Science Fiction Romance Meets Fun Alien Critters in the Pets in Space 3 Anthology

I don’t usually post about my pen name projects on this blog, but “Ruby” has a new sci-fi romance novella out in the Embrace the Passion: Pets in Space 3 anthology. And it’s fun. 🙂 All the authors wrote new stories for the anthology, and mine is from Ruby’s Mandrake Company universe and features a cute furry alien creation inspired by Star Trek’s Tribbles. My beasties have a few more appendages though. And love apples. Because… who doesn’t?

So, if science fiction romance is your cup of tea, I hope you’ll check out this anthology. 10% of the proceeds to go the Hero Dogs charity, and every story features romance and some kind of pet.

Pets in Space 3 < — Yup, that’s the place to get it (the link directs you to your preferred store — this one is up on Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Google Play, and Barnes & Noble).

I’ve invited three of the authors to share stories about their involvement in this project below, so keep reading if you’re intrigued! Also, you can find a picture of my Tribble-esque pet if you read all the way to the bottom. 🙂

Pauline Baird Jones — Destination Dangerous

When I laid out the foundation of Operation Ark in my novel, Lost Valyri, I thought I was being smart. The heroine and hero were supporting characters in the novel and Operation Ark was going to be fairly straightforward.

Their task was to return some freed prisoners to their homes.

As soon as I turned my attention to Operation Ark, simple began to get complex.

1. The prisoners weren’t all from the same planet.
2. They weren’t even from the current star system.
3. Their planets were scattered around the star system they were from.
4. Me AND my characters didn’t know what we didn’t know.

But we found out.

I had created the alien technology for City and Kraye to make the trip in a reasonable time frame. I even had supporting characters from Lost Valyr who would help them out. What I hadn’t considered was the world building I would need to do for each return.

So my word count for Operation Ark ran a little bit over. I don’t feel as guilty as perhaps I should because my previous Pets in Space stories had word count leftover, but I still faced the challenge of getting them where they needed to go, and then get them out again.

I think one of my favorite planets was the Cygninains’ planet. They were some swan-life sentients with a brood of cygnets that they needed to take home. I think I might have had the most fun creating their home world. Here’s a snippet from their first contact with the other creatures who shared their world:

Something, maybe the sense of movement out of the corner of her eye, had City glancing down at the water barely a foot from where she stood. It moved, the ripples horizontal to the shore now. She realized there was a shadow where there hadn’t been one. A shadow that reached into the drifting mist in both directions. And then a line of fins broke the surface. A long line of fins.

“It will not eat you.”

City tore her gaze away with difficulty—and kept her weapon pointed down with even greater difficulty as the shadow continued to flow past. At her feet stood one of the swans, with her cygnets circling her like small planes.

She swallowed. “It won’t?”

“It eats,” a wing swept against a bush and it said a word City didn’t recognize.

“It’s a herbivore,” Dr. Dauwn breathed out, his tone somewhere between awe and horror as the end of the thing finished its pass with a twitch of its tail fins.

“It was curious,” the swan said.

 

I hope you’re as excited for the release of Embrace the Passion: Pets in Space 3 as I am. Here’s the blurb for Operation Ark:

 

She’s a USMC Sergeant deployed to the Garradian Galaxy.

He was raised by the robots who freed him from slavery.

It’s a match made nowhere anyone can figure out.

They clashed as enemies but joined forces to defeat a common foe. Now they’re tasked with returning some freed prisoners to their home worlds. In the next galaxy. With an alien, a robot, and a caticorn. It was a bar joke without a punch line, though Carolina City has a feeling it is out there—like the truth.

Kraye isn’t eager to return to his galaxy where the dark secret of his past lays in wait, but he’s willing to risk it in hopes that Caro can teach him what the robots couldn’t: how to be human.

Together they must face a dangerous journey, a lethal enemy with a score to settle, their unexpected desire, and an uncertain future if they make it out alive.

Can Caro and Kraye navigate the minefields—both emotional and space based—to land a happy homecoming for the sentient animals in their care? Can the man raised by robots learn how to kiss the girl while the starchy Marine decides if she is willing to bend the rules for a happy ever after? Don’t miss Pauline Baird Jones’ newest Project Enterprise story!

Please join us for the next round of adventures with romance, danger and pets! All of it happening in space!

~

USA Today Bestselling author Pauline Baird Jones never liked reality, so she writes books. She likes to wander among the genres, rampaging like Godzilla, because she does love peril mixed in her romance.

 

Veronica Scott — Star Cruise: Mystery Dancer 

Thanks for having me as your guest to talk about my story for this year’s Pets In Space3: Embrace the Passion anthology!

