JC Hay & 5 others writes collaborate to create The Great Space Race

Start Your Jump Drives!

Yesterday saw the culmination of almost a year-long effort between myself and five other writers, all luminaries of science-fiction romance. I’ve got to say - Collaboration is a crazy drug.

We started the series with a singular vision – what if you took a movie like 1965’s The Great Race, or a TV show like The Amazing Race, and gave it that wonderful SFR twist? And what if we made it more like a reality TV show? That was the birth of The Great Space Race.

Each of us sat down to plot our own teams, charted out our planets and went to work figuring out where we could cross over with each other to make the race feel “lived-in.” It was every bit as wonderful as it sounds. Writing is such a solitary profession for much of the time, so it was incredible to sit around the virtual table with people whose work I already knew and enjoyed, and just brainstorm together.

Even better was the way our ideas fed each other – we enjoyed a sort of easy harmony where each idea caused a cascade of similar ones, like scree in a landslide.

For my part, it culminated in Flare, the story of Team Corona. The back grew out of an early comment by series originator CJ Cade – that pirates and brigands were likely to attack the well-known raceways. I immediately wondered what would happen if one of those pirates got roped into competing in the race. Since we were writing space opera, I cast the pirate-heroine as from a race of aliens I’d been working on in some side stories (my strangely honor-bound, devilish looking Malebranki), and paired her with her polar opposite – a shiftless, cowardly grifter named Ax.

As I’d hoped, it created a lot of tension between them, but it also gave them plenty of room to grow towards and with each other. That’s something they’ll need, since Octiron – the company that sponsors the race – isn’t in the business of giving away shares of the prize money. So they’ll stop at nothing to make sure as few contestants finish as possible!

They could go all the way, if they don’t go straight to hell.

All Kayana wants is respect. Jilted by her fiancée, turned out by her family, and rejected by her crew – esteem is in short supply. When she hears about the cash prize for winning the Great Space Race, she realizes it’s more than enough money to get her old life back. Or buy herself an asteroid someplace where she won’t care what people think.

Ax Turner just needs to hide, and the Race gives him the best opportunity to do so. In plain sight. Surely the thugs and criminals he’s ripped off won’t come after him while cameras are rolling on the galaxy’s most popular reality game show. And if they do, well, having a partner who’s able to fight and looks like a devil seems like a win.

They’re on the run –  from the past, from the lethal challenges of the Great Race, from their feelings, and straight into each other. They’ve got more than their share of problems, and those secrets could drive them apart, or be the key to winning the biggest prize of all: each other.

Buy Link: https://www.books2read.com/u/mZ50J2

Want to learn about the other Great Space Race Books? Go to http://gspacerace.com to read about the other books and download a free preview of the series!

Excerpt from Flare: Team Corona

The woman with the scarlet skin stepped the rest of the way through the door and pointed the pepper-box muzzle of the pistol at him. As she spoke, the universal translator in Ax’s comm unit immediately converted her speech to Galactic Common. “I am Kayana, Daughter of House Frissyn, Banner-bearer for House Garryk of the Nine. Surrender or die.”

Ax appreciated the easy choices. He slowly put his hands up, careful not to set himself tumbling through zero-g. “I’ll take surrender, thanks.”

The pistol didn’t waver as she reached out to snag his ankle with her free hand. She dragged him to the deck and pinned him in place with one magnetic boot. “Where is the rest of the crew?”

“You’re looking at it, devil-girl. The only other guy is dead upstairs.” Technically true, since the camera crew wasn’t going to help run the ship.

The woman snorted and lifted him to her face. Up close, and without the flames to distract him, Ax could get a good look at the pirate for the first time. Her eyes were black, the white so small as to be nonexistent. Wavy dark hair tumbled over her shoulders and into her face in a cloud that bordered on unruly. In the dim light, he could just make out the edges of the tiny scales that chased the high bones of her cheeks and the point of her chin. In another situation, he’d consider her damned attractive. So long as she wasn’t threatening him. And she didn’t smile. Smiling showed off the sharp points on her canine teeth and made her a lot scarier.

