One Sunday in May, many years ago when I was in college, I got a call from my sister. Since it was Mother’s Day, I was expecting that she had called merely to remind me to call our mother, but it wasn’t that. She was calling to warn me that Mom was a mess because our father had just that morning left her. I found out later that after 28 years of marriage, Dad had learned that a woman he had known more than 10 years before, the wife a fellow naval officer, was now a widow. He had been to see her and had received enough encouragement that he had found an apartment and was leaving Mom.

A pretty crappy thing to do, no? And on Mother’s Day, too! Our family was in shock for years. Mom was especially hard hit because she had been a Navy wife for 20 years of her marriage. We had moved every two or three years. She had a college degree, but had never worked outside the home or had a chance for a career of her own. Even after he got out of the Navy, we moved twice for Dad’s job.

I spent a lot of time pondering whether my mother was better off knowing the truth about how Dad felt about her, or worse off because she had been so dependent on him for so long and was now alone. I could never decide. Neither alternative sounded good.

It was many years later, after I had started writing science fiction, that my parents’ divorce planted a seed in my brain. What would life be like if there was no such thing as divorce? What if finding a mate was a matter of biology and not feelings? And furthermore, what if a mated-for-life pair experienced total empathy with each other? They couldn’t then hide their true feelings. This was obviously not possible with humans, so I came up with a whole new species. I named their planet Wakanreo and the people Wakanreans.

Once I got going on the story, I had two main tasks. First, I had to decide how this quirk of biology would affect Wakanrean history and cultures. Second, I had to decide how it would affect individuals, more specifically my protagonists.

For the first task, I decided that one effect of uncontrolled life-long pairing off would be that Wakanrean society is less stratified than ours. Even if there was an aristocracy, arranging marriages only with other aristocrats wouldn’t be possible. Ergo, people could not be kept in their “place.” In modern time, a corporate CEO could step away from his or her desk and suddenly be mated to the office cleaner. Also, being good looking counts for a lot less. No one tries to alter their looks to attract a mate because that doesn’t work. Since biology does the deciding when it comes to mating, there would not be cultures with different family structures—no polygamy, as such, although I did allow for the rare instance when one person pairs off with two others simultaneously. And all cultures have to accept the results of biological mating. If you bond to someone of the same gender, or to two people instead of one, everyone knows it’s not a choice. Sex is in no way related to morality.

As for how this circumstance affects individuals— are Wakanreans better off than humans or worse— I decided that would vary. Luck is very much the decider; if you are a kind person and you bond to another kind person, then the chances are you will both be happy with each other and thus happy in life (Although you could make that case for human marriage, too, I think). But on Wakanreo, if you are a kind person and you bond to a selfish, cold-hearted person, you are truly out of luck. If they dislike you or hate you, you will feel it. And since you can’t divorce a biological process, you are stuck for life. In the end, I decided that Wakanreans are luckier than humans in that they can’t be deceived in a mate, but less lucky in that they have fewer options.

Of course, Wakanreans exist only in my head, and in my books. This is one of the few instances where I knew where a story idea came from. Usually a situation or a scene just pops into my head, but for Alien Bonds, I knew exactly what had planted the idea.

NOTE: the views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and not the SFR Brigade.

Alien Bonds

A story of two very different people from two very different cultures, a sort of AVATAR combined with PRIDE & PREJUDICE. In ALIEN BONDS, two lives are changed in an instant. Industrial chemist Dina Bellaire travels all the way to the planet Wakanreo to advance her career. Her carefully planned life goes up in flames the second she meets Kuaron Du, a Wakanrean who makes his living singing ancient songs in a dead language. Both of them know they can’t go back to the way they were before they met. They just have to convince the rest of the universe that what happened to them is real.

Get your copy here!

About the Author

A voracious reader since childhood, Carmen Webster Buxton spent her youth reading every book published by Ursula LeGuin, Robert Heinlein, and Georgette Heyer. As a result, her own books mix far-future worlds, alien cultures, and courting customs.

Carmen was born in Hawaii but had a peripatetic childhood, as her father was in the US Navy. Having raised two wonderful children, she now lives in Maryland with her husband and a beagle named Cosmo.

