Sorry for the prolonged absence.
[Insert excuses here, including, but not limited to: personal failings, family crises, et al.]
I do have some news. I have not one, but two new novels I'm preparing for query submissions. Both are mainstream fiction and, unlike The Starforce Saga, much more suited to traditional publishing. Despite the popularity of superheroes in cinema, superhero-themed fiction is regarded as a hard sell by publishers.
Let's start with a little star-spanning space opera:
THE ANGRY HEAVENS is a 91,000-word military science fiction novel and the first book in The Enigma Legacy series. It combines the tactical naval action of Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet with the ensemble character drama of Elizabeth Moon's Vatta's War series and a slow-burn romance that earns every page.
In 2286, wolf-like alien warriors called the Nh'rdavrh – "The Pack" – launch an unprovoked attack on humanity's most distant colony, killing three thousand colonists and setting in motion the systematic destruction of the entire Terran Federation. Naval pilot Captain Christian "Hawk" Holloway wants nothing more than to get into the fight. Instead, the carrier he serves on is sidelined and assigned to test an experimental fighter developed by Naval Research scientist Dr. Angela Burroughs. Their partnership is immediately complicated: Angela is the older sister of the woman who shattered Holloway's heart a decade ago, and the fighter she's built contains a revolutionary "skipdrive" – a technology that could either save humanity or kill its pilot.
As The Pack advances, Earth faces invasion from two directions. Operation Twilight Angel, humanity's desperate plan to evacuate its best minds to a secret stronghold in another galaxy, collapses when a cowardly president steals the navy’s flagship and abandons a thousand refugees. The battered carrier Selene must fight her way across desolate with a a mere trio of escorts and a civilian cargo of humanity's future.
THE ANGRY HEAVENS features a large but carefully managed ensemble – a fiercely loyal wingwoman, a traumatized young hero, and a troubled sister who might be beyond redemption. Readers of The Expanse, David Weber's Honor Harrington series, and Battlestar Galactica will recognize the pleasures of hard tactical SF grounded in deeply human relationships.
The series continues in COALS OF VENGEANCE, in which humanity, sheltered and regrouping seventy thousand light-years from Earth, seeks allies for a counteroffensive to defeat the Nh'rdavrh and take their world back.
Just to shake things up, let's shift gears and delve (LOL, AI flag!) into some romantic comedy:
Samantha Carlson would like you to know she is absolutely not in love with her best friend. She's a professional – a film producer and a con artist of the highest order. She's a charming master of cajoling, coercing, and even a little seducing to get her movie made. And she's in a rural Georgia town producing a low-budget film to pay off a debt to a Russian crime boss, and if that film also gives the man she's carried a torch for since film school the career comeback he desperately needs – well, that's a happy bonus.
SCENE STEALING is a romantic comedy complete at approximately 70,000 words, in the tradition of Emily Henry and Sophie Kinsella, with the added spice of a con artist narrator who is far more reliable than she'd like you to think.
Sam arrives in Wilmer, Georgia (population: not enough), to produce Forever Odyssey – an independent passion project for Academy Award-winning director Frank Rawlings, her closest friend and the one who friend-zoned her after the best kiss of her life a decade ago. The money comes from Vassily Petrova, a Russian crime boss Sam tried to scam and now owes. The oversight comes from his two nieces, embedded as "aspiring actresses." The trouble comes from everywhere else.
There’s the male lead, Jim – local community theater star and incorrigible womanizer. There's the female lead, Terri – a bartender Frank falls for who turns out to be Jim’s longtime girlfriend. There's Candi, the small-town grifter Sam takes as an apprentice and slowly, catastrophically, begins to actually care about. There’s Ben, the jack-of-all-trades cinematographer who’s been banned from Hollywood for his legendary and public sexual exploits. There's a scheming tabloid reporter, a belly dance scene gone wrong, and a camera crane that keeps trying to kill people. Oh, and a fake romance Sam engineers to protect the production that starts to feel alarmingly real. Throw in the return of Frank's predatory ex-wife with a lawsuit and Sam's worst ex-boyfriend in tow.
Sam is funny, ruthless, deeply self-aware, and constitutionally incapable of telling the one person who matters most the simple truth: that she loves him, that she always has, and that she'd rather offer herself up to a Russian crime boss than risk losing him.
SCENE STEALING will appeal to readers who enjoyed the sharp, self-deprecating voice of Kinsella's Becky Bloomwood, the slow-burn workplace romance of Sally Thorne's The Hating Game, and the film-industry wit of The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center.
Both books are finished, awaiting completion of their thrice-damned synopses. Every author hates writing those and almost every agent wants them with their query submissions. Bleah. But, as the Brits say, "Needs must."
Stay tuned...
