Over at USA Today Happily Ever After, I’m doing a joint interview of two debut authors in the world of science fiction romance – Donna S. Frelick, Unchained Memory (The Interstellar Rescue Series Book 1), and Laurie A. Green, Inherit the Stars (Inherited Stars Series). These two are already well known in the SFR universe, as they blog together at The Spacefreighters Lounge, along with other authors.
We had a few questions left over when the USAT/HEA interview was done, so here’s a bit more from Laurie and Donna, after the short bios:
Donna S. Frelick was an RWA® Golden Heart® Double Finalist in 2012 in the Paranormal category for the first two novels in her SFR Interstellar Rescue series. She currently lives in Virginia with her husband and two talkative cats. Find her at http://donnasfrelick.com; blogging at http://spacefreighters.blogspot.com; and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/DonnaSFrelickAuthor.
Laurie A. Green is a three-time RWA® Golden Heart® finalist and science fiction romance enthusiast who founded the SFR Brigade community of writers. Her extended family includes her husband, David, four dogs, three cats and several horses, all who reside on a ranch in beautiful New Mexico. When she’s not writing, networking, or searching out the perfect cup of Starbucks, she’s usually busy exercising her left brain as a military budget director. Visit her website here: http://www.laurieagreen.com
Veronica: What’s next for you, writingwise?
Laurie: Later this year, the next novel in The Inherited Stars Series, The Outer Planets, is slated to release, as well as a print version of Inherit the Stars. I’m excited about my next because it’s a Near Future Romance set on a planetary research vessel in the 2040s and the romance is between two members of a Combined Joint Task Force crew—a civilian vid-reporter with a life-altering secret, and an Army Captain who serves as aide de camp to the vessel’s commanding officer. I describe it as a “Military Romance with cooler tech” but it also has a dark mystery/conspiracy that threatens the MCs and the mission. After that, I’ll be releasing four more novels in this series in the next 24 months, as well as several shorter works.
Donna: Book Two in the Interstellar Rescue series, Trouble in Mind, launches in Fall, 2015. In this science fiction suspense romance an FBI agent must forge a bond with a half-alien tracker to find a boy who is the key to an interstellar power play. Book Three of the series, Fools Rush In, will be a little bit of a departure. It’s Sam and Rayna’s story (two characters who figure in the other stories), set before the time of the previous books in space opera noir style. That’s due out in Spring, 2016.
Veronica: What’s on your To Be Read list?
Donna: Oh, Lord, the list is too long! I’m in the middle of reading Rachel Bach’s series starting with Fortune’s Pawn, because I HATE cliffhangers and I have to know what happens next and Devi is just a great character. I have a stack of books by my Firebird Golden Heart® sisters across all subgenres that I can’t wait to get to—just keeping up with that bunch is enough to keep a whole library in books. I have some erotica from Barbara Elsborg that I’m keeping for an (ahem) special occasion. And I just couldn’t resist picking up In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson (Devil in the White City) when I was in the bookstore yesterday. Can you tell I have eclectic tastes? 😉
Laurie: Where to start in my Leaning Tower of TBR? I’m really looking forward to reading all the other offerings in the Sing a Song of the Stars SFR book bundle, Kate Corcino’s Ignition Point, a prequel anthology to her phenomenal Spark Rising, and another re-read of Sharon Lynn Fisher’s fabulous Echo 8. Then I’m itching to get to some other great romances by Kimberly Kincaid, Barbara Elsborg, Tamra Baumann and Heather Ashby, to name just a few.
And the books by these two authors that we’re discussing over at USAT/HEA are:
Inherit the Stars (courtesy of Array Press), which is actually Laurie’s second published book by about a month: To escape the merciless Ithian Alliance, Sair, a fugitive slave, makes a desperate deal with Drea Mennelsohn, captain of the prototype ship, Specter. But putting his life in the hands of a woman as mysterious as she is beguiling could turn out to be the biggest mistake of his life, especially when the price on his head begins to escalate.
Drea seems to want far more from the fugitive than just payment for his passage on her ship. Though neither can deny the sizzling chemistry and growing bond between them, Sair must soon make an agonizing decision that could result in the loss of the remarkable woman he has fallen in love with—and their chance to inherit the stars.
The story for Donna’s Unchained Memory (courtesy of the author): Three hours ripped away her past. His love promised her the future. From the night she wakes up in her pickup on the side of the road, three hours gone and everything of value lost to her, Asia Burdette is caught in a clash of invisible forces. She has only one ally in her struggle to understand why–Ethan Roberts, a man she shouldn’t love, a psychiatrist who risks everything to help her.
With black ops kidnappers dogging their trail, the lovers race to navigate a maze of mind control, alien abduction and interstellar slavery. If they keep following the signs, they’ll find a battle that’s been raging since the first silver saucer was spotted in the skies above Earth