Here Be News

New Releases:

Other News:

Bring It Back(list) Feature:

Veronica Scott shared an excerpt from her award winning novel Wreck of the Nebula Dream, loosely based on the sinking of Titanic, but set in the far future on a luxury spaceliner.

Sales & Promos:

Now through March 31, and only on Amazon, Steam & Sorcery, the best-selling and award winning begining of Cindy Spencer Pape's Gaslight Chronicles steampunk series, is on sale for half price! http://amzn.to/2p5iUYQ

Bring It Back(list): WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM with Excerpt

It's my day to talk about a favorite backlist book, so I'll go to my first published science fiction adventure with romantic elements, Wreck of the Nebula Dream (or "Titanic in space..." as it's also known). Yes, I usually call all my books scifi romance but in this one the romance is there, but not the focus. Surviving the wreck is front and center! When I was writing the book, I did try to find a place and time in the narrative for Nick and Mara to have more than a kiss or two but it just...did...not...work. So yes, they fall in love and there's an HEA ending, but there's less 'romance' content in this one than any of my other, subsequent novels.

I consciously wrote this like a classic disaster movie. One reviewer even quantified for me that the the first 19% of the book is the 'getting to know the characters and the ship' stuff, and then BOOM, the wreck happens and everything kicks into high gear.

The book is loosely based on, and inspired by, the Titanic sinking, but set in the far future on an interstellar cruise liner. It was the recipient of the SFR Galaxy Award.

(It's available as an audiobook too!)

The story:

Traveling unexpectedly aboard the luxury liner Nebula Dream on its maiden voyage across the galaxy, Sectors Special Forces Captain Nick Jameson is ready for ten relaxing days, and hoping to forget his last disastrous mission behind enemy lines. He figures he’ll gamble at the casino, take in the shows, maybe even have a shipboard fling with Mara Lyrae, the beautiful but reserved businesswoman he meets.

All his plans vaporize when the ship suffers a wreck of Titanic proportions. Captain and crew abandon ship, leaving the 8000 passengers stranded without enough lifeboats and drifting unarmed in enemy territory. Aided by Mara, Nick must find a way off the doomed ship for himself and several other innocent people before deadly enemy forces reach them or the ship’s malfunctioning engines finish ticking down to self destruction.

But can Nick conquer the demons from his past that tell him he’ll fail these innocent people just as he failed to save his Special Forces team? Will he outpace his own doubts to win this vital race against time?

The excerpt:

There was no time to waste. Disasters in space tended to be abrupt, over with in a violent moment. Whatever had happened to the Nebula Dream, it was nothing short of amazing they weren’t all dead already. Can’t push luck too far. He caught the eye of the D’nvannae Brother, standing a few feet away, an appalled frown on his face, probably over the loss of critical time.

Nick jerked his head in the direction of the LB portal. “Watch my back,” he yelled, wading into the crowd without waiting to see if the man would come to his aid or not. This had to be done, with or without support.

Nick tried not to hurt people, but he forced his way through the throng with ruthless intent, stopping short about a yard shy of the door. Exactly as the woman had told him, two men were on the deck, kicking and clawing at each other, fighting over access to the locked LB. No one else could get by.

Reaching down, Nick grabbed one man by the scruff of the neck, hauling him to his feet. He was mildly pleased to find the D’nvannae Brother was right beside him, dragging the second belliger­ent combatant to the other side of the LB access portal.

Nick sensed the crowd preparing to surge forward in blind panic, now the human obstacles were removed. He wheeled, shoving the man he had grabbed roughly away, knocking down two or three other passengers in the process. People stepped on or over them in an instinctive rush to get closer to the presumed safety of the lifeboat.

 “Nobody moves until I say so!” Holding up one hand, he used the tone of voice he would employ on a batch of unruly, raw recruits, awesomely commanding.

“Quiet down now,” he said, watching the people in the front row of the mob, getting eye contact, to personalize his commands, make them feel like responsible individuals, not a mindless, panicking herd.

The blaring sirens and recorded emergency warnings cut out, resumed briefly and then died away in a slowly fading gibber­ish. The lights in the corridor flickered, causing gasps here and there in the crowd.

“Are there any SMT officers or crew here?” Nick said.

Desperation, fear, and puzzlement on the faces in front of him. Many sidelong glances, mute head shakes.

Silence.

“All right, then. I’m Captain Jameson, Sectors Special Forces. I’m taking charge of this LB portal. I need four volunteers besides this man,” nodding at the D’nvannae, “to help me keep order here. You can’t all get into this LB. No one’s going to make it off unless you keep your heads and we go about this calmly and quickly.” He pointed at some likely candidates. “You, you, you and you.”

