Showing posts with label Book 1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book 1. Show all posts

Friday, May 18, 2018

Carol Van Natta shares: Shifter Mate Magic (Ice Age Shifters Book 1)



Title: Shifter Mate Magic (Ice Age Shifters Book 1)


Genre: Paranormal Romance


Page Count: 130 pages


Synopsis:
A lonely bear shifter meets his mate. She’s running for her life and doesn’t have time for romance.
Pregnant Jackie Breton just escaped from a corrupt feline pack intent on selling her half-shifter baby to the highest bidder. She’s smart, independent, and has a desperate plan to keep her baby safe: Get away from the pride as fast and far as possible.

Trevor Hammond, prehistoric bear shifter, has been rejected by everyone in his life for… being born, basically. Well, except for the beloved aunt who raised him. He’s built a career as an independent trucker, but life would be much better with someone he can hold in his arms and claim as his own.

When Jackie meets Trevor at a truck stop, his bear demands he help her. His aunt even calls with a dire warning: Get Jackie to the magical sanctuary town in Wyoming before she’s killed.

Jackie thinks he’s sexy as hell, but too good to be true. She doesn’t trust shifters. With the feline pride hot on her trail, however, Trevor and the quirky town of Kotoyeesinay might be her only chance for survival. Even Trevor’s indomitable bear may be no match for the dangerous enemy seeking retribution.

Discover the secret world of magic and true mates in Shifter Mate Magic, the first book in USA TODAY bestselling author Carol Van Natta's fun, action-filled, steamy-hot Ice Age Shifters™ series.


Buy links:
·         Amazon: https://amazon.com/dp/B07C7NHNGD  (Kindle Unlimited)
·         Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07C7NHNGD  (Kindle Unlimited)
·         Amazon CA: https://amazon.ca/dp/B07C7NHNGD
·         Amazon AU: https://amazon.com.au/dp/B07C7NHNGD

Cover Image: See email attachments


Author Bio:

LONG:
Carol Van Natta is a USA TODAY bestselling and award-winning science fiction and fantasy author. Works include the new Ice Age Shifters paranormal romance series that starts with Shifter Mate Magic, the award-winning Central Galactic Concordance space opera series that starts with Overload Flux; a magical paranormal romance, In Graves Below, and Hooray for Holopticon, a retro science fiction comedy. She shares her Fort Collins, CO home with a sometime mad scientist and several eccentric cats. Any violations of the laws of physics in her books is the fault of the cats, not the mad scientist.


Author Photo: See email attachments



Author Contact Links:





Teaser Quote Image: See email attachments



Monday, August 21, 2017

Commander's Mate by Clarissa Lake



Commander's Mate: Farseek Mercenary Series Book 1, the first in my new steamy alien romance series. These proud Uatu Warriors from the Farseek colony were not always mercenaries. They formerly served the Trans-Stellar Consortium sworn, to Farseek received from the Consortium. Every world in the Consortium supplied warriors for the common defense, but every world didn’t suffer the fate of Farseek.

While they were fighting the Consortium's war against the Sargus Empire far from their home world, the Sargus Empire attacked Farseek, leaving mass destruction in its wake. Only about a dozen survivors remained the tell what happened---a dozen of over a million. Those who weren't killed were taken to become slaves of the Empire. As the story opens, Commander General Zared Maktu has found the piles of wreckage that is all that's left of his family's neighborhood.

Nothing the Consortium has to offer can compensate what was lost. Time for the company of Farseek Dreadnought One to make a new plan. They must find those who were taken alive and bring them home. After terminating their contract with the Consortium, they take a job to rescue a governor's daughter stolen to be sold into slavery.

Commander Maktu doesn't just rescue the Governor's daughter and her companion. He and his company take all of the 100 abductees from the auction house. Only two are from Farseek, but there are four unusual females from a planet called Earth---and one of them is his fated mate Harper Avery. Things heat up from there. Look for it soon on my Amazon Page.


