To our readers, due to a scheduling glitch last month Toni Sweeney's post was partially hidden, so we invited her to return. Welcome back, Toni.
SINBAD’S TRIUMPH: You can’t keep a Good Smuggler Down
I never really intended to write a series when I
started The Story of a Peace-Loving Man.
It just happened.
I was just going to tell a love story set in the future, a single-shot,
stand-alone novel—of a sexy, strutting half-breed smuggler who hated Terrans
and the Earthwoman who made him forget that.
There would be strife, of course, because she was married and he was
trying his best to keep from falling in love with her. There would be adventure as they tracked her
fugitive husband across the galaxy through various dens of iniquity, but it
would be definitely end Happily Ever After. As usual with things having to do with Sinbad
sh’en Singh, it didn’t turn out that way.
Studying it now, I realize what I really wrote is just one gigantic soap
opera set in the future on a planet far, far away…and the introduction to this
sudsy space saga might go something like this;
Welcome once again, dear reader, to the Adventures
of Sinbad…the stories which ask the question: can a halfbreed human-hating smuggler find
happiness with a very human adopted Navajo in spite of threats from the United
Terran Federation and many of his nefarious criminal cohorts?
Therein lies the question, to misquote ol’ Will Shakespeare, who wrote
some mighty epics but whose comedies were slightly soap opera-ish if one wants
to look at them close enough. So why
don’t we give the Adventures a once-over and see if they really do
qualify to sell soap to the intergalactic masses?
The story of Sinbad and Andi is a lesson in the course of True Love
running as rocky as it can. The Story of
a Peace-Loving Man is more or less a prequel, telling why the things
happened making Sinbad sh’en Singh a smuggler. Then, at the end of Sinbad’s
Last Voyage, in between searching for Andi’s husband, fighting off old
enemies, and having a child with Andi, Sinbad learns he’s dying of a disease
contracted while he was a prisoner in the Toxic Zone, the Federation’s
deadliest prison.
Well, I couldn’t just leave it there. Could I?
I had to get Sin and Andi married, and save my hero to fight another
day. So, along came Sinbad’s Wife,
in which, among other things, Sin struggles to convince Andi to make an honest
man of him, he discovers he has a 15-year-old son, then promptly collapses into
a coma brought on by his terminal disease.
Piling it on even thicker (after all this is a space opera),
there is only one doctor who can save Sin and he blackmails Andi into becoming
his mistress before he’ll perform the surgery. After much soul-searching, she
agrees, and the surgery goes without hitch. Andi is subsequently kidnapped by
her former husband, a power-mad Serapian general named Tran, who makes her into
a sex slave. She’s rescued by Sinbad who
kills Tran in a duel-to-the-death, but not before Andi has given birth to
Tran’s second son. Sin, a sucker for
infants and his wife’s tears, accepts the baby, they go into a clinch…roll
credits…
Whew! Are you still with me? Is this getting pretty sudsy and soapy so
far? Did you see the kitchen sink
peeping out from behind that last paragraph? Could I stop after that? Nosiree.
So,
let’s continue:
Sinbad’s Pride: You can’t keep a good smuggler down! He tried the Straight-and-Narrow but it just
didn’t work,
Sin’s been pardoned by the Federation, he’s a law-abiding citizen (much
to his dismay) and he’s back on his home planet, being re-instated as his
grandfather’s heir and about to inherit one-third of the planet Felida. Having now reached the age of thirty-one and
considered a mature adult (though Andi sometimes denies that), Sin is bored and
looking for some trouble to get into. He
finds it in the Peace Treaty Felida signed after being defeated by the United
Terran Federation. In it there’s a
loophole which no one, not even the Federation realizes is there, a clause
preventing prosecution of any Pride member for any future crime against the
Federation.
Well!
When someone who hates the Fed as much as Sin does finds a document like
that, you know something big is going down. With the aid of the other Pride
Chiefs, Sin decides to turn Felida into the biggest smuggling planet in the
galaxy…and thumb his nose at the Fed at the same time. Of course, there are immediate complications,
such as the fact that the Pride Chiefs want a personal affiliation with the
operation, and send their nubile daughters to Sin as concubines. Sin tries to explain to Andi they mean
nothing. It’s all politics. Andi doesn’t see it that way. There’s trouble brewing in the bedroom
tonight. And for many nights to
come. If Sin doesn’t watch it, he’s
going to be sleeping on the sofa until he’s an octogenerian.
And now we come to Sinbad’s
Triumph…
At first it may not seem like much of a victory. In a dogfight with Tsan Hsi who’s been
attacking his ships since the Brotherhood returned the trade routes to Sin,
Sinbad’s ship the Dream Mariner is
shot down and our hero doesn’t walk away from the crash. Now an invalid, he’s bedridden and for the
first time in his life has to rely on others for assistance.
The triumphant part? How Sin accepts,
then overcomes his disability.
No matter what happens, however,
one thing is certain: Sinbad loves Andi
and he’ll do anything to keep that love.
It’s also a story about family, and how a man who has lost everything
must now try to keep together the one he’s suddenly blessed with in the face of
crises which would usually blast that family apart. How Sin works it out is an erotic, sometimes
funny, sometimes tragic adventure, and one I think readers will enjoy it.
Kudos
for Sinbad’s Triumph:
“You’ll
take every rewarding step with Sin as he triumphs over his tragedy, and you
respect the way Andi deals with his physical challenges, never giving him any
reason to feel he is less of a man than he was before his crash…this plot will
have you glued to the pages…you'll be anxious to read book six...I highly
recommend this entire series.”—Two Lips Review
“…is just as gripping and exhilarating as its predecessor…”—Amazon
Review
“…the dramatic sh’en Singh family dynamics…in this book makes for a
truly wonderful read” –Merrylee review
About the Author:
This year, Toni V. Sweeney
celebrated her 74th birthday and penned her 74th novel.
Toni has lived 30 years in the
South, a score in the Middle West, and a decade on the Pacific Coast and now
she’s trying for her second 30 on the Great Plains.
Since the publication of her
first novel in 1989, Toni divides her time between writing SF/Fantasy under her
own name and romances under her pseudonym Icy Snow Blackstone. Her novels have
garnered awards from The National Writers Association, Preditors & Editors,
The Maryland Writers Association, and The Paranormal Romance Guild. In March,
2013, she became publicity manager for Class Act Books. She is also on the
review staff of the New York Journal of Books and the Paranormal Romance
Guild. Recently she was named a
professional reader by netgalley.com.
Sinbad’s
Triumph will be released March 15, 2017 by Class Act Books and will be
available on the publisher’s website, at Amazon, Barnes & Noble,
Smashwords, and Draft2Digital,
More
about Toni at:
Twitter: @ToniVSweeney
. .
4 comments:
Welcome back!
Best wishes, Toni. This book sounds so interesting.
Hi Toni! Thanks for sharing! The book sounds great. :)
This series sounds awesome, Toni!
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