Welcome.

I'm glad you stopped by. I hope you'll stop by again.

Saturday, August 31, 2019

#WeWriWa ~ THE PILOT: Are The Pirates in Trouble?


Each weekend, the Weekend Writing Warriors share an 8 - 10 sentence snippet. Be sure to visit the other authors. You can find them here.

Thanks to everyone who visited last week. I apologize for not getting to everyone last week. I'll do better this week.

I'm sharing snippets from The Pilot: An Outer Rim Novel. It's the 1st book in a series featuring strong women on the frontier of space. Celara's ship was hailed by one claiming to be Coalition Security. In this snippet, we're with Celara and her copilot, Arjay, as she maneuvers through an asteroid field to escape. 

Please excuse the creative punctuation, necessary to keep this within the guidelines. It's also edited a little from the original.

“I’ll say one thing, Arjay, the pirates are persistent. Could they be Hallart’s men?”
“I regularly scan the media as well as the pilots’ network for happenings along our trade routes, and I have not encountered evidence of Hallart’s organization in this sector.”
That didn’t mean the gangster wasn’t sticking his tentacles into Malcor Sector. In the aft scanner, Celara saw the cruiser try to avoid a collision with another rock. The Volpian ship spun out of control before she lost sight of it.
“Look, a cave,” Arjay called out, “I am ninety-eight point seven percent certain the cruiser is too big to enter.”
“I think they’re in trouble—start scanning,” She couldn’t search the scanners for the missing cruiser and avoid a collision herself.
“I do not understand—I thought you wanted to escape, not find, the pirates.”
“I would never leave a stranded ship.”



There's no place like home and he stole hers. 

Life on the frontier of space is hard enough so when pirates stole Celara d'Enfaden's cargo, she vowed not to be tricked again. 

Determined to make an example out of indie pilots who disobey orders, Coalition Administrator Trevarr Jovano impounds Celara’s starship and cargo. If he backs down, he’ll lose respect. If she can’t deliver her cargo, she’ll default on her loan and lose her only home—her ship. 

More important than her ship, though, is her brother. To rescue him from a galactic gangster, she’ll even work with Jovano who is bent on avenging his wife’s murder.

 Amazon ~ AmazonUK ~ B&N ~ Kobo ~ iBooks ~ Smashword




Saturday, August 24, 2019

#WeWriWa ~ THE PILOT: Are The Pirates Still Following? #sfr


Each weekend, the Weekend Writing Warriors share an 8 - 10 sentence snippet. Be sure to visit the other authors. You can find them here.

Thanks to everyone who visited last week. I'm sharing snippets from The Pilot: An Outer Rim Novel. It's the 1st book in a series featuring strong women on the frontier of space. Celara's ship was hailed by one claiming to be Coalition Security. In this snippet, we're back with Celara and her copilot, Arjay, as she maneuvers through an asteroid field to escape. 

Please excuse the creative punctuation, necessary to keep this within the guidelines. It's also edited a little from the original.

“Holy horse pucky that pilot has nerve.” Celara gave the pirate credit for audacity, if not sense, for following her into the asteroid field. Hauling cargo between Outer Rim colonies across three sectors brought her through this area often. Only the most foolhardy—or desperate—used the field as a shortcut. She’d been desperate before.
She skimmed beneath an asteroid that could have covered the entire metropolis of Eleganza, capital of Bricaldia. “Are the pirates still following?”
Arjay gave her a haughty look, his attempt along with his speech at imitating Bricaldian aristocracy. “You have asked that question every thirty-six secs. The answer has not changed.”




There's no place like home and he stole hers. 

Life on the frontier of space is hard enough so when pirates stole Celara d'Enfaden's cargo, she vowed not to be tricked again. 

Determined to make an example out of indie pilots who disobey orders, Coalition Administrator Trevarr Jovano impounds Celara’s starship and cargo. If he backs down, he’ll lose respect. If she can’t deliver her cargo, she’ll default on her loan and lose her only home—her ship. 

More important than her ship, though, is her brother. To rescue him from a galactic gangster, she’ll even work with Jovano who is bent on avenging his wife’s murder.

 Amazon ~ AmazonUK ~ B&N ~ Kobo ~ iBooks ~ Smashword



Saturday, August 17, 2019

#WeWriWa ~ THE PILOT: Just Like Old Times #sfr


Each weekend, the Weekend Writing Warriors share an 8 - 10 sentence snippet. Be sure to visit the other authors. You can find them here.

Thanks to everyone who visited last week. I'm sharing snippets from The Pilot: An Outer Rim Novel. It's the 1st book in a series featuring strong women on the frontier of space. Celara's ship was hailed by one claiming to be Coalition Security. In this snippet, we're on the other ship with Trevarr and his buddy Laning. 

Please excuse the creative punctuation, necessary to keep this within the guidelines. It's also edited a little from the original.


“Just like old times, hey, Trev, you and me together again—I’ve missed ya, buddy.”
Trevarr would never admit how much he missed his friend. As a child, he had learned that expressing emotions was improper behavior for the heir to a political dynasty.
He dodged a rock the size of the presidential residence on Bricaldia, “Your new ship has the maneuverability of a house. I wish we had my Agilean.”
“If we were in your ship, you would never have entered this asteroid field. Do you want me to fire again on that—
“Yes, fire another round. But try not to destroy that ship under a hail of rock.”
Laning grinned, “That would certainly get his attention.”




        There's no place like home and he stole hers. 

Life on the frontier of space is hard enough so when pirates stole Celara d'Enfaden's cargo, she vowed not to be tricked again. 

Determined to make an example out of indie pilots who disobey orders, Coalition Administrator Trevarr Jovano impounds Celara’s starship and cargo. If he backs down, he’ll lose respect. If she can’t deliver her cargo, she’ll default on her loan and lose her only home—her ship. 

More important than her ship, though, is her brother. To rescue him from a galactic gangster, she’ll even work with Jovano who is bent on avenging his wife’s murder.

 Amazon ~ AmazonUK ~ B&N ~ Kobo ~ iBooks ~ Smashword

Saturday, August 10, 2019

#WeWriWa ~ THE PILOT: Stop That Ship! #sfr

Each weekend, the Weekend Writing Warriors share an 8 - 10 sentence snippet. Be sure to visit the other authors. You can find them here.

My apologies for last week. I signed up and then didn't post. It was a crazy weekend, but that's no excuse. I'm sorry if you followed my link and got no post. Thanks to whoever deleted my link from the list.

After a miserable few days fighting a cold, I'm sharing snippets from The Pilot: An Outer Rim Novel. It's the 1st book in a series featuring strong women on the frontier of space. Celara's ship was hailed by one claiming to be Coalition Security. In this snippet, we're on the other ship with Trevarr and his buddy Laning. 

Please excuse the creative punctuation, necessary to keep this within the guidelines. It's also edited a little from the original.

“Fire a shot across the transport’s bow,” Trevarr ordered, “Show the pilot we mean business.”
“Why? He’s done nothing wrong.”
“He is running, a sure sign of guilt—he’s a smuggler. Why else would he flee?”
“Gee, I don’t know, how about fear?”
“Fear of discovery of his illegal cargo is more like it. I want that ship stopped.”
“You might have a point,” Laning fired the lazin cannon and splintered a small asteroid in front of the transport.
The little ship easily dodged the fragments. Trevarr’s frustration with the pilot’s silence and failure to stop warred with admiration for the pilot’s flying ability.



        There's no place like home and he stole hers. 

Life on the frontier of space is hard enough so when pirates stole Celara d'Enfaden's cargo, she vowed not to be tricked again. 

Determined to make an example out of indie pilots who disobey orders, Coalition Administrator Trevarr Jovano impounds Celara’s starship and cargo. If he backs down, he’ll lose respect. If she can’t deliver her cargo, she’ll default on her loan and lose her only home—her ship. 

More important than her ship, though, is her brother. To rescue him from a galactic gangster, she’ll even work with Jovano who is bent on avenging his wife’s murder.

 Amazon ~ AmazonUK ~ B&N ~ Kobo ~ iBooks ~ Smashword







Wednesday, August 7, 2019

#IWSG August ~ Surprises! #amwriting


Happy Insecure Writers Support Group Day. IWSG is the brainchild of Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh.

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds! Thanks, Alex, for starting this group and keeping it going. 

Thanks to this month's awesome hosts:  Renee Scattergood, Sadira Stone, Jacqui Murray, Tamara Narayan, and LG Keltner!



This month's question: Has your writing ever taken you by surprise?

Although I’ve been surprised by things that pop in my head while writing, nothing hit me as hard as when I was writing the last book in my science fiction romance Switched series, Switched Resolution. The premise of the series is twins separated before birth by an unethical, alien scientist. One is raised on Earth, the other on an alien planet. As adults, they find each other and switch places.

