Spotlight to support Authors of Color

The world's on fire. We went silent last week at the SFF Seven to give space for the voices that needed to be heard, and now we all need to be on the same page. Because after the fire's out I hope the world is changed and stays changed. As James stated earlier in the week; Black Lives Matter and Black Authors Matter. 

Writing a book is hard. Publishing is hard. And if the deck is stacked against you before you even begin? It's even harder. So this week we're spotlighting some of our favorite reads by Authors of Color, particularly African American writers.

With the pandemic I've gone back and binged on some comfort reads, some series that I know well (have read multiple times already). One of them was:

Dragon Kin Series by G.A. Aiken (A.K.A. Shelly Laurenston)
This paranormal romance series is about dragon shapeshifters and those who fall in love with them. Book one has always been, and still is, my favorite. Annwyl's mouth makes me laugh out loud!


Earthsinger Chronicles by L. Penelope
This fantasy romance series has GORGEOUS covers! Which was what originally drew me to them in the first place. Then on Jeffe's First Cup of Coffee she started talking about L. Penelope's podcast, My Imaginary Friends, they both cross-reference each other in streaks. And after that, I had to crack open the first book. The series has magic and war...I was swept away! Cry of Metal & Bone comes out in August and might be my fave cover of the series so far!


MEM by Bethany C. Morrow
This art deco historical fiction has an exciting, sci-fi twist: scientists have discovered how to extract memories, and the result is a clone copy of the person! But one clone begins to have her own memories... It blew. My. Mind. It's definitely one of the novels I believe everyone should read. I'm eagerly waiting for news that Morrow has another sci-fi release coming. *crossing-fingers*

Have you read any of these? If not, seriously...check out the covers!! I'm such a sucker for a good book cover. 

Release Day: ENEMY STORM by Marcella Burnard

Today, please join us in congratulating SFF Seven member Marcella Burnard, who is releasing Enemy Storm, the third book in her Chronicles of the Empire Series that began with Enemy Within.

ENEMY STORM: CHRONICLES OF THE EMPIRE, BOOK THREE

It's never a good day when a radioactive hunk of starship nearly drops on your head. 

The Claugh Empire attacked Edie's planet fifteen years ago, murdered her parents, and left the teen for dead. So when a wrecked Claugh starship interrupts a salvage mission, she's torn between revenge and rescuing survivors—especially the stirring captain with an uncanny ability to rekindle her dead emotions. Something about him inflames the urge to come to terms with her past. But the mercenary in Edie doubts trusting a former enemy will bring her redemption or put old prejudices to bed. When a new common enemy, hell-bent on wiping out humanoids, threatens to bury them all, the captain tries to convince her a mutual coalition might breach their political impasse—all for the greater good.

Available everywhere:

Amazon | Kobo | GooglePlay | B&N | Apple

Note: This quote from the author really piqued my interest and made me want to read: Main character Edie "is also very loosely based on a dear family friend who challenged me to write a deaf character without having to ‘fix’ the character or have her inability to hear be made into something that would ultimately save everyone. I tried. I hope I did her proud."

And Some Recs Because They're Awesome and #BlackLivesMatter

Last week, SFF Seven took some time to listen and mourn and get angry. This week, we're amplifying Black voices in publishing, specifically in SFF-dom. 

Book I just bought and have started reading and wow: The Good Luck Girls by Charlotte Nicole Davis. A Kirkus Review Best of the Year selection for 2019, The Good Luck Girls is a Westworld + Handmaid's Tale fantasy adventure about five girls who seek "freedom, justice, and revenge in a country that wants them to have none of those things."

Book that broke my heart and was, among other things, one of NPR's best books of 2019: The Deep by Rivers Solomon with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathon Snipes. "The water-breathing descendants of African slave women tossed overboard have built their own underwater society—and must reclaim the memories of their past to shape their future."

Book that I read years ago and still adore: Radio Silence by Alyssa Cole is a gritty, smart postapocalyptic story with a romance at its heart (which is my weakness, admittedly).

New #Sci-Fi #Romance Release: INTERSTELLAR PLAGUE by Veronica Scott

We're celebrating our Saturday blogger Veronica Scott's latest Sci-Fi Romance release in her The Sectors series. Unlike our COVID-19 pandemic, this trip to the far, far future promises a Happily Ever After!