He’d picked out a quartet of fairly good-sized men, who seemed calmer than some of the others ringing him. Pointing at the Broth­er, he said, “What’s your name?”

“Khevan.”

“Fine, Khevan, you and these four gentlemen form a ring. No one gets by until I say so. Watch my back while I open this damn portal.”

Nodding, the D’nvannae and the four men linked arms and established a peri­meter. Nick gave his attention to the locked access. Damn, there should have been at least one SMT crew person at each LB by now, with the unlock code, getting the civilians safely off the ship as fast as possible. Nick spared a second and a small part of his mind to swear at the inefficiencies and lax disci­pline of this ship’s captain. Lucky for all these nice people I know how to open the thing.

Nick scanned the portal info display as he keyed in a code on the access panel. “Capacity one hundred sentients,” the label declared in Basic and the other five languages. Okay, Jameson, quick, calculate what the limit really means, what the margin of design safety probably was. How many extra oxygen-breathers can I shove onto the thing without killing them all?

As the door cycled open, Nick assessed the waiting throng. The crowd, even larger now, probably in excess of two hundred men, women and children, pressed forward. They were pushing his ring of volun­teers closer to him before the men dug in and shoved resolutely back.

“This LB can only support one hundred and twenty-five,” Nick announced to the assembled passengers, pitching his voice to carry to the edge of the crowd. “I’m not allowing one more person to board beyond the limit. I’m taking children and their caretakers first, followed by as many other adults as possible. Anyone with children, come forward now. We’ve got no time to lose. No luggage! No pets!” Nick pointed to the stout woman, who had followed in his wake through the crowd. “You, what’s your name?”

She stepped forward. “Maud Panula.”

“All right, Maud, come stand right here next to me and keep count. Shout it out for me every ten heads, then every five as we get closer to capacity.”

“Who appointed you Lord of Space?” shouted a red-faced man in the middle of the crowd, as the first nervous children and their relatives came forward, passing through Nick’s cordon. The complainer found a few kindred sentients who appeared to agree with him. An undercurrent of ominous murmuring increased in volume.

 “There’s only a few of them –”

             “No weapons – let’s rush them!”

“The officer and I can kill with our bare hands,” Khevan said softly from his place in the center of the cordon guarding the LB access, his voice carrying as easily as Nick’s had. “You won’t gain entry to this LB by challenging his order, I guarantee you.”

Nick listened to the count rapidly climbing, as more and more children and adults streamed past him. Where the hell had they all come from? “We’re at eighty already,” he announced to the crowd. “If you don’t like your chances here, better go find the next LB.”

“Where?” screamed several despairing voices.

Nick cursed the SMT Line again for its lack of prepara­tion. “There are LB portals every few hundred yards, going both directions, all three passenger decks and on the Casino Deck.”

Buy Links:

Amazon  Barnes & Noble  iBooks    Google Play   Kobo

Audiobook Sample:

New Release STAR SURVIVOR Exclusive Excerpt

Veronica Scott: I’ve finally written the long awaited sequel to Wreck of the Nebula Dream and I’m sharing an exclusive excerpt from my new release today.

The story:

The survivors of a terrible wreck meet again—but this time only one can survive.

They survived an iconic spaceship wreck together. She never expected to see him again … especially not armed to kill her.

Twilka Zabour is an interstellar celebrity. She built on her notoriety as a carefree Socialite who survived the terrible wreck of the Nebula Dream, and launched a successful design house. But now the man who gave meaning to her life, then left her, is back–this time for the worst of reasons. Will he kill her … or help her survive?

D’nvannae Brother Khevan survived the Nebula Dream in the company of a lovely, warm woman, only to be pulled away from her, back into his solitary life in the service of the Red Lady.  Now Twilka’s within his reach again–for all the wrong reasons. Khevan will do everything within his power to discover why Twilka has been targeted for assassination, and to save her.

But Khevan is not Twilka’s only pursuer. Will allies Nick and Mara Jameson arrive in time to aid the couple, or will Khevan and Twilka’s ingenuity be all that stands between them and death?

The excerpt:

The dreams she couldn’t escape for long were especially bad tonight. Twilka tossed and turned on the huge bed in the city’s most luxurious hotel, more than a little afraid to seek more sleep. She’d clawed her way out of the nightmare where she was surrounded by laughing, faceless drunks, intent on living their last few hours of life aboard the Nebula Dream by passing her around among themselves. In the dream, there was no help coming, no rescue, and she woke screaming. Heart pounding, she lay still for a moment before reaching for the glass of water at the bedside. Should she take the meds her doctor had given her to suppress the memories?

