New! K8 The 8th Species, Book 3 Contemporary Sci-Fi Romance by Linda Mooney Word Count: 52.6K $3.99 e / $10.99 p
The Children are settling into their new lives, but unexpected expenses are piling up with the babies’ milk and diapers, and the electricity bill on the rise as the brunt of winter inundates them. Everyone is doing what they can to pitch in, working extra shifts and doing whatever it takes to keep their heads above financial waters, to the point where K8 is contemplating using her ability to split in two to do double the work. But how much longer can they keep it up?
When K8 is approached by a publisher to tell the Childrens’ story, she’s hesitant to trust the guy, but she likes the idea. She’s always loved writing, and she’s been wanting to get back into it. Plus the extra money from book sales would definitely help. But is their story worth sharing?
Adam has been working with K8 at the diner for a while now, and his feelings for her keep growing. He’s leery of the publisher, fearing the man is someone looking to take advantage of the Childrens’ innocence, and he takes it upon himself to protect K8. As he earns her trust, he’s hoping he’ll also gain her affection.
While they may have been raised in an unrealistic environment, the Children are quickly learning how the real world works, and know some people don’t have their best interests at heart. Worse, the threat of retaliation from Docenti Labs is still real, and those people will never stop coming for them or for the valuable information they claim was stolen.
Warning: Contains a great tipper, needing a lawyer, when you're a cook and not a housekeeper, a nine point five, leftover meatloaf, injections from hell, and one man trying to protect the woman he's come to love at the risk of his own life.
These are strange times in America. There's a bill in the works in the Oklahoma legislature that critics claim would ban explicit romance novels entirely--you wouldn't be able to write them, publish them, sell them, make them available to the public in any fashion (ie libraries) or own them. And--I believe--if there are any LGBTQ+ characters in them, they don't even have to be explicit. They're just straight out banned.
Needless to say, many romance authors are concerned about this. Even though it's unlikely to pass, stranger things have happened recently--and continue to happen.
Over the past few weeks, the current federal administration has sought not just to remove protections for transgender people, but to eliminate any mention of them whatsoever. In one of the most egregious example of this, National Parks Service was forced to remove any mention of transgender people from its page on the Stonewall National Monument. Which is an absurd and blatant attempt to re-write history. Diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the federal government are also on the chopping block.
I grew up in the sixties. And while I'm not going to pretend that I was acutely aware of the social issues of the time, such as civil rights, gay and trans rights, women's rights, abortion rights, anti-war protests, or books being banned for reasons of obscenity, I wasn't shielded from these battles, either. And if there was any lesson that I learned from that time, any kernel of hope gleaned from all the social unrest of the day it could be summarized by this quote: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
Call me naive, but for a very long time, I really believed that was true. And yes, I understood that there would be setbacks. That the course of justice (like that of true love) would not run smooth. I knew that the path to a free, equal, tolerant and compassionate society would likely be long and winding and filled with obstacles, but surely--eventually--we would get there. Right?
Yeah, lately, I'm not so sure. This video (from last year--when things weren't nearly as bad as they are now) didn't help.
So. What does all of this have to do with (you'll excuse the expression) the price of eggs? Or even the state of Romance? Well, my point is this. At this rate, it's hard to make publishing plans. Because who knows what's going to be banned next?
Which leads me to last week's new release. Giada Mazzi is Living her Best Life is a pretty unexceptional romance. It's light, it's fluffy, it's mostly sweet and it takes place in October--very definitely so. This is very much a Pumpkin Spice Latte themed book. So, I'd originally planned on releasing in September. Makes sense, right? But here's the thing. The heroine is a trans woman, and I am no longer confident that I'll be able to publish it come September. Hell, I'm not convinced we'll still have a habitable planet come September.
Maybe I'm overreacting. I hope that I am. But I'm enormously proud of this book. I love these characters and I didn't want to run the risk of not being able to share them with the world. So, I put it out there now. While I still could publish it, while bookstores and libraries could still stock it, and while you can still read it without fear of running afoul of the law.