COLONY UNDER SIEGE: INTERSTELLAR PLAGUE

Newly graduated from a prestigious interstellar medical school, Dr. Saffia Mandell has been assigned to the Haven Two colony on the galaxy’s outer rim as the only doctor for some 2000 human residents. She’s counting the days until her five years there is up, trying to adjust to rural living after life in the crowded Inner Sectors and fighting her attraction to Chief Ranger Micah Navonn. She’s dreading the upcoming tourist season when the rich and pampered will descend on the planet for the scenic wonders and novel sports opportunities and no doubt inundate her little clinic but the colony depends on the seasonal income to survive.

>As the senior official for his people, the Calinurra, the indigenous inhabitants of Haven Two, Micah enforces the treaty, regulates the tourist permits, patrols the forests, and resists his fascination with Dr. Mandell. He never expected to be involved with a human woman and doesn’t want to believe in the concept of a fated mate. He wants to keep his life simple and isn’t ready for any long term commitment. Besides Saffia keeps proclaiming she’ll be leaving when her appointment is up in four and a half years so why should he risk his heart?

Then a ship arrives unexpectedly carrying a very ill little girl and soon the deadly virus is spreading through Haven Two. The colony authorities are desperate to cover up the problem to preserve the all-important tourist season and Saffia and Micah have to work together to battle the outbreak, the local administration, and their undeniable feelings for each other.

Can the colony survive? And will Micah and Saffia be able to move past their fears about entanglements to act on the mutual attraction?

BUY IT NOW:   Amazon   |   Apple Books   |   Kobo  |    Nook  |   Google Play

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Last week, dear Reader, we were radio silent on the blog because there were voices with powerful messages who needed to be heard loudly and clearly without us adding to the background din. Demanding diversity, pursuing equality for all, and dismantling white supremacy are goals toward which we strive. Pride Month and the BLM Movement are reminders for us to use our privilege to promote diverse authors and artists. To that end, here are three intriguing fantasy books I can't wait to read:

FRESHWATER by Akwaeke Emezi: An Igbo girl is a living prison for vengeful gods who grow more powerful with every trauma their vessel endures on the journey from troubled child to empowered young woman. 

QUEEN OF THE CONQUERED by Kacen Callender: A fantasy murder mystery set in a colonized Caribbean with a Black noble using all the magic she possesses to stay alive and maybe even inherit a throne from a childless king.

DAUGHTERS OF NRI by Reni K Amayo: Twin child goddess separated when the old gods left the earth are raised as humans until each takes her own path to the villain king and the truths of family, power, and identity.

Black Lives Matter...and so do Black Writers.

Black Lives Matter. In a world with diverse races, no one should be chosen as the target for discrimination and rage. Ever. Are we clear on that? yes? Good.

In an effort to clarify this, we at SFF7 have chosen to highlight some of the writers of color that people might be unaware of. Here are four.

Samuel R Delaney. Seriously, if you read science fiction or fantasy and don't know who Mr. Delaney is, you need to stretch your literary wings a bit. Very possibly the first African American science fiction author published in the US. A best selling author has won enough awards to intimidate, and his writing is damned fine, add to that that the man is also a professor at Temple University.

Linda Addison Best known for her short stories and poetry, Ms Addison is another author who has won numerous awards and another writer who is deserving of your attention. When last I spoke to Linda she was working on a new series 0f science fiction novels that I, personally, can't wait to read. Born in Philadelphia, Linda lives in Arizona these days and continues to write full time. She's also a sweetheart.

Errick Nunnaly Errick writes whatever strikes his fancy. That means I've read superhero fiction and horror alike from him. I think he told me he's working on a fantasy series, but my mind is often full of strange things I swear someone said to me that later prove t be dubious. In any event, I am currently reading his novel ALL THE DEAD MEN ad loving the hell out of it. Errick is also a sweetheart.

Tananarive Due I've met Tannanrive exactly once, and we basically nodded to each other. That was when we were both a good deal younger and before I read her amazing MY SOUL TO KEEP. I followed that one later on with the other three books in the African Immortals series. She's done a lot more, and I've read a few of them. I intend to read them all if I ever catch up on my 400 plus pile of To Be Read books. The lady in question is also the executive producer on HORROR NOIRE on the Shudder Channel, and teaches the Arfofuturism and Back Horror at UCLA. The lady likes to stay busy!

