Do authors and readers, earthlings and extraterrestrials, live in an amazing age or what? Publishers are listening and accepting submissions as readers show they don't care if genres mix. Doors and closets are not just flung open, they no longer exist. Unfettered stories can soar. The universes fill with possibilities as, for example, within my current release-Honey Moon-where romance holds hands with suspense that's merged with sci-fi. Here is a rundown of what you can expect from my book:
Honey Moon
Romance: E-readers are here to stay, with no limits on improving models other than an engineer's skill and imagination. Adults can read, gobble stories without any bigots or repressed prudish types judging their choices based on what they can see on the covers and backs of paperbacks.
I love stories where scenes-sex, settings, battles, dialogue, and so on-flow with word count based on just what's needed to show the emotions, problems the characters deal with. Desire, sex, love are too integral to the human condition for writers to be conservative or inhibited over detailing. I'm thrilled to be in an age where authors can concentrate on any heat level the story takes them to.
Suspense: Of course all memorable stories need villains or the concept of one, in order for flawed characters to shine. Homophobia and the pain it causes is a popular plot theme. In the real world, I love the baby steps recently made in regards to same sex relationships. Less than two decades after a sweet, loving young man named Matthew Sheppard was beaten, tortured and left to die near Laramie, Wyoming, USA for his sexuality, the USA Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage to be a constitutional right.
The plot of Honey Moon takes a different twist rather than that of the discrimination and abuse of same sex pairings. On a futuristic Earth, a select group of the ultra wealthy focus-and not in a good way-on the couples who have admitted in a questionnaire, to be straight. Add in a worried heroine hooking up with a protective whistleblower and the countdown to trouble begins.
Science Fiction: Honey Moon is set on Earth but the doors-or shuttles-are open to beyond. I am inspired by real events such as on July 21 Breakthrough Listen was launched. This marks a major effort to search for signs of life. The project is said to be the most powerful search for ET ever initiated. It'll hunt for nothing but signals of life from anywhere other than Earth.
Sir Stephen Hawking voiced his fears concerning reaching out to alien life. To paraphrase, he said history shows contact between humans and less intelligent organisms has often been disastrous from the point of view of the non-human, and why would an alien race be any different than humans? But he agreed the desire to know and to learn trumps the fear of being wiped out by indifferent aliens. Others pointed out that aliens that advanced shouldn't have need to exploit a lesser civilization. They'd not be hunting for slaves, food or materials from other planets. That the rarity and preciousness of life within the cosmos could very well shine as a prerogative to be protected by all sentient intelligence, and considering the age of the universes, Earth probably wouldn't be such an advanced species first encounter.
In Honey Moon the time setting isn't that far down the road. Luckily for my heroine and hero, aliens have yet to stomp on or interfere with Earth or its moon. Sam and Jenna have their hands filled dealing with themselves and humanity.
Here's to a blend of genres, in an age where a Great Grandpa can read romance with a plot full of suspense and futuristic settings, his e-reader hidden-or not-in his newspaper or Bible.