And yes, I'm not thrilled that it's only available through Amazon, atm, but it is what it is. And, as I said at the start--these are strange times.
Life is more than just the lies we try and tell ourselves about what we’ve done and who we are.
I guess the truth is that I never stopped loving Ben. And I never stopped imagining how different my life might have been if he were only the person I needed him to be, instead of the person that he is. Which is silly, right? I mean, truly; it’s laughable. Because if he were someone else, he wouldn’t be him. And the world is already full of people like that. What good is one more gonna do me?
Besides, if I’m honest, Ben wasn’t ever the problem. That was me. I was never the person he believed me to be. Oh, I thought I was, in the beginning. I tried hard to be, and that worked for a while. Sort of. But eventually I reached the point where I had to make a choice between living life for myself, or for everyone else.
And when it came right down to that…how could I not choose me?
Life is more than just the lies we try and tell ourselves about what we’ve done and who we are.
I guess the truth is that I never stopped loving Ben. And I never stopped imagining how different my life might have been if he were only the person that I needed him to be, instead of the person that he is. Which is silly, right? I mean, truly; it’s laughable. Because if he were someone else, he wouldn’t be him. And the world is already full of people like that. What good is one more gonna do me?
Besides, if I’m honest, Ben wasn’t ever the problem. That was me. I was never the person he believed me to be. Oh, I thought I was, in the beginning. I tried hard to be, and that worked for a while. Sort of. But eventually I reached the point where I had to make a choice between living life for myself, or for everyone else.
And when it came right down to it…how could I not choose me?
Life is more than just the lies we try and tell ourselves about what we’ve done and who we are.
I guess the truth is that I never stopped loving Ben. And I never stopped imagining how different my life might have been if he were only the person that I needed him to be, instead of the person that he is. Which is silly, right? I mean, truly; it’s laughable. Because if he were someone else, he wouldn’t be him. And the world is already full of people like that. What good is one more gonna do me?
Besides, if I’m honest, Ben wasn’t ever the problem. That was me. I was never the person he believed me to be. Oh, I thought I was, in the beginning. I tried hard to be, and that worked for a while. Sort of. But eventually I reached the point where I had to make a choice between living life for myself, or for everyone else.
And when it came right down to it…how could I not choose me?
These bestselling romance authors give you book companions to take your love life to scorching levels! So many options from this satisfying collection of stories for explosive nights filled with passion! Download them while they're available.
One man's love stood between her
powers and Earth's annihilation.
After being
banished from her own world because her people deeply feared the
scope of her powers, an anomaly shoots Sah'Reena toward Earth
and the one man in the universe meant to be her mate.
No one, least of all Dr. Robin Dickenson, expected what they
discovered when they opened the alien craft captured by the
space shuttle Liberty
while on a routine space mission. But from the moment he first
sees the star girl, Robin is captivated.
Near death, and never expecting to see anything again beyond the
endless void of space, Sah'Reena isn't certain, at first, that
her mind isn't playing tricks on her. But the handsome face of
the stranger she sees gives her hope for life when she'd thought
all hope was gone.
Jocelyn Barnes couldn’t wait to leave Heartwood in her rearview mirror—even if it meant breaking two hearts in the process. Now, with her career on hiatus and her great-aunt in need of help as she recovers from concussion, Jo finds herself right back where she started, older but not much wiser, and about to make all the same mistakes all over again.
Carter Donahue doesn’t believe in looking back. As the chef/manager of his family’s new farm-to-table restaurant, he’s got his hands full. With a goal of turning his legacy into a must-see, Hill Country destination, his focus is on the future. The past? He’d rather that stayed buried. The last thing he needs (or wants) is to dig up those old feelings or fall back in love with his ex—especially when she’s already got one foot out the door. Again.
New!