She leaned into his face, giving him a full view of her vicious dentition. “Turn on the gravity.”

Fortunately, he was used to terrifying women. He shrugged. “I’d love to help you with that, but no can do, Kay.”

“Kayana,” she spat. “And you will do it, or I’ll kill you.”

“You’re big on that threat. Problem is, the ship’s all biometric controls. Once you kill me, you’ll be locked out of the system completely. I’m the only the person you’ve got.” He gave her his most charming smile, the one Gobby had buckled for.

It didn’t work.

“All I need is your hand.” She reached for a blade at her hip. “You don’t need to be attached.”

“Actually, I do. It’s a pretty sophisticated system they’ve got in place, and a dead hand is no better than the wrong hand. But you’ve got bigger problems than the security.” He took a deep breath, hoping he had put enough bait on the hook to keep her from killing him. Or cutting off his hands. He was especially attached to his hands.

She rolled her eyes. “Such as?”

“Well, the AI is a complete pain in the ass, for starters.” Ax chuckled at the understatement.

Kayana knotted her fingers in his collar and began to drag him up the steps to the main deck. “An AI is just one of the ship’s systems. It does what it’s told.”

“Yeah, and this one’s been told to be completely unmanageable.” He scrambled his feet before realizing it was easier to let her drag him in micro-gravity than to fight against it. “I assume it’s be-cause Octiron gets some kind of sick thrill out of making everything as difficult as possible.”

She tugged him back up to eye level, and Ax found himself staring into eyes like the black emptiness between the stars, and just as warm. “Or you could be stalling, looking for an excuse while you try to figure out a way to render me unconscious.”

Ax donned his best grin. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

Her nostrils flared, and she snorted. “Said every man who was lousy at both.”

About JC Hay

JC Hay writes romantic science fiction and space opera, because the coolest gadgets in the world are useless without someone to share them.

In addition to Romance Writers of America, he is also a proud member of the SFR Brigade (for Science Fiction Romance), the Fantasy, Futuristic, and Paranormal Romance chapter, and a proud member of RWA’s PAN (the published authors network).

In addition to piracy in high space, JC writes the Corporate Services series, a set of connected cyberpunk romances set eighty years in our future where the limits of humanity are being stretched and tested.

Website: http://jchay.com

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Teresa Roberts shares her thoughts on Heroines with Agency

On Heroines with Agency

Earlier this month I—like most of the women I know—saw Wonder Woman. I came out of the theater babbling gleefully about bits that made my night. I’d like to see it again on the big screen, which I don’t often say, and my husband and I will add it to our collection when it becomes available. (I mention my husband here I think it’s significant that he, a long time superhero fan who introduced me to the joys of Marvel and DC, also thought the movie was terrific.)

I’m almost afraid, though, to say I didn’t find Wonder Woman the life-changing experience some fans found it.  It’s a terrific superhero movie and I love that neither Diana nor Steve becomes a lust object for the camera. The filming is done in such a way that the fact that both Gal Gadot and Chris Pine are exceptionally good-looking people isn’t a focus of who their characters are. Competent? Check. Smart? Check. Able to kick serious ass? Check. Reasonably calm while coming to terms with being in an entirely new version of reality? Check. That they’re easy on the eyes is almost a bonus feature. (Compare to the focus on Black Widow’s ass in black leather in the Avengers movies...or for that matter, any time Thor is shirtless in the same movies. The camera lingers to make sure you have time to ogle.) But I think it seemed less astonishing to me to see a heroine not depicted through the “male gaze”, a heroine who’s doing her own thing but is glad that someone competent (who also happens to be hot) has her back, than it was for a lot of people.

You see, I write science fiction romance and paranormal romance. I read romance and urban fantasy, obsessively.