No, the prescription stuff made her into a robot who’d sleepwalk through tomorrow’s activities, and she needed all her wits about her in the negotiations. Taking the glass, she kicked her way free of the covers and strolled barefoot to the private terrace, high above the planet’s surface. Inhaling a deep breath of the flower-scented air, she took one tentative step onto the balcony, clutching the door handle with her free hand. Acrophobia was a bitch. As she sipped the water, she reflected on the irony that she, of all people, was reluctant to take a drug to quell the nightmares. “A legal one no less,” she muttered to herself. After years of enjoying all the feelgoods all the time with no regard for consequences.

The view of the city was breathtaking, all colorful twinkly lights at this hour. Raising her eyes to the plateau, she took a deep breath. The Red Lady’s oversize temple dominated the horizon, glowing ruby like a baleful eye. Shivering, wishing she’d put on her robe, Twilka pivoted to re-enter the room. With a stifled scream, she saw a dark shadow standing beside the bed. Breaking the water glass on the door frame and holding the jagged base fragment as a weapon, she said, “I’ve activated my personal panic button. The hotel’s security detail will be here in a minute. Leave now and I won’t press charges.”

He stepped into the moonlight. “We need to talk. Cancel the alarm.”

Khevan. She sagged against the balcony door, allowing the broken glass to roll from her hand onto the carpet. “I told you, we have nothing left to discuss. Anything between us died a long time ago.”

There was pounding on the door. “Miss Zabour?”

He didn’t even glance at the portal, intent on her. “Send them away.”

“The hotel has orders to check on me in person if the alarm is triggered.”

“Make it fast.” There was a flicker and she couldn’t see him any longer. If she squinted, the air shimmered with a faint distortion where he’d been.

Another D’nvannae trick. Giving the spot where he presumably stood a wide berth, she went to the door and opened it. Blaster in hand, the security chief scanned the room behind her. “Are you all right, Miss Zabour?”

“I’m fine. I had a nightmare and I was confused when I first awakened.” She lied with ease. There had been such incidents before.

“I’ll have to check the room.”

Stepping aside, she invited him to enter with a wave of her hand. “I broke my water glass, so watch out for the fragments.”

“I’ll have housekeeping send a robo to clean up the mess,” he said, moving through her suite with efficient speed. He scanned every possible spot a person could hide.

“In the morning will be fine. I need my sleep.” Twilka forced herself to fake an elaborate yawn.

The second man remained outside in the hall while his team lead finished the quick search of the room, closets included. Twilka stood by silently, occasionally glancing at the minor visual distortion where Khevan lurked. “Thank you for answering so promptly,” she said, as she escorted the officer to the door. For a moment, she was tempted to step outside with him and escape the conversation Khevan was determined to have, but she was angry he’d pursued her. And dangerously intrigued.

Get this over with now.

He’d gone visible again as she walked into the sleeping area. Hands on her hips, she said, “You do that often?”

He shrugged, face impassive. “A gift from the Lady. At certain levels of the Brotherhood, new abilities are earned.”

“And I’m sure you’re at a stratospheric level nowadays. I hope the goodies were worth it. How did you get in anyway?”

“The locks and other security measures in a place like this offer no challenge. And stealth is a basic skill for the D’nvannae.”

“I’m aware.” Leaning against the door, she studied him. Part of her wished she’d taken a feelgood. Being alone with him was sending shivers through her and it was hard to concentrate. Hard to breathe. Twilka reached for the anger over how he’d treated her and the emotion drove the tremors from her nerves. Have to get control of this meeting. “Hand me my robe, would you?” Taking it from his hand, she slid the soft garment onto her body and strolled to the plush armchair. Sinking onto the cushions gracefully, crossing her legs, she said, “Your Lady isn’t going to visit me too, is she?”

Buy Links:

iBooks      Amazon    Kobo       Barnes & Noble  

ARCHIVE:New Release STAR SURVIVOR Exclusive Excerpt

Veronica Scott: I’ve finally written the long awaited sequel to Wreck of the Nebula Dream and I’m sharing an exclusive excerpt from my new release today.

The story:

The survivors of a terrible wreck meet again—but this time only one can survive.

They survived an iconic spaceship wreck together. She never expected to see him again … especially not armed to kill her.

Twilka Zabour is an interstellar celebrity. She built on her notoriety as a carefree Socialite who survived the terrible wreck of the Nebula Dream, and launched a successful design house. But now the man who gave meaning to her life, then left her, is back–this time for the worst of reasons. Will he kill her … or help her survive?