Naming Fantasy Characters, Places, and Things

The upside of me not being in San Diego on June 1 is that my event at Mysterious Galaxy will be available to all of you via Zoom! Would love if you all joined in!

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is Names: What's your favorite source/method for naming your characters, places, etc?

I have several go-to naming sources that I have bookmarked for fast and easy access. My first stop is always BehindtheName.com, the etymology and history of first names. The advanced search allows you find names by gender (or lack thereof), meaning, usage (including mythological, biblical, archaic, etc.), and keyword. I love to start with a name meaning and triangulate from there. It's also meticulously cross-linked, so you can find associated names and roots.

There is also a Surname version of the site, http://surnames.behindthename.com/, which works the same way and is a great resource for building family trees and genealogies. Both of these work great to name places as well.

Once I settle on a general language group that I'm drawing from for a particular world, or place within a world, I find and bookmark an online dictionary for that language. I love to find the ones that index the old versions of the language too. ::The Vikings of Bjornstad :: Old Norse Dictionary is a great example. I can search for English concepts, find an old Norse version of the word, and then add a bit of drift to the spelling to make it my own.

Finally, I often resort to good old basic etymology to build new words. I look up the etymology of a word that embodies the concept of the person, place, or thing I want - then I break it down into component roots. Sometimes I search for related roots in other languages. Then I piece the concepts together again, maybe add some spelling drift and there it is! New word.

Now you guys know all of my secrets and can no doubt reverse engineer names from my books!

Which Character Do Readers Ask Me To Write for?

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is the Character your readers ask you to write for or are waiting for to get their own story.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have readers become really fond of several of my supporting characters over the years beginning with Wreck of the Nebula Dream, my first published scifi romance in 2012. Almost immediately I started getting questions about what happened next for Twilka, a spoiled rich girl, and Khevan, the D’nvannae Brother she fell in love with. (He serves an alien goddess and can be an assassin or a bodyguard at Her whim.)

The thing for me is that I very much only write what the Muse is in the mood for, or feels strongly about. So even for a much beloved supporting character, I have to wait until the right story occurs to me or strikes my fancy. It was especially hard for Twilka and Kevan because there were a lot of moving parts to the D’nvannae Brotherhood but eventually I decided to come at it from the angle of what would someone like Twilka do after surviving the worst interstellar disaster in centuries? For a reference point I asked myself what did people do after surviving the Titanic’s sinking? Researching that was fun (I’m a huge Titanic buff) and gave me the ideas I needed to spin the story, Star Survivors. I also found a way to meaningfully incorporate Nick and Mara from the first novel as supporting cast here.

Shall we say the goddess didn’t give up easily when it came to Khevan’s service in her order? I pulled out another character who I actually have a novel in mind for, the Renegade, a Brother who did manage to escape the Red Lady’s grasp, and made him a supporting member of this book’s cast. He fascinates me and I’ve had bits and pieces of his story on scraps of paper for a long time but it needs more thought before I can write it. So I was happy to have a good reason to bring him into ‘reality’ in this novel, using the backstory I already know about him.

Another supporting character readers loved was Johnny in Mission to Mahjundar. He was loyal, brave, smart, strong and clearly deserved his own book in which to shine. Eventually I got a terrific plot idea about a Special Forces hostage rescue mission gone wrong and sent Johnny off in Hostage to the Stars to find his own love interest and future direction.

Mitch, a Special Forces sergeant and the hero’s best friend in Escape From Zulaire is another supporting character rather similar to Johnny. Readers love him. I love him. I even have a plot in mind developed for him but…the creative spark or fire that makes me have to write the book just hasn’t happened yet. I’m confident this will occur at some point because he’s too good a character not to write for, off key singing and all.

Readers often ask for the story of Captain Fleming in the Star Cruise series of books but I’m not ready to tackle that one yet. It’s on my mind and elements are there but the whole thing hasn’t jelled yet and I can’t write the book he plainly deserves until the Muse is fully engaged and ready.