I’m used to heroines with agency.

While the romance genre used to be famous for heroines in need of rescue, it’s no longer true. While the genre still has its share of capture romances and women who need rescuing by tough guys (who in turn need emotional rescue), there are plenty of women doing the rescuing. Better yet, couples bond while battling aliens, or dealing with demons—or dancing through challenging reality together. Sometimes she’ll get in over her head and need some help, sometimes he will. But they’re both strong and competent and they find each other’s abilities just as sexy as their bodies. Granted, our heroes are always hot, and they always find the heroines compellingly beautiful. It’s part of the fun. But at its best, romance shows women in a central role and celebrates true partnership between women and men (and men and men, and women and women, but in this point I’m talking more about relationships between women and men.)  In my opinion, the subgenres that deal with the out-of-this-world and the otherworldly do it particularly well. 

But whether you’re enjoying an interracial pair of Civil War spies (Alyssa Cole’s An Extraordinary Union); a pair of cyber operatives infiltrating the headquarters of alien terrorists (Cara Bristol’s Trapped with the Cyborg);  or two powerful supernatural beings from opposing factions who can’t decide if they want to shack up or murder each other (basically anything in Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark series), you can find plenty of women with agency and men who love them that way, even though they occasionally want to wrap them in something soft and protect them. And even in old-school “bodice rippers”, you’ll find heroines such as sea captain Skye O’Malley in the book of that name by Bertrice Small. Definitely some rapey moments that’ll make most modern readers uncomfortable, but she’s an Elizabethan pirate...or is that privateer...who matches wits with Queen Elizabeth and wins. What’s not to like?

I’m not saying romances with tough, fierce heroines undermine the importance—or the fun—of Wonder Woman. Just saying that comics and movies, often created with a male audience in mind, are finally catching up with the heroines, and the dynamics a genre written mostly by and for women has featured for a long time. 

Author Bio: Teresa Noelle Roberts is the author of a science fiction romance series The Chronicles of the Malcolm, which is full of tough, smart heroines working with and sometimes rescuing their heroes, and several kinky romances featuring submissive heroines who are anything but outside the bedroom.

Teresa is a geeky granola girl who enjoys belly dance, superheroes, yoga, cooking, hiking, playing in the ocean, and growing more vegetables than she and her husband can possibly eat. She’d enjoy sleeping too. She thinks. But it takes so much time!

She shares her home in southern Massachusetts with her husband, a Leo in law enforcement, and three cats. She and her husband often plan vacations around food, history, and/or proximity to water.

Subscribe to Teresa’s newsletter at http://www.teresanoelleroberts.com/?page_id=1485. Learn more about Teresa at http://www.teresanoelleroberts.com. If you’d rather be conversational, follow her on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/TeresNoeRoberts or become a Facebook fan at http://www.facebook.com/AuthorTeresaNoelleRoberts.

Teresa Noelle Roberts shares Buck Naked.

I'm so excited. Teresa Noelle Roberts is sharing her BUCK, NAKED book with us. I'll try to be mature and behave, but no promises...

So licks get to it...opps. I meant 'let's get to it.'

BUCK, NAKED

Chronicles of the Malcolm 3

Blurb:

To save him, she must strip him bare.

Security expert Buck’s senses are inhumanly keen, to the point he can see through time and space, and that’s just the start of his odd abilities—thank you, alien captors. He also experiences paranoia, flashbacks, and the occasional hallucination—thank you, PTSD. No wonder he fears he could hurt one of the Malcolm crewmates he lives to protect, the closest thing to family he has left after the destruction of his home planet.

Brilliant scientist Aleema can teach him how to use his modifications without triggering PTSD. She’s survived the same meddling aliens and suffered even more dramatic alterations. At least her unwanted immortality means she’s had time to figure out how the modifications work and use the knowledge to aid other survivors. Helping Buck means spending some serious time together.

Time enough to fall in love.

