Tag Archives: romance

BayCon 2017 Community

baycon2017-guide-300.jpgAt my final panel yesterday, we talked about love in dystopian society (including failed romances like the one in 1984) and the importance of relationships and community in wartime.

For myself, the discussion suddenly went meta:  being at BayCon, in this IDIC atmosphere, an enclave of loving and diverse relationships that contrasts so sharply with the current state of U.S. politics–right there, in the middle of the panel, I found I had made a decision. I need to work on Red Hand.

Red Hand tells the story of an older woman with the rare ability to heal individuals dying of a galactic-wide plague that’s been decimating populations for decades, causing wars, disrupting civilizations, and encouraging isolationism.  The woman and others who possess the healing ability are themselves oppressed by those who see them as a source of power and wealth, or as means to stabilize chaos, or as a threat that must be properly regulated and controlled.

At the beginning of the novel, we see the woman in crisis.  She has little of herself left to give, drained by decades spent healing others while on the run from the Red Hand, an apparently benign paternalistic organization sanctioned by the remnants of the galactic government to regulate healers.  She longs for a permanent home, to live in a community without fear of discovery.  But she can’t have that if she continues to heal.

People will die if she stops healing.

If she doesn’t stop, she will die without having lived a life of her own.

In this moment of personal crisis, forced to flee yet another impending capture on yet another planet, she takes passage on a small spaceship captained by a man with secrets of his own on a mission that poses a direct threat to her dreams.

He’s a good guy.  He has reasons.

But he’s out to capture a healer.

 

 

I babble

my-desk-may2017-400.jpgHaving blithered and burbled, I now babble in a new interview that you can read on either Vicki Reese’s blog or Vicky Burkholder’s blog.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview (my answer to a most pressing fill-in-the-blank):

“Now for the S.A.T. portion of the interview.  Fill in the blank.  If I were a villain, I would have ______ for minions to deliver my wrath because _____.

If I were a villain, I would have nail salon workers for minions to deliver my wrath because I am jealous of people who don’t bite their fingernails like I do. Those salon workers could use their painful grinding machines to mess up everyone else’s nails. Bwaa ha haha ha!”

 

The First Sentence (free!)

Are you in the mood for a sweet treat, a romantic novella that won’t cost you a penny?  How about five sweet treats in one package?   Check out The First Sentence!  Download for free now.

THE FIRST SENTENCE

A Collection of Romance Novellas

a collection of romance novellasPut five authors together in a bar and give them a challenge. The premise: That if five authors start with the same sentence, they will all write vastly different stories. The results: made of awesome. From contemporary to futuristic, these novellas have a little bit of everything, but most especially—love-filled happy endings.

Rebound by Allison B. Hanson
After wallowing in agony for weeks after a bad break-up, Reese is set up on a blind date. Reluctantly, he goes and meets the girl of his dreams. The only problem? He was at the wrong place and met the wrong girl. Now, desperate to find her, he scours the campus as fate weaves an impossible journey.

Lost and Found by Misty Simon
When Mike Emory sees his ex’s post on social media that she’s looking for her lost dog, he’s out the door in a flash. Their break-up was not amicable, but he loved that dog and can’t imagine him on his own. Elsie Hews has been scouring the streets for hours when she runs into the last person she wants helping her—the guy who never seemed to think she was capable of doing anything herself. This is her dog, though, her baby, and she’ll accept Mike’s help to find him, then say goodbye again. Or that’s the plan, at least…

Frozen Dreams by Victoria Smith
When a dangerous weather anomaly strikes, Jane will do whatever it takes to travel to be with her family. Even if it means getting stuck with her husband, Adam. Instead of talking to him about how they will never have a family, she took the chicken route and left, despite being deeply in love with him. Now they must face the storm and their emotions.

Through the Void by Natalie J. Damschroder
There’s only one thing Vix can do when she finds out about the secret life that has led to her husband’s coma—make that life hers. When she goes on her first mission through the void, however, she finds not only a new self-purpose, but her lost husband, as well. She did the impossible once. Can she do it again, and bring him home?

A Real Boy by Vicky Burkholder
Jillian Night is on the hunt for inter-planetary kidnappers. Her bosses demand she have a partner, but Jillian has had enough of human ones. She prefers to work alone so Fleet assigns her one of the new androids. Zeus is a little too real for Jillian’s comfort and she finds herself attracted to him—until she meets the real man pulling the strings. Maybe having a real, live partner wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Download for Free Now (universal link) or at the following vendors:

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Goodreads

I yammer about space opera

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Jana Denardo is hosting me on her blog this week. I say stuff about space opera, as well as promote Beneath the Skin.  http://jana-denardo.dreamwidth.org/249133.html

(I apologize if my posts seem spammy of late.  I’m on a blog tour.  At least the posts on each blog are different, even if they all have the same image of my book cover.)

Review: Romancing the Inventor

carriger-cover.jpgGail Carriger’s Romancing the Inventor takes place in the same supernatural steampunk setting as her Parasol Protectorate novels, and several primary characters from those novels appear in this novella as secondary characters. Romancing the Inventor focuses on Madame Lefoux, the crossdressing inventor whose previous history is somewhat checkered (her giant mechanical octopus machine destroys swathes of London in an earlier book) and Imogene Hale, a woman from the country who enters service in the vampire household to which Lefoux has been sentenced (because, giant mechanical octopus machine).

The romance between Imogene and Lefoux is delightful. Both of them are well matched: strong, lovable, intelligent women–and the longing the two have for one another grows believably. Events are told from Imogene’s point of view, which is infused with Carriger’s light humor (something I always enjoy in Carriger’s writing), and readers who know Lefoux from other novels will have fun interpreting Lefoux’s feelings from her body language, muttered asides to herself, and occasional ambiguous remark to Imogene.

Unlike other novels in the series, this novella doesn’t focus on national or political threats.  The romance is definitely the focus of the plot, and it is thoroughly satisfying.

Review: A Shifter, a Vampire, and a Fae Walk into a Bar

Book_Final_lr_6x9-200x300.jpgThe light-hearted tone and good-hearted characters in Thianna D.’s A Shifter, a Vampire, and a Fae Walk into a Bar make this romantic fantasy novel a delightful read, especially if you’re in a bad mood and just want to get away from it all. The heroine is a human, the hero is a shapeshifter who can take wolf form (“not a werewolf”, he insists), and the secondary characters include vampires, fae, demons, warlocks, and other supernatural beings, which makes an entertaining mix. This is the first book in a series, and much of the plot centers on the main characters coming together and becoming closer, creating their own little family of friends and eventually a home for themselves beyond space and time. Because the characters are so likable, it’s easy to root for them to succeed, and it’s easy to see why they are drawn to one another.

This isn’t a novel full of frustrating drama or deep angst or deadly danger, and the romance isn’t stuffed with endless longing or heated sex scenes. Instead, the book is soothingly humorous, and the sex is mostly off-screen and sweet. This is one of those novels that makes the world a little brighter.

I Blither Happily

 

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Anne Barwell interviewed me about Beneath the Skin, my writing, and other pressing topics: https://annebarwell.wordpress.com/2017/05/10/welcome-carolyn-hill-beneath-the-skin/

 

Beneath the Skin Now Available

Woot woot! My latest romantic science fiction novel is available now on Amazon.

Beneath the Skin

My latest science fiction novel from Tickety Boo Press, Beneath the Skin, is now now available for pre-sale on Amazon.  So far, it’s just the Kindle edition.  I hope you like it!