I love going back to revisit my interstellar cruise liner, the Nebula Dream, for these PISA stories, as the ship cruises through the futuristic human civilization known as The Sectors.  I’ve written a number of books and novellas centered on events aboard the ship now and find the whole cruise setup lends itself to telling a good scifi romance adventure tale. Readers new to my world don’t need to know a lot of backstory to enjoy the events, and for those who have read others in the series, it’s a nice return to see some favorite characters (I hope!).

So I had the pet and the heroine – a possible princess on the run who was also perhaps a jewel thief and her genie-like feline – but now I had to make her fit into the Nebula Zephyr’s population seamlessly. Since the hero would be one of the former Special Forces soldiers who make up the ship’s security force, I had to be able to make the two meet and fall in love. I’m not a ‘crime caper’ person. Movies like ‘Ocean’s 8’ or other similar stories leave me unmoved, although I appreciate the intricate plotting and the hunky handsome movie stars. So I didn’t want to actually write a jewel thief subplot in any depth for this story. My interests were more on the Anastasia-like subplot as to whether she was really a longlost princess and of course my mysterious alien pet.

So how could I get Tassia on the ship if she wasn’t going on board to steal other people’s jewels?

The Nebula class interstellar cruise ships have casinos and theaters and lavish shows, like Las Vegas or on big cruise liners today, so of course they have a resident troupe of performers. I’ve wanted to do a story about the Comettes dance troupe since I wrote my very first published scifi romance, Wreck of the Nebula Dream (a sister ship of sorts to the one I write about nowadays) and mentioned the fact that these ladies existed. Dancing exquisitely seemed like a skill a girl who was perhaps a royal princess might have acquired, right? So I decided to show her becoming the newest member of the Comettes as a way to travel between star systems….throw in at least one fabulous jewel and the PISA3 story came to life!

Anthology Blurb:

Pets in Space™ is back! Join us as we unveil eleven original, never-before-published action-filled romances that will heat your blood and warm your heart! New York Times, USA Today and Award-winning authors S.E. Smith, Anna Hackett, Ruby Lionsdrake, Veronica Scott, Pauline Baird Jones, Carol Van Natta, Tiffany Roberts, Alexis Glynn Latner, E D Walker, JC Hay, and Kyndra Hatch combine their love for Science Fiction Romance and pets to bring readers sexy, action-packed romances while helping our favorite charity. Proud supporters of Hero-Dogs.org, Pets in Space™ authors have donated over $4,400 in the past two years to help place specially trained dogs with veterans. Open your hearts and grab your limited release copy of Embrace the Romance: Pets in Space™ 3 today!

STAR CRUISE: MYSTERY DANCER blurb:  Tassia Megg is a woman on the run after the death of her elderly guardian. Her search to get off the planet in a hurry comes when chance directs her to an open dance audition for the luxury cruise liner Nebula Zephyr’s resident troupe. If there is one thing Tassia can do, it is dance!

Security Officer Liam Austin is suspicious of the newest performer to join the Comettes. She shows all the signs of being a woman on the run and seems to fit the Sectors-wide broadcast description of a missing thief, accused of stealing priceless artifacts. As he gets to know Tassia during the cruise, he starts to wonder if she’s something more – a long vanished princess in hiding from deadly political enemies of her family perhaps? And what’s the story with the three-eyed feline companion other crew members swear Tassia brought aboard the ship? Does the animal even exist?

As the ship approaches its next port of call, all the issues come to a boil and Liam must decide if he’ll step in to help Tassia or betray her. Life is about to get very interesting aboard the Nebula Zephyr as Liam tries to uncover the truth. Could F’rrh, the peculiar alien cat he has been hearing about, be the key to the mystery and Tassia’s fate?

The excerpt – part of Tassia’s audition for the troupe:

Sure enough, Tassia’s number was posted as part of the callbacks for round two, as was Micki’s.

The remaining applicants were given an hour to change and stretch and prepare. Chatting to each other amiably, the judges left the room by a door on the far side.

“Aren’t you going to change?” Micki asked curiously. She was putting on a pretty spangled costume accenting the color of her hair and eyes.

“Nothing to change into.” Tassia shrugged. She’d decided a long time ago not to be embarrassed about things she couldn’t alter. Leaning her head against the wall, she ran through the steps in her mind of the ritual dance she’d decided to perform as a solo. It was artistic, graceful, and technical. Maybe the wrong choice for this audition, where the job was to be in a popular entertainment ensemble, with an audience of tourists, bored interstellar businessmen, and a sprinkling of rich Socialites, but it was all she had to offer. Her core training was from the temple of her childhood, reinforced by Xandrina as they’d traveled, enriched a bit by other dance styles she’d studied in bits and pieces along the way. But in this environment today, under all the stress, it was best to dance from the heart. A loud noise in the corridor outside startled her, raising her pulse, then one eyelid began to twitch with stress. I’ve got to calm down or I don’t stand a chance. Tassia tried to regulate her breathing and ran through a few simple stretches.