Just as happiness seems within their grasp, Aleema realizes one of Buck’s modifications dooms him to an unthinkable future. To save him, she must place herself in the hands of their common enemy and leave Buck to face his worst fears without her.

Buy links:

Amazon / B&N Nook / iTunes / Kobo / 

All Romance Ebooks

If you've read the previous Chronicles of the Malcolm books, Thrill-Kinky and Bad Kitty, you already know Buck's a little damaged. In this book, we learn he was the victim of alien medical experiments as a POW, and they've had lasting effects--ones that will either make him more than human or destroy him. Scientist Aleema may be the only person who can help him, but she's been warped by the same aliens. This except shows an early interaction in which they’re still feeling each other out. Buck’s jumpy about Aleema’s obvious alien differences, but still fascinated by her as a person—and specifically as a woman.

He reached for his laserpistol. Most of the time, folks didn’t catch him drawing until it was too late.

But Aleema just shook her head and grabbed his wrist. “No, Buck,” she said calmly, not raising her voice. “I’m not your enemy.”

He grabbed the knife in his other hand, raised it to a defensive position.

Then he let it clatter to the cutting board, feeling as if his hand had lost all his strength, though she hadn’t touched it.

He looked down at his trapped wrist. The hand that was wrapped around it was the webbed one, gleaming with faint iridescence in the kitchen’s light. The skin felt human, though, and right against his. Marling stars, it felt calming, as if it was slowing his pulse down by pressing against it.

Not trapped. Protected. Kept from doing what he could see now would be wrong.

“You caught my hand before I could draw,” he muttered. “Never had someone do that, ’cept for one of Xia’s men and he’s a felinoid and a martial arts champion, so he’s faster than a fold-drive when he wants to be. And we were just sparring so I wasn’t quick as I get when…when I’m listening to the horrors.”

She took a deep breath and to his shock, smiled warmly. “My hand caught your hand. The thinking parts of my brain had nothing to do with it. I’ve made myself forget most of what the Seera did to me, or ignore it, but when I’m threatened, or someone else is, it comes back.”

“You didn’t hurt me. You could have.” The knife had started out on the counter. If she could move that fast, she could have grabbed it. For all he knew, she could have done some serious damage unarmed.

“I could have. I chose not to, because I knew deep down you didn’t want to harm me. I’d just moved in too quickly and startled you. Am I right?”

He nodded. “The horrors started up, and they were right convincing. I might have hurt you if you weren’t Seera-fast like me. If I’d hurt you, I’d have come to my senses and wouldn’t want to live with myself. Then I’d remember I’d have to live with myself because every marling time I’ve tried to end it, the Seera bits take over and stop me. So thank you.”

Her grip shifted. Suddenly, instead of grasping his wrist, controlling it, Aleema was holding his hand.

He wanted to pull away.

Stars, he wanted to pick up the kitchen knife and hack his hand off to get it out of the weird, webbed grip.

But when her human hand closed over his other one, dark and warm and steady, he wanted to stay there forever. Wanted to keep looking at the lines of her face and the light in black eyes that he’d thought of as lightless. He’d been wrong about that, though. He suspected that what he was seeing in them was the capital-L Light that Gan talked about.

The horrors and those other instincts, the ones that sometimes made sense, had both fallen silent. All Buck had left to fall back on was a man’s judgment.

He judged that maybe if she could forgive him for trying to attack him, he could forgive her for wearing her Seera scars, the marks of why she wasn’t ever going to be quite easy in herself or comfortable for other folks to be around, on the outside of her skin instead of inside like he mostly did.

Fact was, now that he’d put the right words on it, something he never found easy to do and especially not when the horrors and the Seera bits ganged up on his brain, that was a damn fool thing to have to forgive. Wasn’t like she’d gone out of her way to have her body fucked up to serve her criminal intent better, like Nitari Belesku had. She was a victim like he was, only he’d venture she’d found better ways to deal with it.