D’nvannae Brother Khevan survived the Nebula Dream in the company of a lovely, warm woman, only to be pulled away from her, back into his solitary life in the service of the Red Lady.  Now Twilka’s within his reach again–for all the wrong reasons. Khevan will do everything within his power to discover why Twilka has been targeted for assassination, and to save her.

But Khevan is not Twilka’s only pursuer. Will allies Nick and Mara Jameson arrive in time to aid the couple, or will Khevan and Twilka’s ingenuity be all that stands between them and death?

The excerpt:

The dreams she couldn’t escape for long were especially bad tonight. Twilka tossed and turned on the huge bed in the city’s most luxurious hotel, more than a little afraid to seek more sleep. She’d clawed her way out of the nightmare where she was surrounded by laughing, faceless drunks, intent on living their last few hours of life aboard the Nebula Dream by passing her around among themselves. In the dream, there was no help coming, no rescue, and she woke screaming. Heart pounding, she lay still for a moment before reaching for the glass of water at the bedside. Should she take the meds her doctor had given her to suppress the memories?

No, the prescription stuff made her into a robot who’d sleepwalk through tomorrow’s activities, and she needed all her wits about her in the negotiations. Taking the glass, she kicked her way free of the covers and strolled barefoot to the private terrace, high above the planet’s surface. Inhaling a deep breath of the flower-scented air, she took one tentative step onto the balcony, clutching the door handle with her free hand. Acrophobia was a bitch. As she sipped the water, she reflected on the irony that she, of all people, was reluctant to take a drug to quell the nightmares. “A legal one no less,” she muttered to herself. After years of enjoying all the feelgoods all the time with no regard for consequences.

The view of the city was breathtaking, all colorful twinkly lights at this hour. Raising her eyes to the plateau, she took a deep breath. The Red Lady’s oversize temple dominated the horizon, glowing ruby like a baleful eye. Shivering, wishing she’d put on her robe, Twilka pivoted to re-enter the room. With a stifled scream, she saw a dark shadow standing beside the bed. Breaking the water glass on the door frame and holding the jagged base fragment as a weapon, she said, “I’ve activated my personal panic button. The hotel’s security detail will be here in a minute. Leave now and I won’t press charges.”

He stepped into the moonlight. “We need to talk. Cancel the alarm.”

Khevan. She sagged against the balcony door, allowing the broken glass to roll from her hand onto the carpet. “I told you, we have nothing left to discuss. Anything between us died a long time ago.”

There was pounding on the door. “Miss Zabour?”

He didn’t even glance at the portal, intent on her. “Send them away.”

“The hotel has orders to check on me in person if the alarm is triggered.”

“Make it fast.” There was a flicker and she couldn’t see him any longer. If she squinted, the air shimmered with a faint distortion where he’d been.

Another D’nvannae trick. Giving the spot where he presumably stood a wide berth, she went to the door and opened it. Blaster in hand, the security chief scanned the room behind her. “Are you all right, Miss Zabour?”

“I’m fine. I had a nightmare and I was confused when I first awakened.” She lied with ease. There had been such incidents before.

“I’ll have to check the room.”

Stepping aside, she invited him to enter with a wave of her hand. “I broke my water glass, so watch out for the fragments.”

“I’ll have housekeeping send a robo to clean up the mess,” he said, moving through her suite with efficient speed. He scanned every possible spot a person could hide.

“In the morning will be fine. I need my sleep.” Twilka forced herself to fake an elaborate yawn.

The second man remained outside in the hall while his team lead finished the quick search of the room, closets included. Twilka stood by silently, occasionally glancing at the minor visual distortion where Khevan lurked. “Thank you for answering so promptly,” she said, as she escorted the officer to the door. For a moment, she was tempted to step outside with him and escape the conversation Khevan was determined to have, but she was angry he’d pursued her. And dangerously intrigued.

Get this over with now.

He’d gone visible again as she walked into the sleeping area. Hands on her hips, she said, “You do that often?”

He shrugged, face impassive. “A gift from the Lady. At certain levels of the Brotherhood, new abilities are earned.”

“And I’m sure you’re at a stratospheric level nowadays. I hope the goodies were worth it. How did you get in anyway?”

“The locks and other security measures in a place like this offer no challenge. And stealth is a basic skill for the D’nvannae.”

“I’m aware.” Leaning against the door, she studied him. Part of her wished she’d taken a feelgood. Being alone with him was sending shivers through her and it was hard to concentrate. Hard to breathe. Twilka reached for the anger over how he’d treated her and the emotion drove the tremors from her nerves. Have to get control of this meeting. “Hand me my robe, would you?” Taking it from his hand, she slid the soft garment onto her body and strolled to the plush armchair. Sinking onto the cushions gracefully, crossing her legs, she said, “Your Lady isn’t going to visit me too, is she?”

