Friday, June 6, 2014

Midsummer Dreaming



I love this time of year, especially after the winter we had here in West Michigan. Way too much snow. Not now, though. Warm days and cool nights. My kind of weather. Good sleeping weather, as we say here. Long days, when the sun doesn’t go down until nearly ten o’clock. Lots of time to enjoy the Lake Michigan beaches. Pretty soon June 21st will be here, the longest day of the year. After that, daylight will get shorter until we’ll be back to dreaded winter.

I realize it’s winter right now in the Southern Hemisphere. So that got me thinking about other M-class planets. When I wrote my other stories set on alien planets (and did my world-building) it didn’t occur to me to consider hemispheres. I always thought about weather and locales like deserts or rain forests. I only thought about the immediate locale and not about the rest of the planet. Or even where on the planet the locale was.

Until my latest science fiction romance, The Chameleon. My hero’s family lives in the Southern Hemisphere of a planet I call Traish. A farming area similar to America’s “breadbasket”, the Midwest. My characters only stayed a few hours at his family’s home so I did more description of his home and family than of the area. I used what I know of farming communities (with some literary license) to depict the farm itself then, later in the story, the community.

Extrapolating what I know of our planet to an alien one can make readers feel like they recognize the locale. Same with the desert colony where the major of the story takes place. If I have human characters in my sci-fi romances, they would have to live on M-class planets with locales similar to ours. Or live under a dome. Hmm, that gives me an idea. LOL

Here’s a little about The Chameleon:

Legally Blond meets Mata Hari

Socialite Jileena Winslott has perfected the image of the spoiled, rich, bubble-headed daughter of an industrial magnate. In reality, she’s a smart, savvy aide to her father in social situations where she is his eyes and ears. She yearns to be her true self and run the family business. When her father sends her on a covert mission to the Outer Rim, she has the chance to prove herself. Big problem. He insists she take along a fake fiancĂ©—the man she’s secretly loved for years.

Security Officer Laning Servary has better things to do than babysit a spoiled rich girl on a tour of the Frontier. If he refuses, he can kiss his career good-by. Then Jileena’s father sweetens the pot. If Laning keeps her safe, his family will receive the land they share-crop. He can’t refuse.

In the close quarters of her ship, Laning and Jileena discover they aren’t who they seem. Pirates, weather, and her recklessness threaten to derail the mission. As Laning and Jileena revise their impressions of each other, they’ll have to make hard choices about their goals. Can their budding love survive?

The Chameleon is available at:



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