Please welcome our friend Veronica Scott.
Thanks for having me as your guest today to talk about Embrace the Romance: Pets In Space 2!
It’s so lovely to be back on Paranormal Romantics.
Although the anthology is scifi romance, as we all know, the
paranormal and the scifi sometimes intersect and speaking for myself, I’m a
voracious reader of both. Normally in my scifi novels I try to consciously
inject some mysticism and uncanny elements that my tough military heroes can’t
really explain. But they’ve seen enough in their travels around the galaxy to
accept that reality can encompass a lot of stuff
that can’t be dissected with science.
In my novella for this USA Today Best Selling anthology, I
didn’t have a whole lot of time in terms of word length to develop a separate
mythology, versus just getting on with the action. I did give my hero, Grant,
what I hope is an interesting back story in terms of the planet he’s from and
the alien eagle warbird, Valkyr, that is his ‘pet’.
First the blurb for
Star Cruise: Songbird:
Grant Barton, a
Security Officer on the Nebula Zephyr, is less than thrilled with his current
assignment to guard an Interstellar singing sensation while she’s on board the
ship. It doesn’t help that he and his military war bird Valkyr are dealing with
their recent separation from the Sectors Special Forces and uncertainty over
their future, with their own planet in ruins.
Karissa Dawnstar is on
top of the charts and seemingly has it all – talent, fame, fortune and devoted
fans, but behind her brave smile and upbeat lyrics she hides an aching heart.
When a publicity stunt goes wrong, Karissa finds herself in the arms of the
security officer assigned to protect her – and discovers a mutual attraction
she can’t ignore.
Trouble continues to
plague the pair, driving a wedge between them and leaving Grant certain that
Karissa is in more danger than she realizes, from overzealous fans and her own
management. Grant is determined to protect Karissa whether she wants his help
or not. Can he discover the truth behind what’s going on before he loses
Karissa or is there someone else plotting to keep them apart – permanently?
The excerpt – Karissa
and Grant have taken Valkyr the eagle to a planet’s surface for exercise:
“Why are you so sure Valkyr won’t want to stay here? I mean,
mountains, right?” She waved her hand in the direction of the ravine.
“Not our mountains though. It’s not home.” Leaning back,
Grant finished his juice and said, “Qaazamir eagles bond at birth with their
handler. That’s how we have our mental link. Actually, Valkyr bonded with my
great grandfather.”
Mouth open in shock, she asked, “How old is he?”
“Two hundred or so. It was common for the birds to be passed
down in the same family line. As long as the DNA of the descendants contained
certain dominant markers, the bird treated each the same as his original
partner. He only bonds to one human at a time, so the new handler must be
present at the death of the previous owner, or very close. Of course sometimes
birds were stolen by upstarts the elders hadn’t selected. Clan wars were fought
over good nesting areas. An egg was the most desired dowry.” Grant smiled.
“There was an entire indigenous culture on Qaazamir, rich traditions.”
“What happened?”
“The Sectors happened. Qaazamir was colonized early on,
before many of the laws and protections were developed. If the planet was
discovered for the first time now, there’d be no colonization because the
planet had inhabitants and the birds would still exist. My people would still
exist.” He stared at the horizon. These were matters of which he normally never
spoke. “But the colonists pushed the rightful owners of the planet aside, mined
the rich ores, polluted the water and the ground…it’s a toxic hellhole now. In
fact, what happened on Qaazamir was the primary reason the Sectors established
safeguards. But by then it was too late for us. We had a dying planet. My
ancestors refused to accept reality for a long time. They thought having won
their case at the Sectors Supreme Court meant everything would be fine. But the
corporate colonists left and the poisons remained.”
“You—you were the upstart who took the bird? Took Valkyr?”