“I could lend you a scarf.” Biting her lip, Micki pulled a large floral print length of material from her dance bag. “Make it into a sarong skirt maybe?”

Tassia sat on the floor to begin more advanced exercises. Pulling her ham string or suffering any other injury for lack of preparation would be a disaster.

Micki floated the scarf in front of her face. “Honey, take it. You don’t want to come across as too desperate, like you gotta have the job or you won’t eat again. Makes them wonder why you’re so hard up, y’know?”

There was logic in the thought so, with murmured thanks, she accepted the fabric square. As she played with her steps and the gauzy material, she realized it would integrate well into her routine and serve as a nice accent.

All too soon the second phase of the audition began with the thirty women remaining. Again Tassia watched intently to see what the director seemed to like. She found her gaze straying to the lone man, the security officer, and sharply reprimanded herself. He had no reason to doubt her story, her fake papers were impeccable, and—even if he was handsome in a roughhewn way—well there was no time in her life for dalliance. Even if she made it to the ship.

Micki’s solo was full of energy and sexy moves, and the judges reacted very favorably, making notes on their handhelds and smiling. Her infectious grin and all those curls were hard to resist.

Tassia refused to let herself feel nerves. She’d done this dance thousands of times, under Madame Xandrina’s exacting eye. She wouldn’t fail either her late dance mistress or herself.

Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40237564-embrace-the-passion

Website: https://www.petsinspaceantho.com

Pets in Space™ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/PetsInSpace/

~

USA Today Best Selling Author Veronica Scott grew up in a house with a library as its heart and thought there needed to be more romance in everything but especially science fiction.  Blog: https://veronicascott.wordpress.com/

 

Alexis Glynn Latner — Starway

Creating characters is a mysterious process. A writer may need to have the hero’s friend or the heroine’s colleague in a story. The writer might then look around their invented universe to see if somebody from another story could be this person. Or perhaps the new character is a relative of an already invented character. That’s what I did in my story “Starway” in Pets in Space: Embrace the Romance. The hero’s friend Koi is a cousin of an important secondary character in my next novel, Witherspin (2019).

Because I knew his nationality (from the interstellar city-state Wendis) and his family (the Low family, who are important in the Wendisan Service Guild), I had a good start on creating Koi.

Any new character has to have a few distinctive traits—possibly assigned on the fly when a deadline is impending. It’s also possible for a character to develop a whole life, past and future, of their own. That’s what happened in writing “Starway.” The interstellar hotel called Starway offers almost anything a traveler might want, including sex. Koi is a sex worker, which is a legitimate profession under the highly respectable aegis of the Service Guild. Then Koi turned out to be trans. (Inspiration happens. While working on the story I met someone who generously helped me understand being trans.) Feminine dress and manner—sometimes—is part of who Koi is.

Something else I discovered about Koi is his true name. Wendisans all have nicknames, derived from given names which tend to be those of ancient heroes and gods. I had to come up with an ancient, noble and unwieldy name for which Koi is a likely nickname. Since Wendis is partly based on Japan, I did an Internet search for Japanese heroes and gods. One name rang like a bell in my imagination: Tsukuyomi is a moon god. Modern, anime-influenced drawings of Tsukuyomi show a slender figure with long dark hair and an air of mysterious power. Perfect!

Koi meant a pretty fish. It was a nickname that made it easy for someone to take Koi for less than he might be. Danyel had known Koi long enough to suspect that there was much more to Koi than met the eyes (and other body parts) of his clients.

Oh yes. Koi Tsukuyomi Low is a secret agent of Wendis—dedicated to the safety of Wendisan citizens and the independence of Wendis in dangerous times. He has a past and a future too. He’ll appear again in the final version of Witherspin, where some exciting scenes unfold in Starway.

Star, drawn by our talented artist Nyssa Juneau, is on a cute tote bag from Zazzle (https://www.zazzle.com/embrace_the_passion_pets_in_space_3_alexis_tote_bag-256602506761583359.) Wendisans themselves don’t use tote bags. They unfold a large, thin, strong cloth and neatly knot the ends to make a portable package, as I once watched a Japanese patron do at the University library where I work. Creating cultures is as much fun as creating characters!

~

Alexis Glynn Latner, based in Houston, writes science fiction about space exploration and star travel, adventure, hope and love. Her Website is www.alexisglynnlatner.com.

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Thanks for reading through these guest entries. As promised, here is a picture of my “Quashi” critter:

The science fiction romance (with alien pets) anthology you’ve been waiting for…

Embrace the Passion: Pets in Space 3