The other fact was, her hands felt good clasped to his. Even though he could feel the webs on the left one, could tell it wasn’t a standard-issue human hand, it was still warm. Still felt both strong, like he’d expect from a big, competent, handsome woman like Aleema, and soft, like she used something feminine and sweet-smelling to keep the skin smooth as possible despite the hint of scaling. And the hand that was purely human felt better than that first warming hit of whiskey coursing through his veins. Just from her touch, he felt a shine worthy of a few good glasses of booze, drunk down fast.

Author Bio: Teresa Noelle Roberts started writing stories in kindergarten and she hasn’t stopped yet. A prolific author of short erotica, she’s also a published poet and fantasy writer—but sexy science fiction romances, BDSM-spiced contemporaries, and hot paranormals, and have become her favorites.

Teresa is a crunchy granola girl who enjoys belly dance, yoga, cooking, hiking, playing in the ocean, and growing more vegetables than she and her husband can possibly eat. She’d enjoy sleeping too. She thinks. But it takes so much time!

She shares her home in southern Massachusetts with her husband, a Leo in law enforcement, and three cats. She and her husband often plan vacations around food, history, and/or proximity to water.

Subscribe to Teresa’s newsletter at http://www.teresanoelleroberts.com/?page_id=1485. Learn more about Teresa at http://www.teresanoelleroberts.com. If you’d rather be conversational, follow her on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/TeresNoeRoberts or become a Facebook fan at http://www.facebook.com/AuthorTeresaNoelleRoberts.

Teresa Noelle Roberts shares her Bad Kitty

Meet BAD KITTY and her two bad boys

Bad Kitty

by 

Teresa Noelle Roberts

When you make the Devil’s bargain, be prepared to take the heat. A lot of heat.

  

Most of cat-girl Xia’s early memories are repressed, thank the Great Cat Mother. But her body remembers how to kill.

The longer she and her fellow Malcolm crewmates are holed up on lawless Cibari hiding from assassins, the twitchier she gets—until the planet’s insanely sexy warlord, Rahal Mizyar, borrows her skills to take out slavers.

Rahal suspects Xia is his mate, but the human-raised female never learned the finer points of felinoid rituals. The solution: make her fall hard and fast for him, even if it means playing dirty.

Hired to determine if Xia is the long-missing granddaughter of the felinoid prime minister, Cal Janssen has finally tracked her down. Getting past Rahal, though, is a problem—until he’s mistaken for a notorious arms dealer and playboy. And he finds himself the object of both Rahal’s and Xia’s seduction.

When their first mission brings Xia’s memories bulleting back to the surface, she realizes she’s fallen for two men who don’t exist. Running away, however, could be her deadliest mistake.

Warning: Contains an assassin with a swiss cheese memory, a badass warlord who’s getting tired of his own con, and a freelance lawman. Secrets, lies, and hot sex with no rules. 

Series 

In the 26^th century, humans and numerous alien races share the galaxy. Technology has advanced massively. Old Earth is a vast preserve and museum, and humans have spread to the stars. But some things remain the same. Love, lust, and money motivate both humans and other sentient species. Politics can get ugly. And crime can pay very well indeed.

Meet the crew of the independent freighter Malcolm. They usually succeed in keeping things only a little bit illegal. But then a seemingly legit job goes supernova—and they’re on the run, hiding from assassins, a planetary government, and their own dark pasts.

It’s the perfect time to fall in love!

In the 26^th century, humans and numerous alien races share the galaxy. Technology has advanced massively. Old Earth is a vast preserve and museum, and humans have spread to the stars. But some things remain the same. Love, lust, and money motivate both humans and other sentient species. Politics can get ugly. And crime can pay very well indeed.

Meet the crew of the independent freighter Malcolm. They usually succeed in keeping things only a little bit illegal. But then a seemingly legit job goes supernova—and they’re on the run, hiding from assassins, a planetary government, and their own dark pasts.