Buy Links:

iBooks      Amazon    Kobo       Barnes & Noble  

ARCHIVE But New Giveaway: A Few True Paranormal Stories About Titanic

May 20, 2016: Veronica sez: Got a great review on the Wreck of the Nebula Dream audiobook, and doing a $25.00 Amazon gift card giveaway at the Audiobook Reviewer site, so hop over there to enter! 28 days left on the Rafflecopter.

WRECK is loosely based on the sinking of the Titanic...

From my archived posts, updated:

I’ve always been fascinated by that disaster, to the point of writing an award winning science fiction novel loosely based on it (WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM) . I’m going to share a few chilling, true paranormal stories about Titanic today.

As with any great disaster involving a large loss of life, there were many psychic and paranormal dreams, warnings, foreshadowings reports. Some were probably hoaxes. Some, on the other hand, are very well documented and generally accepted to be inexplicable but true. 

This one gives me chills every time: W. Rex Sowden was a Salvation Army officer and a doctor in Scotland in 1912. In the late evening of April 14, 1912, he was summoned to the bedside of a dying child at the orphanage, as she had no one else to sit with her.  At 11:00 PM exactly, she sat up and asked Mr. Sowden to hold her hand, saying, “I’m so afraid. Can’t you see that big ship sinking in the water?”

The doctor thought she was perhaps a bit delirious, being so ill, and told her she was only having a bad dream.   She refused to accept that, answering that the ship was sinking, many people were drowning and “Someone called Wally is playing the fiddle.”

Feeling uneasy, he looked around the room but saw nothing. The girl lapsed back into a coma and everything was peaceful for a few hours. Suddenly the latch on the bedroom door lifted and Mr. Sowden felt someone brush past him, although no one was there. The little girl opened her eyes, telling him her mother had come to take her back to Heaven. She died a few moments later.

In the morning Mr. Sowden heard about the sinking of the Titanic and learned that his boyhood friend  Wally Hartley, leader of the ship’s musicians and a violinist, had drowned after playing as the ship sank. The little girl’s vision occurred three hours before the ship actually struck the iceberg and Mr. Sowden had never mentioned his friend to her. Indeed, he was quoted as stating he hadn’t thought about Wally in years.

Another well known psychic event occurred as Titanic was sailing. A Mr. and Mrs. Marshall on the Isle of Wight were having a party on the flat roof of their home, to watch the ship head out to sea on April 10^th. Suddenly Mrs. Marshall had a vision, exclaiming the ship was going to sink. Her embarrassed family tried to quiet her, but she said insisted she saw “hundreds of people struggling in the icy water”. The party ended immediately of course and no one mentioned Titanic to her for the next five days because she would become so upset. 

Then on April 15^th, word came that her vision had been true.

Years later, this same Mrs. Marshall refused to sail on the Lusitania on the voyage of May 1^st, forcing her husband to exchange their tickets for much worse accommodations on an earlier sailing. She told her family they’d be safe going on Lusitania on the earlier voyage, but that it was going to be torpedoed with huge loss of life on the May 1^st trip, which indeed it was. I think I would have listened to her, for sure!

If you were about to board a ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean and you saw the ship’s cat carrying her new born kittens off the vessel, one by one down the gangplank, might you think twice about embarking yourself? I think I would! Yet when this happened in Southampton right before Titanic sailed, only one Irish sailor took heed of the omen and jumped ship himself. What did Jenny the Cat “know” that most of the passengers didn’t? (And the same thing happened with the Lusitania a few years later - the ship's cat left before they sailed!)

So what would you do if you had a premonition of disaster on a trip? Would you go anyway, as so many did on Titanic? Or would you find an alternate way to travel?

Buy Links:

Amazon  Barnes & Noble  All Romance eBooks    iTunes   Kobo

Also available as an AUDIOBOOK: at Amazon and iTunes

The story:

Traveling unexpectedly aboard the luxury liner Nebula Dream on its maiden voyage across the galaxy, Sectors Special Forces Captain Nick Jameson is ready for ten relaxing days, and hoping to forget his last disastrous mission behind enemy lines. He figures he’ll gamble at the casino, take in the shows, maybe even have a shipboard fling with Mara Lyrae, the beautiful but reserved businesswoman he meets.