Below is an excerpt from Commander’s Mate:

ZARED
We won the war but lost everything we ever loved. We stood fast for the Consortium. Some of us even laid down our lives for them while they left our home world undefended. As I stand looking at the ruins of what was my family’s home, I scream in rage, but there is no one to hear my pain and utter disgust.

Farseek Brigade should have been here defending our homes and families instead of light years away defending the Consortium stronghold. Those with the most power and wealth still have all they hold dear, while we have nothing left to fight for.

As I stand looking at the desolate landscape, I am not ashamed of the two tears that slide down my face. Mother, Father, brothers, and sisters all gone and those high and mighty Consortium executives never let us know. They let us come back and find our world in ruin and our people gone.

Were they killed or taken? There was no way to know. The thing I did know was that slavery was rampant in the Sargus Empire. They bought and sold sentient beings as if they were meat animals. Their whole economy depended on slave labor, where the Consortium relied on robots and artificial intelligence.  They relied on the warriors of Farseek Brigade and other like us for defense.

Had we been here when those Sargans attacked, we could have protected them with our elite ground force and our star fighters. From the carnage in front of me, I surmise that many of our people were killed---maybe most of them. I can only guess that the Sargans would have taken the rest as slaves to any of hundreds of different worlds.

Someone somewhere knows something, and I will find them.

The com in my ear buzzed. I touched my ear to hear Lieutenant Pyrr Avantu’s voice. “Commander, I’m getting reports of children being found living in the wreckage.  So far about a dozen.”

“Do any of them know what happened to the others?”

“Those not killed were herded into shuttles and taken away,” said Lt. Avantu. “So some of our people were taken alive after the attack, but the children don’t know more than that.”

“Did anyone find any adults?”

“A few elders,” Avantu replied.

“They should come with us when we leave. I doubt they would survive the winter here alone,” I told him.  “I’ll clear it with Admiral Degatu. At least we know they were not all killed. Finding them is not going to be easy.  I think our best bet is to go after the slave trader’s in Sargus Territory. I will speak to the admiral and get back to you.”

“Yes, sir,” Avantu said.  “We will keep looking for survivors.”

My heart was not as heavy after I talked to Avantu. I let myself entertain a small hope that some of my clan might have survived. I’m sure others in our division felt as I did after they saw the destruction of our world. From that day forward, I would no longer honor my pledge of service to the Consortium.  My only allegiance would be given to the Farseek Brigades, and to the Uatu people.


I didn’t have to wait long for Admiral Degatu to descend to the ground of our world. In our defense force, there are two lines of command. I am Commander General of the ground forces, and Admiral Degatu commands our Starship fleet. Our combined forces make up the Farseek Division of the Sovereign Transtellar Consortium Defense Force. Our division is known for its prowess on the ground and in space. That’s why they sent us to the front.

They had to know our home world was completely vulnerable, but they were more worried about themselves than the families of the warriors defending them. They deliberately blocked our communications about the attacks on Farseek so we wouldn’t desert them. And it would have been our right, per our contract. Farseek came first.

We weren’t the only force defending the heart of the Consortium against the Sargus attack. Some of our ships could have gone to aid Farseek. To me, that nullifies any obligation we have to the Consortium. They are nothing but a bunch of wealthy tycoons and politicians who maintain and run the Consortium for their own gain. To them, we are just an expendable subclass of inferior beings whose clans are unimportant to them.

Since we were so insignificant that they left our home world defenseless. I saw no reason to continue to defend them. Now I just had to convince Degatu.


Admiral Degatu arrived about an hour later just outside of our village. He had seen the imagery of the devastation in the holovids, but it just didn’t quite capture the horrific scope of the destruction.