It’s the perfect time to fall in love!

“You’ll find out who she is if you accept the job. Right now, that’s classified.” The attaché said that word with great glee, as if he got a subtle erotic thrill out of the secret. Being a felinoid, he probably did. “The point is more what she is. She is one of my people. That means she’s a predator by nature.”

“Predator?” Cats, the domestic animals that had traveled from Earth with the first human settlers, were predators, but small, tame ones content to eat synthfood from a bowl. And he’d always thought felinoids weren’t that closely related to those animals, despite the resemblance.

The attaché smiled again, but this time it wasn’t truly a smile, more of a way of showing his fangs. He flexed his fingers, and suddenly his hands sported lethal-looking claws. Cal found himself wondering why he’d ever thought of felinoids as cute and harmless.

“Predator. We aren’t among the largest of the sentient species, but we have exceptional natural weaponry. And while we’re known for our friendliness, it’s not wise to push us. If this woman is the missing Xia Merrin, odds are she wasn’t raised to recognize proper prey and curb her more violent instincts. She is now an adult, at her full strength and speed, and with both a prey drive and a mating drive that can cause an unprepared young person to make regrettable choices.”

“I didn’t think your species believed in regrets.”

“Most of the time we learn from bad decisions and make sure we don’t get caught next time. But you can’t learn if you’re dead, or if you’re awaiting execution on Improved Texas. The woman who surfaced on San’bal blinded a professional assassin in one eye and came close to gutting her.”

“You’re saying she’s a dangerous criminal? My rates just went up. A lot.”

“The family will pay what it must. Accumulating money is dull unless you use it, and what better use could there be than bringing a missing loved one home?” He shrugged, a lazily elegant movement that Cal couldn’t help admiring. “As for the young woman who made news on San’bal, whether or not she is Xia Merrin, she isn’t a criminal.” A smaller version of the shrug. “Well, technically, she is, but only because so many species don’t have our senses of style or humor. In the case of the assassin, the girl was defending herself and her friends, which is not a crime.

“But she’s dangerous. She has the instincts and reflexes of a predator, without the skills we teach our kittens so they can control those instincts. She’s a spacer, living a rough-and-ready life in a galaxy where people are quick to exploit pretty females. Sooner or later, someone will push her too far and she will kill. She’s like a child in some ways, but the law will see an adult who killed, and most planets can’t see anything funny about murder. Which, I suppose, is good.” He didn’t sound convinced about that part. “Will you help us bring her home before that happens?”

Cal had intended to say no as soon as he heard the ridiculous parameters of the job. Screw that, he’d wanted to walk out of the damn posh office, with its cushions on the floor instead of furniture a human could sit in comfortably, and leave the annoying diplomat staring at his retreating ass. The money was potentially great, enough to cast its usual hypnotic lure, but it wasn’t worth the pain of failure, of having to tell a family that their newly raised hopes were futile and their little girl was long dead.

But if there was any chance this young woman was the missing Xia Merrin, or even another felinoid displaced as a child, it seemed he owed it to her and everyone who came into contact with her to see that she learned how to deal with the darker side of her nature. Stars, he’d never known felinoids had a dark side. Even when they were robbing you blind or seducing your partner, they were so charming you ended up laughing about it.

But he’d never been around an enraged felinoid. They did have teeth and claws like…what was the Old Earth animal that’s featured in pre-Expansion stories? A liger or tigon or something like that. A gigantic wild feline that sometimes ate humans.

“I’ll take the job,” he said. “Please tell the family I can’t guarantee the results they want, after such a long time. But I guarantee I’ll do my best for them and hope to find them some kind of answers, if only the closure of knowing their Xia is dead.”

When the paperwork was complete, the attaché asked for his neurorelay code and transmitted the background on the case. Cal spent a few minutes in a fog while the files sorted themselves in his brain—and then he knew all the information that had been amassed since Xia Merrin disappeared almost two decades ago.