All his plans vaporize when the ship suffers a wreck of Titanic proportions. Captain and crew abandon ship, leaving the 8000 passengers stranded without enough lifeboats and drifting unarmed in enemy territory. Aided by Mara, Nick must find a way off the doomed ship for himself and several other innocent people before deadly enemy forces reach them or the ship’s malfunctioning engines finish ticking down to self destruction.

But can Nick conquer the demons from his past that tell him he’ll fail these innocent people just as he failed to save his Special Forces team? Will he outpace his own doubts to win this vital race against time?

From the Archives: Science Fiction Soldiers

Before I start talking about the soldiers in my science fiction novels, let me take a moment to express my admiration and appreciation for Veterans of all wars, and the sacrifices made by our men and women in uniform, and their families.

My Dad was in the Army in the South Pacific in World War II. His younger brothers were in the Army and Coast Guard in later years. My late husband was a Marine. I have two nephews who are Air Force fighter pilots. Nothing but respect and appreciation for the military in our household!

In my science fiction romances the heroes are usually Sectors Special Forces operators (the far future version of SEALs, you see) and they almost always have a sergeant working alongside. The sergeant is also a medic and all around badass. I have great respect for sergeants.

In Wreck of the Nebula Dream, my hero Nick Jameson is on his way to be court martialled for the loss of his entire team, on a mission gone really bad. When the civilian ship he's on has its catastrophe, his allies are a D'nvannae Brother (a deadly assassin/bodyguard serving an alien goddess) and one determined businesswoman who isn't waiting around to be rescued. Help her or get out of her way, you know? His team expands as they fight to survive and get off the ship. I deliberately wrote Wreck of the Nebula Dream in classic disaster movie style. (This book isn't referred to as "Titanic in space" for nothing!)

In Escape From Zulaire, Captain Tom Deverane and his sergeant get pulled off their regular mission She doesn’t feel she’s in any danger…until war breaks out and they’re on the wrong side of the enemy lines, cut off and trapped.  They have to reach the capital hundreds of miles away through occupied territory, with vital information that could change the course of the civil war. AND Tom is keeping a dangerous personal secret.

to extract a businesswoman from a dangerous situation.

In Mission to Mahjundar, Mike Varone and his cousin, Sgt. Johnny  Danver, are just trying to complete one final mission before taking early retirement. The job was supposed to be a pretty straight forward search and recovery, of the remains of the crew from a ship lost in the impenetrable mountains of the planet. Before Mike realizes what’s happened, he’s saved the life of the blind Princess Shalira during a terrorist incident, she’s gotten the Emperor to assign him to escort her to an arranged marriage and of course they fall in love along the way…

So, a lot of action and adventure, rooted in the reality of similar missions here on Earth, in various wars, but with the twists and turns only science fiction can provide.

My favorite science fiction military man is Corporal Hicks from the movie “Aliens”. Soft spoken, deadly with a pulse rifle, kind to children, sexy (if only there’d been more time for Ripley and Hicks to get to know each other!)….

Here’s the book trailer for Escape From Zulaire:

Here Be News

Interesting Links:

Fantasy Cafe is running their Women in SF&F Month and asking who your favorite female authors are in the field ... Here’s the link if you have some favorites you'd like to tell them about:

http://sffwomen.fantasybookcafe.com/add.html

Other News:
Veronica Scott's award winning WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM is on sale for $.99 during the month of April, in honor of the 103rd anniversary of the sinking of Titanic. (Ebook format only)

Amazon  Barnes & Noble   All Romance eBooks    iTunes   Kobo

The story:

Traveling unexpectedly aboard the luxury liner Nebula Dream on its maiden voyage across the galaxy, Sectors Special Forces Captain Nick Jameson is ready for ten relaxing days, and hoping to forget his last disastrous mission behind enemy lines. He figures he’ll gamble at the casino, take in the shows, maybe even have a shipboard fling with Mara Lyrae, the beautiful but reserved businesswoman he meets.

All his plans vaporize when the ship suffers a wreck of Titanic proportions. Captain and crew abandon ship, leaving the 8000 passengers stranded without enough lifeboats and drifting unarmed in enemy territory. Aided by Mara, Nick must find a way off the doomed ship for himself and several other innocent people before deadly enemy forces reach them or the ship’s malfunctioning engines finish ticking down to self destruction.

But can Nick conquer the demons from his past that tell him he’ll fail these innocent people just as he failed to save his Special Forces team? Will he outpace his own doubts to win this vital race against time?

Here Be News

New Releases

He once controlled her fate; now she holds his heart--and his body--in her hands...

Living in a humble village at the edge of the Sarian Empire, Kailey is a gifted but untrained mage with an affinity for stone. She believes herself well beyond the reach of the guild that controls all magic within the empire until Benim, an unwilling guild soldier, appears at her door. She's part of his quest to assemble gifted citizens for entrance to University.