Degatu was a native Farseekian of the Uato people as I am. Our race comes in a variety of skin tones from light to dark blue-gray, reddish brown to pale beige to almost white. I am a light blue-gray, and Degatu is medium reddish brown. We do not favor any color over another as the colors are only skin deep. Most of the males of our race are tall and well muscled and of varying body thickness. Warrior training keeps us fit unlike the echelon of the Consortium. Females may not be as tall and muscular, but those who are unmated train as warriors as well. Most can hold their own in battle where we all wear special protective body suits.

While the females may not be quite as strong on their own, the body armor augmentations are equalizing their strength.  It is also good for morale to have females among us. Our customs allow for sharing sex with unmated females as long as we do not give them our seed.  That is only for one’s fated mate; it’s how we claim them.

I already know my fated mate is not in our division. My hope of finding her now is fading with all our people dead or taken. That could be part of why I feel so angered by this all. But I am also angered for all of my comrades who fought so bravely and came home as I did to find all of my clan is gone.

“They did this Garvan! They kept the news of the attacks from us when they knew we had the right to come defend our people,” I murmured in a grim, quiet tone. “So far they’re about a dozen survivors, who say the Sargans rounded up the survivors and took them away.”

“And you want to go after them,” he stated.

“Don’t you?”

“I do. There is hardly a man or woman in our division who hasn’t lost someone in this attack. We have to be smart about this,” he said. “We can’t go into Empire territory as Defenders of the Consortium. Once we nullify our contract with them, we are on our own. They won’t finance us for it.”

“Even if we pool our resources, it might not be enough to get the job done,” I said, as I followed his train of thought. “We will need backers.”

“Exactly my thought, so I took the liberty of letting certain governors of the Consortium know what we must do. I was told that Governor Evzen Guryon’s daughter Kyanna was taken by Ursagans from the Sargan Empire with a group of women from  Plotain  Pleasure station. The word is they are taking them to Ursaga slave auctions.”

“You think Guryon will back us?” I started to see a plan forming.

“He will. He may be a pompous dick, but he loves his daughter, and he will pay whatever it takes to get her back,” Pyrr said.

“We could find some of our own people there, too.” I nodded. “I guess that means we’re now the Farseek Mercenary Division.”

Garvan nodded grimly. It also meant we were on our own.


Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Sheila Hoag shares how Genetically Engineered Humans think of Sex.


It’s me again.  Thank you Liza, for letting me blabber on about my books.  Pretty soon, there will be a new one.  So today, I think I'll delve into the romance/not romance aspect of my Wildblood series.
Fact 1 - Shannon loves Mac, and the feeling is mutual. It's not something that will change, but it will evolve.

Fact 2 - Both are Genetically Engineered humans and if intelligence was still measured in IQs, they'd be high up on that scale. We know very smart people have thought processes that can be . . . unique. Same for the Gen En. Combine those, and it's chaos!

Fact 3 - The world they've grown up in is nothing like the world we know. Monogamy is a thing, mostly that their parents know. The Vista is a small, isolated society, and this limits many things, including the gene pool. This factor comes in to play later, but it's always there.


So. Mac and Shan. They have each other, and they have other relationships. The Gen En, the Altered humans in particular don't equate one relationship with another. That is, if they happened to be having sex with a particular person, it has no bearing on what they are doing with other people. It's even rare for jealousy to show up, because they just don't see love and/or sex as a rivalry.
Could that change? Oh, hell yes. I never know where these three (Wade, Mac & Shan) are going to go, that I hadn't planned.
Do I see future problems between Mac and Hunter? Or either of them and the hinted at 'other man'? Please see previous paragraph.
The problem my MCs run across is something they have no control over. This makes it all the more frustrating for them. There is nothing they can do about their genetics. There is nothing they can do to change the fact, that if they would have children, those children would be plagued by the same (or worse) problems that they've dealt with their entire lives. Shan and Mac understand, they can't have a future together, in the traditional sense. Of course, they aren't 'traditional' in any sense of the word!
This leaves her relationship with Hunter even more speculative. Hunter's father wanted to eliminate human genetic testing, to make it illegal. He still believes he was right, and he’s a major force in future books of the series. What Shannon is, he doesn't know yet, other than his long-lost son has more than a passing interest in her. Their future? Hunter is a stabilizing force in her life; Shannon challenges him in ways he never expected.
So, is it a romance?  Come on – life is filled with romance, the biggest adventure of all!  Yes, it is, BTW.  There wouldn’t be much of a story if the members of Team Three were just casual acquaintances.  Or if their relationships didn’t change.  Or if I gave away any big spoilers.