He only had one thing to say. “She’s the marling prime minister’s granddaughter? And she disappeared after both her parents were murdered during an assassination attempt on Madam Merrin? My rates just tripled. The only reason I’m not ripping up the contract and walking out is that if she’s still alive, she deserves to know she has a home and a family.”

 Samhain / Amazon US / Amazon UK /Kobo / Barnes and Noble / All Romance Ebooks / iBooks (iTunes)

Teresa Noelle Roberts started writing stories in kindergarten and she hasn’t stopped yet. A prolific author of short erotica, she’s also a published poet and fantasy writer—but hot paranormals and BDSM-spiced contemporaries were her favorites until she realized science-fiction romances offered new possibilities for outrageous adventure, wild sex and love that overcomes serious obstacles, including being from different species! Find her at www.teresanoelleroberts.com, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorTeresaNoelleRoberts, or on Twitter, where she hangs out as @TeresNoeRoberts.

Teresa Noelle Roberts shares Thrill-Kinky, Chronicles of the Malcolm, Book 1

Being a writer means that the pressing questions of my work day are often peculiar. Today, for instance, finds me wondering what high-tech or biotech support systems may be available for a 26^th century person who’s trying to shake a drinking problem. For plot reasons, my hero is going to embrace the old-school method of drying out with a little help from his friends. But for plot reasons, there has to be an easier, less painful—and far more expensive—solution that’s just out of his reach. I suppose they could have developed non-addictive booze in another 500 years, but that solution’s off the table because I just thought of it and I established his drinking problem in a previous book.

Then there’s the little issue of why one of the hero’s enemies also has it in for the sorta-cyborg woman of his dreams, but that huge question has a simple solution. It all has to do with fallout from biotech-related crimes backed by a particular planetary government. Sure, I need to work out all the details—but how they’ll deal with addiction in five centuries is more puzzling at the moment.

Far more interesting questions than the ones I used to face in my work day, such as, “Why does this vendor call 8 million times a day when I keep telling her I’m not even the right contact?” It’s so much more interesting being a writer! Plus, I can do it with a cat in my lap.

As you can probably guess, I’m working on a science fiction romance. Book 3 of a series, in fact. The series is the Chronicles of the Malcolm, the adventures of a space-freighter crew who get caught up in interplanetary espionage and find themselves dodging assassins, changing whole worlds, and finding true love in the process. Book 1, Thrill-Kinky, came out in May. Book 2, Bad Kitty, releases in September. And Book 3…well, so far it’s about one chapter on my computer, but I’m already having fun with all the what-ifs.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to figure out how biotech and nanotech might intersect hellishly in the person of an innocent woman who’s about to become the target of some very nasty aliens.

Do you have a clever idea about how addictions might be treated in the future? Make a suggestion in the comments and you might win a copy of Thrill-Kinky. A winner will be chosen randomly after 6/15/15.

Thrill-Kinky

Chronicles of the Malcolm, Book 1

Sexual freefall is like a game of chicken, except the first one to let go wins.

Humans may have expanded to the stars, but they still have the annoying need to work for a living. Which is why Rita, crew member of the space freighter Malcolm, is stuck collecting recyclable slag rather than attending her favorite festival celebrating love and sexuality.

Things go from boring to interesting when she discovers a badly injured man who’s been thrown into a recycling bin to die. The catch, he’s gorgeous, winged, and naked.

Drax Jalricki, reformed (mostly) art thief and reluctant covert operative, is on an undercover mission to protect three planets when someone in his own government brands him a traitor. By virtue of association, Rita and her crew are going down with him.

From their first, hide-in-plain-sight quickie, the erotic spark between Rita and Drax is fueled by danger and adrenaline. But their growing suspicion that there’s more to their connection than lust may not matter if they don’t live through the night.

