IN SEARCH OF NEW READS, PART I

Quick! Name some SFR writers!

Ha! you say, and easily rattle off half a dozen well-known authors. Your list probably includes those who are at the top of their game right now—Linnea Sinclair, Susan Grant, Ann Aguirre, Nalini Singh, even Sherrilyn Kenyon, if we go by the numbers. It may include old favorites like Lois McMaster Bujold or Anne McCaffery. If you’re savvy and with-it, your list is growing to include up-and-comers like D.L. Jackson and Barbara Elsborg (and one day soon, the hosts of this blog!).

But, of course, it’s our job here at Spacefreighters Lounge to scout out the far, dusty corners of the SFR galaxy (and your local Borders, Barnes and Noble or Joe’s Bookshop) to dig up lesser known authors. Birders have a Life List of feathered creatures they’ve spotted. Readers of genre fiction have the same kind of weird fascination with sharing the more obscure authors on their Lifetime Reading Lists.
Now, truly, most of the authors on my Life List are hardly unknowns. Linda Howard and Nalini Singh, for example, are personal favorites of mine and millions of other readers, too. It’s just that they hadn’t been generally recognized as science fiction romance authors. They needed a “tag alert” so you could find them, in Linda’s case for her excellent time travel/suspense romance KILLING TIME, and in Nalini’s case for her entire Psy/Changling series.

The same could be said for award-winning paranormal writers Angela Knight and Gena Showalter. Angela is perhaps best known for her MAGEVERSE series of paranormals, the latest of which is MASTER OF FIRE. But she began her career with futuristic short fiction for Ellora’s Cave and Red Sage. Of those, MERCENARIES (Ellora’s Cave) has been expanded and republished by Berkley. “Roarke’s Prisoner” is still available as part of the SECRETS, Vol. 2 anthology from Red Sage.

Angela has also had recent success with her futuristic TIME HUNTERS series, WARRIOR and GUARDIAN. This series follows a team of “genetically engineered cyborgs dedicated to protecting time travelers from each other.” Need I say these cyborgs are sexy alpha male types? And in need of someone to help them get in touch with their feelings? Well worth checking out, particularly if you like your SFR hot and action-oriented.

The amazing Gena Showalter has hit gold with two paranormal series, LORDS OF THE UNDERWORLD and ATLANTIS, and often introduces new series titles or related titles as e-books or YA spin-offs. She’s just a busy gal! But you may not be aware of her excellent near-future SFR series of ALIEN HUNTRESS novels, beginning with AWAKEN ME DARKLY and including most recently SEDUCE THE DARKNESS.

How about this for backcover copy (from Gena’s website, for AMD): In a time and place not too far away, Mia Snow is an alien huntress for the New Chicago Police Department, and she’s the perfect girl for the job. Tough and sexy, she’s earned each of her scars battling the elusive enemy among us. Now, investigating a series of killings, she is shaken to the core when a burst of violence leaves her partner Dallas fighting for his life. A tall, erotic stranger holds the power to heal the injured agent — and to bind Mia in an electrifying and dangerous seduction. He is Kyrin en Arr, of the deadly Arcadian species — an alien, a murder suspect — who has Mia walking a knife’s edge, risking her badge and even her life . . . and edging closer to a shocking revelation that will shatter everything she’s ever believed.

Sounds good, huh? I’ve read two titles in the series and found them to be tight, edgy and evocative of a dark vision of the future that’s Gena’s own. Oh, and hot, too. Just what I’m looking for in SFR. The next title in the series is not due until November of this year. That should give us all enough time to catch up with the ones we’ve missed.

All right, maybe you all had Angela Knight and Gena Showalter on your Skiffy Rommer lists, too. Shoot me a line and let me know how much you enjoyed their lesser-known SFR stuff. And be sure to add their names to the ongoing tag party Heather Massey, our own Laurie Green and others have working to spread the news about SFR.

Meanwhile, I’ll try harder to find someone you don’t know next time with IN SEARCH OF NEW READS, PART TWO!

Cheers, Donna