Renegades: Book 2 of The Wildblood is in full edit mode right now. In the meantime, go catch up on the story with The Vista: Book 1 of The Wildblood, available on all e-formats now.  It’s a post-apocalyptic, sci-fi, action-adventure.  Say that, three times fast.


S. A. Hoag is a sci-fi fanatic, amateur astronomer, and life-long book hoarder.  She lives in the desert, where it easier to look at the stars and find some quiet.  When she’s tired of the quiet, there is music, and coffee.  The books even have soundtracks. 
(Note: Liza has enlarged this to SHE could read it.
Your Welcome :))






Sunday, March 20, 2016

Aurora Springer shares: Super Starella, Liza Reviews it.


Super Starrella, Book 1 of the Secret Supers

Teen superhero, Starrella, and her flying horse combat vicious villains in the skies of Atalanta.

The quiet summer before her freshman year turns frighteningly weird after Estelle Wright trespasses onto an Army base. Blown into the air and knocked unconscious, she wakes with a nascent superpower. Not to mention a winged horse with a snarky attitude and a mind of her own.

Back home in Atalanta, a serial killer is targeting the students at Goldman University. Before long she must juggle college classes with sneaking out of the house after dark to battle alien monsters. Estelle’s life is in danger, but who can she trust: handsome Captain Copper from military intelligence, or hunky Toby, the tough gangster with a motorbike? Both men have secret agendas, but falling in love is not in their plans.

Super Starella

Book 1: Secret Supers
by

Aurora Springer






Aurora Springer is one of the most creative authors I know.
Super Starella is lighter fare than the Grand Masters Trilogy, but in both cases the world building is fabulous, the characters well-rounded, and this plot is just FUN!
Prepare to have a fabulous time!
—Liza O’Connor



Buy Links
Excerpt
A man stepped out of the darkness, all in black except for his eyes. In the dull black material of his close-fitting suit, he was almost invisible, like a moving shadow. Even so, she recognized his distinctive broad shoulders and muscular arms.

“Toby!” Starrella cried. “What the heck is going on?” She stepped closer, holding out her hand to show the small flame rising from her palm.

His eyes glinted in the light. “Super Starrella’s firepower! Great, we’ll need you for the mantis attack,” he drawled. “They’re out in force tonight.”

“No! Not the mantises.” She waved a hand at him and pointed back at herself. “You, me, and these silly costumes? What does it all mean?”

“Didn’t they tell you at the Clinic?”

Starrella assumed he meant Dr. Netta, who had spoken to her when she had woken in the strange room after the explosion on the firing range. She raised her eyebrows. “I was shown how to change the colors of my costume. Cute, but doesn’t explain anything. Rockette told me more than Dr. Netta did.” Glaring at him, she probed, “Wait. How did you know my secret name?” 

“Your mare told my cat.” He looked behind her and she twisted around. Over in the shadows, Rockette and the black jaguar faced each other. The winged mare tossed her mane and lowered her nose, while the big cat rose on its haunches and lifted a large paw to tap the horse in a friendly greeting.

“They’re getting acquainted,” Toby said. “The jag cat is Growler.”

