joining sets into play a prophecy written three hundred thousand years before.

Together, they become Tamsarandem, the most powerful soul-bond in all the multiverses. The shamans pay for their voyage to Terranue, a planet never before colonized. In return, they only ask Tamsarandem to look after the other colonists and help them to prosper and find their Paths of Light.

Failing to stop Tamsarandem from leaving Earth, those who walk the Path of Darkness embed their own people on the ship to ensure it will never arrive at Terranue. In case that fails, they send their darkest lord disguised as an innocent to ensure the death of all who follow the Light. To be certain of success, long ago, they seeded an evil within Terranue that can devour everything on the planet. Finally, they will strike a fatal blow that darkens the Path of Light through all the multiverses.

The Gods must step back and let matters run their natural course, for they are running out of authorized interventions. However, the God Pane, with the help of the sentient ship computer Marybell, keep searching for clever workarounds to ensure The Path of Light will reign supreme upon the final collapse. But there is only so much they can do within their bureaucratic rules.

Excerpt
Shaman Daniel, who sat to the Seer’s right, spoke urgently to their leader, his request loud enough to be heard by all. “Allow me to bring in someone with more experience.”

The Seer placed his hand on Daniel’s arm. “We wouldn’t even know of The Soul-Bond of Three if not for Shaman Troy. He alone found the Cave of Light and mastered the lost language of Gaelic. He then discovered the passages that foretold of The Soul-Bond of Three. Do you truly believe a boy so young could have achieved such a feat without the help of the Gods?

“Your Imminence, I do not deny the boy has accomplished much, but perhaps he has done all that he was meant to do. Perhaps now, it is time for our scholars to take over.”

Shamans around the table nodded in agreement.
Shaman Troy bowed his head in shame. He had failed everyone.

The Seer of Light shook his head. “I have never forbidden any of you to search caves for lost tablets, from learning the archaic languages of the past, or from discovering hidden clues in sacred texts. By all means, assist in this critical matter if you will. But Shaman Troy will continue the path he set upon twenty years ago when he was a mere child of twelve. And I have faith the Gods will deliver The Soul-Bond of Three to Shaman Troy when the time comes.”


Sales Link
Surviving Outbound


About Author
Liza is a multiple genre author of 40+ novels.
After ten years of doing nothing but writing novels, she is now attempting to publish 11 books a year in various genres: Contemporary, Historical, Western, Sci-Fi, Paranormal and crossovers between one genre to another. Fearless and determined, she strives to find books you will love.
Liza’s favorites books in her library are:
A Late Victorian Series, The Adventures of Xavier & Vic, plus a spinoff, A Right to Love. This is an ongoing series with book 9 coming out soon.  
 A Long Road to Love is a humorous Contemporary Disaster Romance series of five books.
There are many more books she adores as well
Check below if you are intrigued...
Social Networks
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT
Investigate these sites: