Romantic Novelists' Association Blog: RoNA Awards 2017: Paranormal or Speculative Romanc...

Romantic Novelists' Association Blog: RoNA Awards 2017: Paranormal or Speculative Romanc...: This year’s shortlisted novels include space adventures, timeslip, and a ghost story, and include two independently published novels. ...

I am thrilled to be one of the finalists on this shortlist, with the latest in the Destiny Trilogy - Beloved Enemy.

I have been a member of the SFR Brigade for a long while now but have only just plucked up courage to post - hope this is OK but I am so excited I wanted to share!


BLURB
Cat Kincaid is obsessed with killing the man she believes is responsible for the torture and death of her sister, but when she eventually catches up with him, survival becomes a greater priority than revenge.

Kerry Marchant, haunted by memories, regret, and self-blame, shields himself from the pain of the past by committing himself totally to the starship, Destiny, of which he is part owner. However, the beautiful, red-haired woman who reminds him of his lost love, and who he suspects is working for a corrupt regime, represents a possible threat not only to the ship, but to his heart.

Marooned on an inhospitable planet, they need to work together to stay alive, fighting not only unknown assailants, but their growing attraction. But how can they learn to trust each other when he has vowed never to get close to a woman again, and she made a solemn pledge to destroy him?

SFRB Recommends 69: Blood Surfer by Debra Jess #superhero #sfrom

Welcome to Star Haven, where the police arrest and imprison alternative humans, if not execute them outright. When outlaw Hannah Quinn saves Officer Scott Grey’s life by bloodsurfing through his broken body, he winds up on the wrong side of the kill line.

Hannah blew any chance she had of escaping Star Haven when she chose to save Scott’s life. Scott has a reputation for killing Alts instead of arresting them. Now that she’s triggered his dormant Alt ability, he’s forced to go on the run with her until she can break his despised Alt power.

Suspicion dies hard after a lifetime of conditioning. Despite the threat to their lives, Hannah finds herself falling for the one man she can’t trust — and Scott falls for the woman who destroyed his life.

With love and mistrust at war in a city where betrayal can earn your freedom, will Hannah and Scott’s tenuous bond be enough to save them?

Jess sets up some young protagonists (college-age in many places) with interesting family issues. Hannah and Scott have some prized abilities, but that doesn't change that they are little fish in a bigger pond. They're forced to confront what they really want from their lives, each other, and the people who raised them. I like how Jess explores these questions. The ending is a Happy For Now, as I believe their story will continue.

This recommendation by Lee Koven.

My Travels On Earth: Feeling Like a Stranger in a Strange Land by Cara Bristol

By Cara Bristol

(My opinions are my own and not the SFR Brigade’s).

In 2007, my family went to China. Previously, I had little interest in visiting China, but the year before the Beijing Olympics we got such a great travel deal, I couldn’t afford not to go.

China changed my attitude toward travel. I’d been to Europe, the Caribbean, and Canada & Mexico, of course. Before China, I traveled for vacation, to go someplace familiar and comfortable so I could rest & recreate. Until 2007, the places I’d visited were westernized. But while Europe is pretty impressive, it’s not that different from the US.

However, China was like a different planet. Oriental culture is so foreign, so unlike anything we have or know in the West, it felt alien to me. I felt like a “stranger in a strange land.”  China made me want to travel for adventure, to see what the world had to offer.

That sense of foreignness and the quest for adventure is what I try to bring to my science fiction romance settings. I want to take readers to places they’ve never been,—but that are not so different that they feel at a loss to understand. So I try to make my alien locales relatable to something they do know.

Planet Xenia, created in an earlier Cy-Ops Sci-fi Romance, is the main setting in Claimed by the Cyborg. It’s a vibrant, colorful planet with fields of purple grasses, unusual flowers, and squat trees. The animals are unusual: fish have legs and land mammals have feathers and wings, the sky is pink, not blue, and it colors the planets streams and other waterways.

If the planet’s flora and fauna are strange, the people’s mating customs are even stranger, which the hero soon finds out.

Claimed by the Cyborg Description

March Fellows assumed he had all the time in the galaxy to pursue a relationship with Jules, an alien exchange student from Xenia, until she vanished without a trace. After years of searching, he finds his lost love on the eve of her arranged marriage.

The daughter of the Xenian emperor, Julietta never meant to fall in love with a Terran man while visiting Earth. Leaving to fulfill her responsibilities on her home planet opened up a hole in her heart that could never be filled. When March, now a cyborg, unexpectedly shows up just before she is to be bonded, she struggles to find the courage to turn him away a second time and follow through with her duty. Before she can act, the lovers are thrust into a political conspiracy that threatens the Xenian empire and their lives.

Claimed by the Cyborg is available in ebook and paperback

Amazon: http://hyperurl.co/Claimed-Amz

iBooks: http://hyperurl.co/Claimed-iBooks

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/claimed-by-the-cyborg

Barnes & Noble: http://hyperurl.co/Claimed-BN

Author Bio
 

USA Today bestselling author Cara Bristol has been the no. 1 best seller in science fiction romance, bdsm erotica, and holiday fiction on Amazon. She’s the author of two science fiction romance series featuring tough alpha heroes: the Cy-Ops Sci-fi Romance cyborg series and the Breeder science fiction romance series, which emphasize character-driven stories written with a touch of humor and sizzling chemistry between the hero and heroine. Cara lives in Missouri with her own alpha hero, her husband.

Website: http://www.carabristol.com

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/9aRJj

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cara.bristol.3

Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/Cara-Bristol-Romance-178661122147994/

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Cara-Bristol/e/B004D8KZTQ/

SFRB Recommends 68: The Snow Queen by Joan Vinge

The imperious Winter colonists have ruled the planet Tiamat for 150 years, deriving wealth from the slaughter of the sea mers. But soon the galactic stargate will close, isolating Tiamat, and the 150-year reign of the Summer primitives will begin. Their only chance at surviving the change is if Arienrhod, the ageless, corrupt Snow Queen, can destroy destiny with an act of genocide. Arienrhod is not without competition as Moon, a young Summer-tribe sibyl, and the nemesis of the Snow Queen, battles to break a conspiracy that spans space.

Loosely based on the Andersen fairy tale, The Snow Queen features a girl who must battle obstacles to rescue a boy she cares for from a woman who has hardened his heart. That's what they have in common- Andersen didn't figure nanomachines, galactic governments, spaceships, and cloning into the original story.

A fascinating cast save this book from being too much of a standard hero's journey. Smugglers, gamblers, prophets, technicians, and police officers have to clash and work together towards the ending. The plot is complex and rich, and touches on many philosophical questions without throwing them too hard into the reader's face.

Although the heroine and hero's relationship is paramount and enduring, others get involved to create a love quadrangle that gets complicated, since Moon and her Sparks spend many years apart with him believing he'll never see her again. Strictly speaking, the book's probably not a romance novel. However, it does end in a Happy For Now, to be continued in The Summer Queen.

Author site: Joan D. Vinge

Recommendation by Lee Koven.