February Triple Launch and Fifteen Fun Facts!

February is going to be one busy month here on Spacefreighters Lounge as we celebrate the launch of THREE brand new Science Fiction Romance novels from three of our co-bloggers, one from Sharon Lynn Fisher, a rising star in the SFR universe, and two debut novels from Donna S. Frelick and Laurie A. Green, both of which are the lead book in an upcoming series.

As a special preview for each of these upcoming releases and an introduction to our Fabulous February Triple Launch, we put together a list of Five Fun Facts about each of these novels, and a little more about what went into them.

Ready? Here we go...

First up is Sharon Lynn Fisher's Echo 8, which will release on February 3rd. (It's almost here!)

ECHO 8 FUN FACTS

1

Part of ECHO 8 is set on the old Seattle ferry Kalakala (most recognizable symbol of Seattle until the Space Needle), which has a very colorful history. Coincidentally, after a decade sitting in the Port of Tacoma rusting while waiting for someone to decide what to do with her, she was this past week towed to dry dock for scrapping (which will take place next week, just prior to the release of ECHO 8 on Feb. 3). 

2

This book is about parallel Earths. The same year I started writing it, a Seattle musician named Serena Tideman released a recording of original cello compositions that she performed and recorded aboard the Kalakala while it was moored in Seattle. The name of the recording is "Kalakala: Songs from a Parallel Universe."

3

The hero of ECHO 8 is FBI Special Agent Ross McGinnis. Shortly after I started working on the book, I heard about a real hero, Army Specialist Ross McGinnis, who was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for dying to save fellow soldiers from a grenade explosion in Iraq.

4

The heroine of ECHO 8 is Dr. Tess Caufield, a parapsychologist who studied quantum physics. As part of my research, I read a fascinating book about the intersection of psi abilities and quantum physics (ENTANGLE MINDS: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality). The author, Dr. Dean Radin (senior researcher at the Institute of Noetic sciences in California), reviewed parts of ECHO 8 to help ensure my portrayal of the heroine and her work was realistic. 

5

ECHO 8 is hands-down my beta readers' favorite of my books. 

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Next up is Donna S. Frelick's Unchained Memory which releases on February 24th. It's the first book in the Interstellar Rescue series. Here are the Fun Facts.

UNCHAINED MEMORY FUN FACTS

1

The book begins in Nashville, TN.

2
The book's climactic scene is set in Towson MD, home of Shore Leave, the nation's largest fan-run STAR TREK convention.

3
Asia Burdette, the heroine of the story, likes to run for exercise in Nashville's Centennial Park, which boasts a full-size replica of Athens' ancient Parthenon.  On one of her customary runs, she is stalked by an agent of the black ops bad guys who later try to kidnap her.

4
Ethan Roberts, the hero of the story, gets his exercise at an old-school boxing gym.  It's much safer.

5
Not all of the story takes place on Earth.  This is SFR, after all!

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The third novel in the February line-up is Laurie A. Green's Inherit the Stars, which has a tentative release date of February 22nd. It's the first book in the Inherited Stars series.

INHERIT THE STARS FUN FACTS

1
The hero, Sair, is an fugitive slave who's wanted by a galactic superpower. The story is told entirely from the hero's point of view. (There's a blog about Laurie's decision to craft the story in this way on The SFR Brigade blog.)

2
Captain Drea Mennelsohn, the heroine, is a professional P2PC--Planet-to-Planet Courier--in other words, she's a futuristic FedEx driver to the stars. (That's her story and she's sticking to it!)

3
The novel has several aliases. The manuscript had alternate titles of Once Upon a Starship and Specter (the name of Drea's ship), and it was a finalist in the 2011 RWA Golden Heart Awards under the title P2PC. The published title--Inherit the Stars--comes directly from a line of dialogue between Sair and Drea.

4
The setting is a distant corner of the Milky Way Galaxy that's rich in Goldilocks planets, and it happens in an era when Earth is just a dimly remembered legend. 

5
The story puts a whole new spin on the term "sexual freedom."


So there's our list of Fun Facts along with a little taste of each of these stories. Watch for more about our Fabulous February Triple Launch in the days and weeks ahead.

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NEW SFR ADVENTURE: CRISIS AT VALIDOR

Today, Spacefreighters Lounge is honored to host special guest Greta van der Rol as she announces the release of the newest Science Fiction Romance novel in her series.

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I am delighted to announce the release of the fourth book in my Ptorix Empire series, Crisis at Validor.

The books are set in a universe where much of the galaxy is controlled by the Ptorix, a decidedly non-humanoid species which prefers the same sort of worlds we humans do. Although most planets are either Ptorix or human, some have mixed populations, formed as the political balance ebbed and flowed. Validor has a mixed population. The planet has two continents and its inhabitants have agreed that humans will live on one and Ptorix on the other.

The book is set after the events chronicled in the two Iron Admiral books, where the Ptorix suffered a defeat at the hands of the human Confederacy. But the aftermath of war is often resentment on one side and over-confidence on the other. Again, local politics is a different animal to interplanetary politics, with both species having its internal struggles for power.

Brett Butcher, who was Grand Admiral Saahren's adjutant in the Iron Admiral books, gets his own story in this book. Readers will also get to meet the Ptorix as individuals, and not just the enemy. And we meet the dragon-like berzhani, who become involved in a Ptorix-human conflict whether they like it or not.

I can promise you rip-roaring, fast-paced adventure intertwined with a love story.

Here's a short excerpt.

Brett just stood there. Maybe he didn't really want to come. Maybe he was just… Tarlyn didn't know. Back then, he would have come on an adventure just to please her. Now, she wasn't so sure.

"Are you coming?" she called.

He turned, hesitated long enough to say, "Yes," then eased himself off the jetty into the boat, which swayed slightly under his weight. "It's been a long time since I went boating, and it wasn't on the ocean."

"Can you swim?"

He grinned. "You know I can swim."

Yes, she did. They'd gone to the beach together. She'd told her parents she'd gone to the library. She chuckled. "Well, I can pilot the boat. I've done it more than once. So I'll play captain."

Blurb
Newly-promoted Captain Brett Butcher is about to achieve his life-long ambition to command a battle cruiser. But before he takes up his new posting, he goes home on leave, hoping to perhaps catch a glimpse of his first love, the unattainable Lady Tarlyn.

When the queen is assassinated in a terrorist attack, Tarlyn’s life is thrown into turmoil when she, too, becomes a target. The last person she expects to rescue her is her childhood sweetheart, Brett Butcher.

As Validor’s Ptorix and human populations face off over a group of islands neither owns, the calls for war grow louder. Torn between love, duty and ambition, Butcher and Tarlyn struggle to prevent an inter-species conflict, while the ember of love that has smouldered for so long bursts into flame. But with planetary peace at stake, both will be forced to choose; love or duty.

Crisis at Validor is available in ebook at Smashwords | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple and in print.

About the Author
Greta van der Rol loves writing action-packed adventures with a side salad of romance. Most of her work is space opera, but she has written paranormal and historical fiction. She lives not far from the coast in Queensland, Australia and enjoys photography and cooking when she isn't bent over the computer. She has a degree in history and a background in building information systems, both of which go a long way toward helping her in her writing endeavours.

You can connect with Greta van der Rol on these sites:
Website 
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