As Kailey struggles to navigate the strange society of the Sarian upper class, she's tasked by a guild master to create a masterpiece for the emperor. And when Benim is commissioned as her model, Kailey comes to crave the hard-bodied soldier she spends her days sculpting inch by intimate inch.

Benim cannot resist the warmth of Kailey's spirit nor the comforts found within her body, though he knows that a poor soldier has no place in a mage's world. But he and Kailey will have to overcome more than just class differences in order to remain together. For someone has made Kailey a pawn in her mentor's ambitious play for power...

Book two of the Spellcraft series

Buy Links:

Amazon 

Barnes&Noble 

Kobo 

iBooks 

England's infant heir has been kidnapped, and there's only 
one man who can find him.

Luke Ballard has dedicated his talents--and his life--to protecting the throne. As Henry IX's Privy Inquirer and Dominus Elemancer, his loyalty is no longer in question. But when Queen Madeline's coronation is interrupted with the news that Arthur, the baby Prince of Wales, has been abducted, Luke is given an ultimatum: retrieve the royal heir and prevent future threats to the royal family or lose his head.

That the young prince has been taken by dark forces is clear. The evil sorcerers of Custodes Tenebris will not rest until they hold power in England with Catholic Mary as a puppet Queen. Luke has bested them before, but he's never needed to defeat evil while falling in love--Arthur's nursemaid, the beautiful Blanche Oliver, has won him over with her seductive charms.

As Luke's investigation leads into the dark recesses of his own family's past, Blanche's hold on him deepens. With the fate of the Tudors hanging in the balance, Luke will need to draw upon untested strength and sort truth from feminine fiction...for the enemy's reach is long and time is running out.


Book three of The Tudor Enigma

Get it today!



The Tenth Life of Vicki Torres by Shona Husk


A Court of Annwyn short story

Is he saving the cat or is the cat saving him?
Seth expected the world to end in wars and bombings, not in a plague. When he obeys his dying father and heads for their secret cabin in the mountains as arranged, he gets lonely so fast that he's willing to share his meager food with the stray that appears in the woods. But is the cat what she appears to be or is she something else entirely?

This story takes place during the plagues that happen in To Love a King (Court of Annwyn 3)

Buy links:
Barnes and Noble 

iTunes

Amazon

Other News

Dear Author Reviews 2013 SFR Galaxy Award Winner WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM by Veronica Scott

Jayne at DA sez: “...I was 4 chapters into this story when it dawned on me that I was lost in it and totally concentrating on this created world….The details of the doomed Titanic’s fate are cleverly re imagined in a space voyage…the tension builds, then recedes just a little, then increases, then is countered just a bit, then smacks the reader around some more before smacking the characters even worse. And then when I think this must be it, they’re safe, right? they aren’t. Safe that is….”

To read the rest of the review, here's the link: http://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/overall-b-reviews/b-reviews/review-wreck-of-the-nebula-dream-by-veronica-scott/

Raven's Wing Month-iversary Special!

In celebration of the one-month anniversary of the release of the urban fantasy Raven's Wing by award-winning author Shawna Reppert, the e-book will be available for 1 week only at a special sale price of $1.99!  (Sale starts at roughly 8 AM pacific time 2/23/15)  Buy Raven's Wing on Amazon

Here Be News

Here Be Magic Group Announcements

WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM by Veronica Scott has been selected as a Second Place winner in the annual Laurel Wreath Awards. Often referred to as "Titanic in space" in reviews, the novel is loosely based on the sinking of the Titanic,  but set in the far future on a luxury spaceliner. WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM also received an SFR Galaxy Award earlier in 2013.

Here's the story:

Traveling unexpectedly aboard the luxury liner Nebula Dream on its maiden voyage across the galaxy, Sectors Special Forces Captain Nick Jameson is ready for ten relaxing days, and hoping to forget his last disastrous mission behind enemy lines. He figures he’ll gamble at the casino, take in the shows, maybe even have a shipboard fling with Mara Lyrae, the beautiful but reserved businesswoman he meets.

All his plans vaporize when the ship suffers a wreck of Titanic proportions. Captain and crew abandon ship, leaving the 8000 passengers stranded without enough lifeboats and drifting unarmed in enemy territory. Aided by Mara, Nick must find a way off the doomed ship for himself and several other innocent people before deadly enemy forces reach them or the ship’s malfunctioning engines finish ticking down to self destruction.

But can Nick conquer the demons from his past that tell him he’ll fail these innocent people just as he failed to save his Special Forces team? Will he outpace his own doubts to win this vital race against time?