I have a somewhat different set up in my Badari Warriors series about genetically engineered soldiers of the far future. I knew going in that I’d be writing many books and that each succeeding novel would feature a different member of the pack. What happened there was I wrote about Aydarr the Alpha and Mateer the first enforcer and then Jadrian, a senior soldier, popped into my head one morning with a full-fledged story and I had to write it. When a book shows up in your mind complete and ready to roll, you should never look that gift horse in the mouth – you should write! Which I did. But that meant I’d kind of short circuited Timtur the healer and his turn to shine. By the time of the events in Jadrian he was already mated and settled down. Fortunately I did figure out a way later to go back and write Timtur’s story and then a second novella about him and Megan, his human mate.

Currently I get requests for Sandara, the human chef, who is actually the heroine of the book I just started writing yesterday, along with Ivokk the enforcer from the South Seas pack. Sandara didn’t get treated too well in Jadrian’s book so I’m having fun figuring out her back story even before the aliens kidnapped her along with the rest of her colony, and brught her to the planet where the Badari were imprisoned. I've got what seems to me to be a logical way for her to move on from the events in Jadrian and for her and Ivokk to come together. In the midst of adventures of course!

There’s a lot of world building in my Sectors galactic civilization universe and that’s been so helpful to me so many times in spring boarding from a story into another novel. It’s all kind of organic as you can probably tell – I don’t outline and I don’t think a book through before I start writing it. I’ll know the beginning, the end, a few key scenes in between, the hero and the heroine and then I WRITE. The rest comes to me as I’m in the flow, sitting here pounding on my keyboard, and plot twists and turns can surprise even me at times.

 Readers also want to know the story for Jamokan, Alpha of a Badari pack with alien canine predator DNA infused into the humanoid structure. I have thoughts about this one, but so far the plot elements would probably only be novella-length so we’ll see. I’m not opposed to writing novellas if that’s the proper length the story calls for but I like to give a character a novel for his or her first appearance as leading protagonist if I can, then maybe a novella later to share more adventures.

A character I love and who readers seem to enjoy is Yonn, the Alpha-born in Generation 11. The current generation of fully mature Badari heroes led by Aydarr is #8 so you can see my challenge – with generations 9 and 10 between him and the men and women headlining the series, Yonn’s not old enough to have one of my typical books written about him! He may be mature for his age and possess a high level of dominance and power already but um…a little on the boyish side still. I’m thinking for him I might write a standalone novel, after the series ends (which won’t be for a long time, plenty of stories left to tell), set it in the future ten years or so and delve into Yonn’s further adventures. I think it could be fun and perhaps kick off another, related series.

So we’ll see!

Craving a Character

I crave books like some people crave chocolate. Don't get me wrong, my ultimate treat is a glass of champagne with a side of truffles. But if asked what one thing I crave the most...it's definitely books. If I go too long without reading, I crave it. If I hit too many reads in one genre, I crave another genre. If I get sucked into a multi-volume series, I crave more and more of the side characters.

It's those colorful secondary characters that build up our heroes, that carry their broken comrades up Mount Doom, that are there with shoulders to cry on. And we get attached to them! So when an author turns the spotlight onto one of those beloved supporting characters...it's like getting a box of chocolates.

I'm pre-published, so you can't read about my secondary characters yet. But the one who's gotten the most interest and fangirling over would be Mist from my Dark Queen's Daughter manuscript. This book is based off Norse mythology and Mist is the equivalent of a Valkyrie commander. She's foul mouthed, scarred, and as tough on my main character (MC) as she can possibly be, all because Mist sees the MC as one of her sisters. Oh, and she gets turned into a lynx in the beginning because she mouths off to a druid.

That's my pick for which of my characters do readers crave more of the most. Mist of Íssheim. And if you'd like to see the artwork by Eve Ventrue that inspired Mist, you can check it out on Pinterest here.

How about you? Any books you've read recently where you'd have loved to get another book based solely on a secondary character?

A girl is no one

Hmm. This week we're supposed to talk about characters that readers are clamoring to know more about or begging us to write about. As a reader, I absolutely know what that means, for I fangirl with the fangirliest who've ever fangirled. As a writer, though... welp.

After my first book, a few people asked for Chloe's story, so I wrote it. I think most of those people who had some interest have already read it? Not sure. If you were one of those people and never got around to buying the book, please feel free to contact me privately. I would be happy to send you a copy. I published it for you.

Other than that, this topic really isn't applicable to me, so I will refer you to yesterday's SFF Seven post, which was super exciting: Jeffe Kennedy, our Sunday blogger, released  her latest book, The Fiery Crown. Check it out!

Aaaaaand I'm off to read. :)