As if on cue, the black cat looked towards them and its eyes flashed red. Toby stared at Growler for a second, and then beckoned to Starrella. He barked, “Big attack on Centennial Square. Come on, Star! Need your fire power.” Toby thumped her on the shoulder and raced down the street in the direction of the city square. The powerful jaguar loped after him.
Author Bio
Aurora Springer is a scientist morphing into a novelist. She has a PhD in molecular biophysics and discovers science facts in her day job. She has invented adventures in weird worlds for as long as she can remember. In 2014, Aurora achieved her life-long ambition to publish her stories. Her works are character-driven romances set in weird worlds described with a sprinkle of humor. Some of the stories were composed thirty years ago. She was born in the UK and lives in Atlanta with her husband, a dog and two cats to sit on the keyboard. Her hobbies, besides reading and writing, include outdoor activities like gardening, watching wildlife, hiking and canoeing.

Media links:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Aurora-Springer/e/B00K2C4NL8

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Michaela Kendrick shares Dragon's Honor (The Dragon Corps Series Book 1)


Today, we have a new Sci-Fi author who is publishing in fast order so you may enjoy an entire series.
I'm talking really fast order.
Book 1 will be out on Dec 28
and
Book 2 will be out on Dec 29

Naturally, that gets me curious about book 3.
So I've sent Space Rep to bring Michaela Kendrick in to answer some questions. 


Space Rep: I'm on it. May I use any force necessary when retrieving her?

Liza: NO! I want her alive and able to talk.

Space Rep: You are such a Kill Joy! *Space Rep climbs into the large microwave and disappears*

Liza: Whoever is writing stage directions, that isn't a microwave. It's a transporter, that just happens to make a marginally acceptable cup of tea as well.

*Space Rep climbs into a marginally acceptable cup of tea and disappears*

Liza: That is not...nevermind Space Rep has returned with an author.

Space Rep: Now sit down! Liza wants to interrogate you!.


Liza: Sorry for the room choice. I would have chosen the dragon's nest, but someone has flown off with it.

So when uploading your data, I found some of your information odd.  I notice you are publishing book one and two in two sequential days. Why? 

Michaela: When I start into a series, I hate when there's only one book available. Books 1 and 2 can stand alone, but they involve some of the same characters and villains, and I wanted readers to be able to keep reading as soon as they were done with Book 1!

Liza: And when are you publishing book 3? 

Michael: Book 3 is coming out in January! I'm so excited about this one - the main character is one of my absolute faves, full of snark and pretty unprepared for romance.

Liza: It's good the third is following quickly behind because I can tell you from experience, books have feelings.


Michaela: Oh dear, I hope Book 3 knows that I love it to pieces and just don't want it to go out without editing. I mean, how awful would that be? Typos everywhere. Book 3 would hate me if I did that to it, right?

Liza: Yes, you'd have one pissed off book and a great deal of unhappy readers. Your plan is much better.  But be warned. When I tried to publish 5 books in a row (row being defined as 1 MONTH apart) it broke me. I screwed everything up on book five. Took me months to recover.

Now let's check out book 1, Dragon's Honor.



The Warlord...

From high society banquets in the ice covered skyscrapers of New Arizona, to the most far-flung outposts at the edge of human-occupied space, everyone has heard of Ymir. The Alliance's reach is wide, and its soldiers are well trained, but there are always despots powerful enough to assert themselves, and Ymir has been one of the most notable failures of human history: a whole planet given over to a man known only as the Warlord.

The soldier…

Cade Williams was once a Dragon—the most elite fighting unit in known space. Precise, brutal, and unstoppable, they were a last resort in the lawless wastes of space colonization. But there was a price: in one horrific mission, Cade’s unit took down not only a slave trader, but an entire intergalactic carrier. Cade left and never looked back. Haunted by his past, he’s vowed never again to kill, never again to fight, and, filling jobs from dock worker to bartender, he’s managed to keep that vow. But Cade’s life is about to be turned upside down. Because when at last he runs out of options, his old friend Talon Rift appears out of nowhere. Talon, the man who ordered him to take down the carrier. Talon, who wants him to get back in the game. And when Cade won’t, Talon has a job opportunity he seems to know Cade can’t afford to pass up. Protect a woman. An innocent. Remarkably little chance of anything going wrong. And a man needs to eat.