In this book, I knew Marcus, would meet his biological mother for the first time. She knows immediately he’s not his twin (whom she raised). When I wrote she touched his face, I started crying. I was so overwhelmed by what she must be feeling. As a mother, I must have put myself in her place, reunited with a long-long child. She’d known instinctively that part of her was missing when she was pregnant. The doctors and her husband had dismissed her anxiety as hormonal emotions. At last, she has the answers. 

A few years later, I reread that passage, and it still got to me. I choked up again. I never expected to feel that strongly about something I’d written. It hasn’t happened again. Yet.


Actions have consequences as Space Fleet Captain Marcus Viator and NASA reject Scott Cherella discover when they switch places. Switched Resolution, which wraps up the Switched series, takes the reader from Earth—where Marcus adjusts to a pregnant Jessie—to the starship Freedom hijacked by rebels, to the chase ship with Scott and Veronese aboard.








Check out our latest anthology contest.


Guidelines and rules: 
Word count: 3500-5000
Genre: Middle Grade Historical – Adventure/Fantasy
Theme: Voyagers
Submissions accepted: May 1 - September 4, 2019
How to enter: Send your polished, formatted (double-spaced, no footers or headers), previously unpublished story to admin @insecurewriterssupportgroup.com before the deadline passes. Please include your contact details, your social links, and if you are part of the Blogging, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter IWSG group. 

Click here to find others on the Insecure Writers Support Group Blog Hop. Or go to IWSG on Facebook to see who’s blogging today.


Friday, August 2, 2019

Guest: Jessica E. Subject ~ MINK OMEGA IN HIDING #PNR #LGBTQ @jsubject

I'm happy to welcome my friend, Jessica E. Subject, back to my blog and excited to share her newest release, Mink Omega in Hiding. [While this is a male-male romance, since my blog is PG, so is the excerpt.]

If you follow Weekend Writing Warriors (#WeWriWa), you should recognize the title. Jessica has been sharing snippets for several weeks now. BTW, I love WeWriWa. Besides sharing my own stories, I get to read snippets from other great authors.

When I invited Jessica, I asked her to tell us a little about Omegas. At first, I thought they were the opposite of Alphas but wasn't really sure. Turns out there's more to it. Here's Jessica to tell us.



Omega Shifters

Thank you so much, Diane, for inviting me back to your blog with my new release, Mink Omega in Hiding!

Shifters can be found in multiple televisions shows, movies, and books. They can be a human who takes the form of an animal, the most popular being a wolf. They could also be an alien or a mutant who can take the form of a human to blend in. I’ve seen and read about these types and many more.

In my Shifter Towers series, there are shifters and humans living side by side. Not just wolf shifter, but multiple types of animals, including predator and prey. They all live in harmony, most of the time, and the shifters spend the majority of their life in human form. In my world, there are rules regarding when and where they can shift into their animal form. And there are even drugs used to prevent them from shifting, used mainly by law enforcement.

Another aspect of this series is the alpha / beta / omega dynamics. This comes from the original shifter romances being mainly about wolves. It’s basic pack dynamics with the alpha male and female being the highest ranking wolves in the pack, the beta wolves next, and the omegas being the common wolves with no ranking. In fiction, I find this can vary somewhat.

The Shifter Towers stories are MPreg, meaning only omega males can get pregnant. There are females, but they are unable to get pregnant. (It’s an alternate world.) So, alpha males—while some may relate to dominance—in my stories, it means they are the ones who can get the omega pregnant. I don’t have any specifically beta characters in my story, but from the fiction I’ve read, they can neither get pregnant, nor get anyone else pregnant.

It may seem a bit confusing, but I found the dynamics were easy to pick up on by reading other MPreg stories before sitting down to write my own.

I decided to write an MPreg after reading fiction by some authors I know, and reading some fan fiction as well. I enjoyed the dynamics, but wanted to put my own spin on it, as I usually do when I find fiction that captivates me. I’ve written about alien shifters before, and even a couple paranormal creatures, so it wasn’t completely new. But, overall, it really is still all about the romance between the main characters. And with any MPreg story, a baby by the end of the book. My alphas are not the dominant, I-can-have-whatever-I-want type. And my omegas are very independent, or trying to be. But when they find their true mate, they can easily slip into their alpha and omega roles. I’m already writing the third book in this series, and fleshing out the idea for a fourth one into an actual plot. With this series, the possibilities are endless.