The book is available: Smashwords  Amazon Barnes & Noble All Romance eBooks iTunes

Audiobook Version, narrated by Actor Michael Riffle – Available Now at Amazon and iTunes

Win-A-Book Wednesday Winner

Congratulationss to Linda, the winner of Drynn from last week's Win-a-Book Wednesday! Steve Vera will be contacting you soon about your prize.

This Wednesday we'll have another mystery giveaway; stop by for more chances to win!

Free for the next two weeks:

Ellora's Cavemen, Flavors of Ecstasy, Vol.II, featuring Trapped, a sci-fi romance by Cindy Spencer Pape.

Twin Goddesses Don't Always Represent Good vs Evil

Whenever twin goddesses are around, it’s tempting to assume one is

Good and the other is Evil. But it’s not necessarily so! In Ancient Egypt, for example, Isis was the queen of the gods and represented motherhood, magic and fertility. Belief in Isis endured for centuries and worship of her even spread through the Roman Empire. The pharaohs of Egypt were often depicted as being her children. She was associated with the rebirth that Egyptians expected in their afterlife. Pretty much the good stuff came to Isis and from her.

 

Her twin sister Nephthys, although not depicted as evil, was associated with death, with battling demons, darkness and dangerous places like the edge of the desert. She and Isis were viewed by the Egyptians as different aspects of the same supernatural power.

One thing that is very useful to me in writing my paranormal novels of Ancient Egypt is the many varying interpretations and legends surrounding all their gods and goddesses. This enables me to pick and choose the aspects that work best with my worldbuilding and then stay consistent in my choices. In my new book WARRIOR OF THE NILE, Nephthys sets the events in motion and Isis takes a hand in how events turn out, not exactly as her sister had in mind. My human characters have to maneuver around the commands from the gods, yet still save Egypt. (If I’ve piqued your interest, you can find the story blurb on my web page and the book is out in September.)

I also write science fiction romance. When I was doing the world building for my award winning novel, WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM, I wanted to include an element of pure paranormal, along with the technical aspects of life in the far future.  Inspired by the timeless theme of the twin goddesses, I created the Red Lady of D’nvannae and her sister, the White Lady. They’re ancient beings, regarded as deities by many in the sprawling outer space world of the Sectors.  I’m not saying they’re meant to be Isis and Nephthys! Far from it. I just borrowed the idea of powerful celestial sisters.

The Red Lady has an army of highly dangerous followers who can be bodyguards or assassins. If both services are requested by opposing parties in the same case, she decides on a whim which to provide. If you can make the payment and contract with a member of the Brotherhood, the odds are high that you’ll achieve your goal, whether it’s your safety or someone else’s death. Her men and women are lethal. I modeled her very loosely after aspects of Kali, goddess of Time and Change and Darkness but the Red Lady  does not  equal Kali. My character IS known to be beautiful, greedy, sensual.

Marked with the flamboyant scarlet facial tattoo of his Order, Khevan, a senior member of the Brotherhood, plays a significant role in WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM . 

The White Lady is harder to quantify, if you live in the Sectors. Her servants go about doing good deeds, don’t accept payment and sometimes directly oppose the D’nvannae. Some of her followers take a voluntary vow of poverty and chastity.  I think most in my SF world view hers as a charitable organization. I will say she’s the only one who can control and contain the Red Lady, so what does that indicate about her power? Not that she chooses to act against her sister very often! The Lady in White also plays a small role in one scene of WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM.

Here’s an excerpt from WRECK, the first time Nick encounters Khevan, in the shuttle going up to the Nebula Dream:

Sipping his drink, he assessed the only other man on the shuttle who was as deadly as Nick himself could be when the occasion demanded -  a D'nvannae Brother, dressed all in close fitting, soft black leather, as they usually were when traveling outside their world. The swirling red tattoo all D'nvannae wore proudly inscribed on the right side of the face, as a sign of fealty to their Deity, was particularly well defined on this man. He must be senior in the hierarchy, given the number of details in the tattoo. Gotta earn those the hard way in the Lady's service. Halfway paying attention to a broadcast of an inter Sector sports semifinal, the Brother was unbraiding his long, jet black hair, signifying his contract had been successfully complet­ed and he was now at liberty to accept another.

Who on backwater Glideon might have needed such a high-priced, exotic bodyguard? Or been the target of such a re­lentless assassin? The D'nvannae could be hired for either pur­pose, conflicting offers resolved by the whim of the goddess.

Good. Evil. Complicated subjects, whether in ancient times or the far future!

WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM is available now on Amazon.