And the trophy wife…

There are two problems: first, that Cade hates Aryn the moment he lays eyes on her; second, that he wants her like he’s never wanted anyone before in his life. Or make that three problems: Aryn’s fiancé is a weapons trafficker with a well-deserved reputation for being ruthless, and Aryn is about to get caught up in one of his schemes - one that will bring her back to the place she only just escaped...the mines of Ymir.




“Cade Williams?”

The words came through the haze of smoke and drunkenness like a hallucination. Cade knew that voice. He was never, ever going to be able to forget that voice, and it had to be a hallucination because there was no way in hell the owner of that voice had chased him across three systems only to walk into a dive bar on the lower streets of New Arizona. So he went back to his drink.

He picked up the glass and stared at it. It was a scotch he’d been nursing for about three hours now, and not just because “scotch” seemed to be a loose term for colored grain alcohol. When he finished his drink, he had nowhere to go. And in the ever-drifting snow of New Arizona—he’d never figured out if the name was born of ignorance or irony—he needed to stay indoors as long as possible. The cold was fierce, and whatever acid was in the water on this planet, it would burn his skin raw in less than a night.

And if he didn’t get ten thousand credits to Osiris within a week, he was a dead man. But one thing at a time. Cade shook his head and let the moment slide away from him, a tiny drift into memory and nothing more.

“Williams,” the voice said again.

That was definitely not a hallucination. Cade’s eyes traveled along the arm that had come down on one side of him. Callused fingertips, last joint of the right index finger missing, the hint of a tattoo poking out from under a blue cuff. The arm underneath the suit jacket was well muscled, leading to broad shoulders and a clean-shaven jaw, and with a sinking feeling of dread, Cade looked up at one of his worst nightmares.

“Lieutenant Rift.”

“Actually, it’s Major now.” Talon’s face was expressionless, as it almost always was. He watched as Cade’s eyes traveled over the understated suit, across the planes of the handsome face. At last, sensing the question Cade would never ask, he flipped over the hand on his resting arm. There, glimmering in the faint light, were blood-red cufflinks.

A Dragon always wore red.

Talon absorbed Cade’s bitter smile in silence.

“You look surprisingly well.” Cade looked down into his scotch and considered drinking the rest in one gulp. The pours in this bar were generous, and with the alcohol being of dubious provenance, a gulp might well kill him. Right now, that wasn’t seeming so bad. It was all coming back to him—without warning, as it always did. He’d known the moment he heard the voice that this was going to be a bad night, even worse than he’d thought—and he’d already thought it would be pretty bad. There was screaming at the corner of his mind, the flashing of the lights in the bar taking on a reddish hue, the emergency exit sign too clear a reminder.

He closed his eyes, clenching his jaw until he thought his teeth would give way. He had to keep breathing, or the memories would take him, and the world would devolve into the chaotic mess he so feared, every face reminding him of the pods, the children pounding on the glass—

He was going to be sick. His stomach heaved.

“Should I go?”

“No.” Cade’s answer surprised even him. He opened his eyes and looked down into his drink again. He could force the world back into its neat shapes if he tried hard enough. In the vacuum of space, in the long silences of a courier’s job, he’d learned to face his fear and press it away.

He could face this, too.

“Okay.” Talon sat, pulled reflexively at both cuffs, and looked over at the bartender. “What won’t kill me here?”

“Don’t try the scotch.”

“Noted.”


Dragon’s Honor will be free to read in 



Where to find Michaela Kendrick:
(Hint: It's easier than finding Waldo)

Right now, Michaela's only on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mkendrickauthor/



But she has a Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/bIDsBn



And people can feel free to email her at mkendrickauthor@gmail.com

If you would like to receive an ARC to review,
let Michaela know.