Warning: Hero and heroine who straddle the line of criminal behavior—and definitely violate public indecency statutes. Exhibitionist, dangerous sex. Dark, sordid pasts. Wild risk-taking. Giggly cat-girl sidekick who’s not just another pretty…tail. And the greatest risk of all: true love.

As Rita positioned the antigrav at the next recycling bin, she thought she heard banging and rattling coming from inside.

A trapped animal? While moving bins, she’d already startled a gulba, a number of ratlike leetas, a couple of stray cats and some animals she couldn’t identify, but must be pets, since they had collars. If an animal were stuck inside, she’d try to find some way to get it out.

Rita used the antigrav to raise the bin’s heavy lid, then carefully moved the floater over so she could peer inside. Sympathy for animals or not, she’d rather keep a safe distance from a startled, potentially irate thing with teeth and claws.

At first, what she was seeing didn’t make sense: rust, amber and saffron-colored feathers, tipped with black, and a swath of something green and purple that might have been festival draperies.

A gigantic bird?

But there weren’t any birds on San’bal, according to what she’d been able to learn on the Galaxinet, and she hadn’t seen anyone on her previous visit. If there had been birds, Xia would have chased and probably caught them, even if they’d been as big as this appeared to be.

A discarded costume with an animal underneath it? Part of last night’s festivities had involved the locals all running around in fabulous costumes, drinking copious quantities of the green bubbly booze.

Some costumed person who’d enjoyed way too much of green bubbly and had climbed into a recycling bin to sleep it off? It didn’t seem like a desirable location for that, but maybe his equally drunk friends tossed him in as a joke.

While she was still trying to sort it out, the lump of feathers moved.

Rolled over.

Opened his eyes.

Stars and moons! Not a bird, not a costumed drunk—a Banjali.

Maybe she should have thought of that sooner, but you hardly ever saw Banjalis off Banjal. Their glorious wings were only fully functional on low-gravity planets, and anything approaching Old Earth norm, like San’bal, was uncomfortable.

“Hey, are you all right?” Rita asked, hoping he could understand her. “Need a hand getting out?” The gravity was probably too high for him to fly easily, especially if he was hung over.

The Banjali stirred, giving her a better view.

Definitely male. Definitely gorgeous. And definitely naked. Xia’s tail would have started twitching at first sight.

The pleasure of that view, however, was spoiled by the strips of purple and green synthsilk—they could have been torn from the buntings that draped anything in the city that didn’t move fast enough—gagging him and binding his ankles and wrists.

And by his injuries.

The poor man looked like he’d had a run-in with an Arcturian bearcat. His golden skin was a mass of bruises, scrapes and shallow cuts, one eye swollen shut. But Arcturian bearcats didn’t use laserpistols, and she was pretty damn sure the wound in his shoulder was a pistol shot. No one injury seemed life-threatening—and Rita, thanks to Buck’s twitchy temper and Gan and Mik’s noble but dangerous hobby, not to mention their propensity for taking jobs first and asking questions later, had seen a few life-threatening injuries in her time—but he had to be in a world of pain. All the banging she’d heard must have been him flapping and thrashing while trying to roll over. That must have been some kind of fun with a laserpistol wound in his shoulder.

“Hang on, buddy,” she said. “I’ll get you out of there.”

With luck, she wouldn’t hurt him more in the process. The antigrav wasn’t meant for moving living things, and while she didn’t see any obviously dangerous wounds, he might have internal damage.

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Teresa Noelle Roberts started writing stories in kindergarten and she hasn’t stopped yet. A prolific author of short erotica, she’s also a published poet and fantasy writer—but hot paranormals and BDSM-spiced contemporaries were her favorites until she realized science-fiction romances offered new possibilities for outrageous adventure, wild sex and love that overcomes serious obstacles, including being from different species! Find her at www.teresanoelleroberts.com, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorTeresaNoelleRoberts, or on Twitter, where she hangs out as @TeresNoeRoberts.

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