MINK OMEGA IN HIDING


Shifter Towers book two

by Jessica E. Subject

Release date: July 29, 2019

Genres: Romance, Paranormal (shifter), LGBTQ, MPreg

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-68361-348-0

Published with Decadent Publishing Company, LLC
Cover artist: Fantasia Frog Designs

# of words: 35,000

BLURB:

Roan is looking for a way out...
As a mink shifter omega, I never thought I’d escape the soul-crushing, gang-ruled world I lived in. But, one night on my way home from working at the strip club, the opportunity arose. I needed to find a place to hide, somewhere I could go where no one from this life would ever find me. Someplace I could start over. With my parents deceased, I only had one person from my past I could ask for help. But would he want to see me again?

Hansol has everything in his life, except his mate…
After two years of running a successful fitness center with celebrities as my personal clients and friends, one would think I had everything I’ve ever wanted. But I don’t. The one thing I still desire is to have my mate by my side. Something my sun bear keeps reminding me of every day. Sure, I’ve had plenty of omegas and other alphas in my bed, but no one I want to wake up with each morning. That person left my life years ago with no explanation and no goodbye.

Will they find their way back to each other?
Then Roan shows up on my doorstep, soaking wet, and with no belongings. Of course, I take him in. But I don’t know how long I have until he leaves again. Can I trust him this time? Can I finally claim him as my mate? Or am I holding onto false hope? Because I know there is something he is keeping from me.

Mink Omega in Hiding is a super sweet with knotty heat shifter M/M mpreg romance featuring a mink shifter escaping horrific abuse, a reconnection with an alpha friend from the past who stands between him and danger, and the discovery of what really could happen between them. It is the second book in the popular Shifter Towers series and can be read as a standalone.

EBOOK BUY LINKS:

Universal Book Link: https://books2read.com/mink-omega

GOODREADS:


PG EXCERPT:

Tonight, I took the route a little farther than normal to avoid the pouring rain. I wasn’t in the mood to enjoy the wet, blurred scenery. It would only dampen my mood even more. TK had gotten me thinking about my lack of a mate, about the person I’d thought would be in my life forever who’d disappeared without a trace. I hadn’t grown attached to anyone after him, too afraid they’d eventually leave me as well. A lonely life, but I kept myself busy so I hadn’t thought about it too much. Not until tonight.

When I reached my exit, I pressed the button on my remote then waited for the gate to open before driving the final two blocks to my bungalow. It wasn’t a large house. A two bedroom, the second of which I used for an office and workout room. And in a fairly quiet neighborhood where neighbors still waved in passing and kept an eye on each other’s homes. They all knew the night I had the rogue photographer, and one had even phoned the police.

Yet no one seemed to have noticed the bundle of clothes curled up on my porch. I parked in my driveway and wondered if I should even step out of my car. What did the person want? Were they there specifically for me or just looking for a dry place? I was a strong guy and could take most people down on my own, but I had no defense against a gun. Should I risk it?

I cautiously got out of the car and walked to the porch steps. “Um, can I help you?”

The person glanced up at me, and I gasped, locking onto the most beautiful pair of eyes I’d ever seen. Eyes belonging to a person I would never forget. “Roan?”

He didn’t stand as I drew closer, only continued to stare with big, sad eyes. And he still had his naturally pouty bottom lip. What had happened to him since I’d last seen him? And why did he suddenly show up on my porch? Was I dreaming? Had I fallen asleep at the wheel? I pinched the top of my hand then let go at the pain. Nope. Not a dream.

I waved, but he looked away, hiding his head in his arms. “Um, it’s good to see you again.” Not wanting to spook him, I unlocked the door then held it open. “Would you like to come in?”

Was that a smart thing to ask? I hadn’t seen him in years, didn’t know what he’d been involved in, why he’d disappeared without even a simple goodbye. My heart was beyond happy to see him, but my mind had so many doubts. And I couldn’t trust my bear at all. It recognized its mate and only wanted one thing.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jessica E. Subject is the author of science fiction romance, mostly alien romances, ranging from sweet to super hot. Sometimes she dabbles in paranormal and contemporary as well, bringing to life a wide variety of characters. In her stories, you could not only meet a sexy alien or two, but also clones and androids. You may be transported to a dystopian world where rebels are fighting to live and love, or to another planet for a romantic rendezvous.

When Jessica is not reading, writing, or doing dreaded housework, she likes to go to fitness class, listen to BTS, and walk her Great Pyrenees/Retriever her family adopted from the local animal shelter.

Jessica lives in Ontario, Canada with her husband and two energetic children. And she loves to hear from her readers. You can find her at jessicasubject.com.

AUTHOR LINKS: