Note: This post first appeared in the Roswell Daily Record…
This month I thought I’d highlight a few recent releases in science fiction romance from authors who have been in the genre for quite a while.
I’ll start with my most recent novel, Star Cruise Dream Dancer, which combines a billionaire, a dancer and a dance contest for charity on an interstellar cruise liner. I used to love watching dance show competitions featuring celebrities teamed with professionals and I had so much fun designing my contest and the dances for this book. There are a few more serious plot elements mixed in as well. I hadn’t previously been a consumer of billionaire romances myself so I did a deep dive into the genre to make sure I knew the tropes and found a few wonderful authors who are now autobuys for me. The research paid off in more than one way! I’ve been a published SFR author since 2012.
Jayne Castle, who is also the very well known author Jayne Ann Krentz, has been writing her Harmony SFR series since 2000 and this week is releasing the seventeenth book, People in Glass Houses. As one reviewer said of this series, the author mixes “futuristic suspense, magical settings, and scintillating romance…” In this new book the main male character is an explorer who had been seeking alien antiquities in the tunnels on the planet but a tragedy befell him and everyone else in his expedition vanished. The main female character is the sister of one of those lost and wants his help finding out what happened and perhaps getting her sister back. A perfect set up for adventure and romance.
Anna Hackett, who is one of my favorite SFR authors, has had a number of series in the genre but then moved to concentrating on her contemporary romantic suspense books. She’s now released a new SFR, however; Knightqueen: Oronis Knights Book Three. A queen is abducted, along with her most devoted bodyguard, who she’s loved in secret for years. Together they escape their captors and are on the run. Turns out he’s got his own secret passions and desires. Lots of action and adventure and a scorching romance. Ms. Hackett has been publishing her SFR since 2014.
J. D. Robb’s In Death series about a New York city detective in the year 2058 began in the late 1990’s and book 58 has just been released. Random in Death: An Eve Dallas Novel deals with the case of a club going teenager murdered on the dance floor by lethal injection and the specter of a killer on the loose planning many more such deaths. The science fiction aspects aren’t really the focal point of the books, with the emphasis on police procedural crime solving, but they make it fun and unusual. The female main character has a billionaire husband who used to be a bad boy but now of course is devoted to her, and there is a “found family” of friends and associates who have grown up around Eve over the years. Readers enjoy touching base with these characters and seeing what’s going on with them in the course of the books.
Michelle Diener has been publishing SFR since 2015 and recently released Enthraller (verdant String Book 7). The Verdant String of the title is a group of planets and the plots of the books often revolve around the political problems between the various inhabitants of these worlds, with a lot of action, adventure and romance. In the new installment a researcher is captured by a cult, escapes, discovers an ancestral mothership on a remote moon, receives a ‘gift’ of nanotech in the process and then has to stop the hostile takeover of her home planet. In this she’s aided by a Special Forces soldier, who her nanotech helpfully “enthralls” so he’ll do anything necessary to protect her. The artificial connection is gradually replaced by real romance between the two as the story moves along.
Evangeline Anderson has been serving up her blend of science fiction romance with plenty of heat and spice since 2011. Her SFR focuses on the Kindred, an alien race of gigantic warriors (and there are many types of Kindred) who make a deal to protect the Earth from the alien Scourge, in return for brides. The adventures have gone off into many other solar systems and explored any number of very erotic topics. The most recent Kindred novel was Unwrapped (Kindred Brides 31) where an unappreciated human woman finds out she’s actually supposed to be the bride to two of the strapping Kindred warriors. Believing a mistake has been made, she does agree to go up to the Mothership with them until the issues have been straightened out but then the trio gets sent on a mission in connection with the holidays, there’s a malfunction at the wormhole and they have to join a sex cult on the planet where they end up in order to obtain help fixing their ship to get home. And spice ensues.
Cynthia Sax has been writing about sizzling cyborgs and associated beings in her SFR universe since 2015.** She is also spicy and steamy when setting forth the adventures of her characters and Strike Zone (Dauntless Cyborgs Book One) was no exception. Each cyborg has one genetic match somewhere in the galaxy and once he’s lucky enough to find her, he’ll do anything to win her. Strike, the D model cyborg in this book finds his match when he’s on a secret mission. She asks for his help in rescuing friends of hers who have been kidnapped and since she’s his mate, of course he’ll sign on. The plot widens from there with gritty adventure, a plot to destroy the peace between two planets, those spicy times I mentioned and a Happy Ever After ending.
The community of SFR authors is a big one and there are any number of other people who’ve been in the genre for long periods of time, telling great stories, much to their readers’ delight, but I can only cover so many in one post. Happy reading!
**I recently learned Ms. Sax’s first published SFR was in 2011, but wasn’t a cyborg tale as far as I’m aware. The book is no longer in print.