He nodded. “I could see the way the extinction trend was
going. Valkyr had passed to my great aunt and then my father. I was already in
the Special Forces when he was dying of amphbagan fever, a wasting disease
caused by the poisons leaching from the ground, but I got compassionate leave
and made it home in time. I took Valkyr with my father’s blessing, if not that
of the elders. I tried to find a female so he could mate, but by then there
were no more females. The last few clutches of eggs were deformed and never
hatched. I was banished in absentia for
stealing Valkyr from my cousin.”
He turned his gaze on Karissa, who was leaning forward, chin
resting on her hand, apparently mesmerized by his story. “My father and I felt
that as long as one Qaazamir eagle flew free somewhere in the galaxy, our
people, our traditions would not have perished. There are no birds and hardly
any people left on Qaazamir. It’s a wasteland. The military was happy to accept
Valkyr and me into the Z Command, to carry out unique missions behind enemy
lines.”
*******************************************
I’ll add one more thing – I wrote my hero Grant as a little
bit of a tribute to Hosteen Storm, the wonderful hero in Andre Norton’s Beast Master, who you may remember had
an African eagle as part of his fighting team. Two different guys, two
different galaxies…but I like to think they’d have gotten along well.
Blurb for Embrace the Romance: Pets In Space 2:
The
pets are back! Embrace the Romance: Pets
in Space 2, featuring twelve of today’s leading Science Fiction Romance
authors brings you a dozen original stories written just for you! Join in the
fun, from the Dragon Lords of Valdier to a trip aboard award-winning author,
Veronica Scott’s Nebula Zephyr to journeying back to Luda where Grim is King,
for stories that will take you out of this world! Join New York Times, USA
TODAY, and Award-winning authors S.E. Smith, M.K. Eidem, Susan Grant, Michelle
Howard, Cara Bristol, Veronica Scott, Pauline Baird Jones, Laurie A. Green,
Sabine Priestley, Jessica E. Subject, Carol Van Natta, and Alexis Glynn Latner
as they share stories and help out Hero-Dogs.org, a charity that supports our veterans!
10% of the first month’s profits go to
Hero-Dogs.org. Hero Dogs raises and
trains service dogs and places them free of charge with US Veterans to improve
quality of life and restore independence.
Our website: http://www.petsinspaceantho.com/
Author Bio:
USA Today Best Selling author, and “SciFi Encounters”
columnist for the USA Today Happy Ever After blog, Veronica Scott grew up in a
house with a library as its heart. Dad loved science fiction, Mom loved ancient
history and Veronica thought there needed to be more romance in everything.
When she ran out of books to read, she started writing her own stories.
Seven time winner of the SFR Galaxy Award, as well as a
National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award, Veronica is also the proud
recipient of a NASA Exceptional Service Medal relating to her former day job,
not her romances! She recently was honored to read the part of Star Trek Crew
Member in the audiobook production of Harlan Ellison’s “The City On the Edge of
Forever.”
Twitter: https://twitter.com/vscotttheauthor
9 comments:
Have it on my Kindle and can't wait to kick back and enjoy. Have loved reading your excepts! And who can resist a story that has an animal (even an "exotic" animal!) in it?
Thanks for having me as your guest today! And thanks to Nancy - I hope you'll enjoy the adventure!
I love your story so much! Grant is a wonderful hero.
I loved reading this part of your story again, and for the tribute to the queen of SF&F, Andre Norton.
Loved the cultural history of your story and the themes of responsible vs. irresponsible colonization. It gave me a pang of sadness to think that when Valkyr is gone, all that he is will be gone with him. Having a raptor that is passed down through the generations as the "family wealth" is a very cool idea!
I enjoyed the excerpts!
The background on the eagle is so cool - sounds like a great story, Veronica!
So glad you shared your pet story with us. I loved it. A war eagle and a songbird. Take it both ways--the birds and the characters. They are so good for each other. Best wishes, Veronica, to you and the rest of the authors.
Glad you stopped back and shared about your book, I love any story that has an awesome animal of any type!
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