Carmen’s blog https://carmenspage.blogspot.com/
Carmen’s Amazon Page https://www.amazon.com/Carmen-Webster-Buxton/e/B004V8MM8U/
Carmen on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/carmenwebster.buxton
Carmen on Twitter https://twitter.com/CarmenWBuxton

What do you think the future will look like? We’ve had a lot of television shows and movies depicting different possible futures. The most well know would be the STAR TREK series. The series portrays humans in the future as explorers who have gone into space to see who and what is out there. The film BLADE RUNNER gives a dystopian view of the future. There are cartoon shows like FUTURAMA and THE JETSONS which give a different twist and serious programs like THE EXPANSE and ENDER’S GAME. The future is limited only to the imagination of the writer.

There are difficulties in imagining what things will be like in thirty or fifty years. In the 1985 movie, BACK TO THE FUTURE, the DeLorean travels thirty years forward in time where Doc Brown gives it a flying upgrade because all the cars thirty years in the future could fly. Well, 2015 has come and gone and we still don’t have flying cars. In 1987 my father passed away from a heart problem of a leaky valve. Last year my husband had robotic heart surgery to repair a leaky valve. We have made amazing advances in medicine in the last thirty years. What will the next thirty look like? In 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon using computers with less computing power than most people carry around in their pockets today, smart phones. What will the machines and computers of the future look like? Today we can buy devices for our homes that turn on and off lights, music, television and appliances. What new innovations will we have in the year 2050?

In my latest novel in the Love through Time series, A WAY BACK, my character, Jack Sinclair, is accidently sent eighty years into the future and has to deal with all the strange things he finds there while figuring out a way to get home.

I’ve had to think a lot about what the world will be like in eighty years. What changes and advancements do you think we’ll have by then?

A Way Back

Time travel only seemed like a good idea.

Like many before her, Sarah Anderson is determined to make her fortune in the Wild West. She loads up her skirts with twenty-first-century necessities, gives her fiancé a kiss, and takes the leap. Only to land in the wrong decade. She’s lucky. She finds a job. But until she can save enough pennies for the return trip, she must contend every day with the fear of discovery, slop buckets, and roving hands.

Jack Sinclair returns from yet another business trip only to learn that his fiancée has left him for another time. They are now many miles and two centuries apart. Jack is stunned. But only for a moment. He sets out to find Sarah and bring her back home. Or die trying. Jack’s only fear is that he might be too late to save the love of his life.

Buy Links
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Back-Love-Through-Time-Book-ebook/dp/B07QGQ5S4K/ref=sr_1_8?crid=1LAQO6U9NSFRZ&keywords=augustina+van+hoven&qid=1558639326&s=gateway&sprefix=Augustina
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-way-back-augustina-van-hoven/1131176479?ean=2940156513673
ITunes: https://books.apple.com/us/book/id1459110731
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/a-way-back-5

Officially, summer isn’t over until September 22nd, but the last of August marks the unofficial end. It’s the time of year when the kids go back to school and vacation time is almost done. The Labor Day weekend is the last kick at holding on to summer.

I get energized this time of year. My school days are long behind me but I still love the big displays of school supplies for sale. I’m a sucker for markers and pens, journals, and all the lovely color-coded folders. It’s the kid in me.

I look at September as a time for new beginnings. Maybe it has something to do with the school year starting. Even more than New Year’s Day, I find this a time of renewal and possibility. I love the crisp autumn air and the splash of color and the start of the holiday season, which begins in October.

But I’m not quite there yet. For now, I’ll hold on to the final gasp of summer, pray for some nice weather, and enjoy it while it lasts. Hope you do the same.

And if you’re looking for a book to read, maybe you’ll check out one of mine.

If you love space mercenaries, you’ll love the Marks Mercenaries. These brothers are tough and focused. Their goal—finding their sister who was abducted years ago.

The first four books in the series have been released—Rescuing Rory, Unexpected Angel, Liberating Lacey, and Salvaging Abby.

Here’s a teaser from Liberating Lacey…

Liberating Lacey

Like a heat-seeking missile, he stayed on target until he hit his target. He’d never wavered in his goal to find his sister and protect his brothers, never faltered.

Until now.

No other woman could have done such a thing. Only Lacey.

And he was going to leave her behind.

Liberating Lacey
Marks Mercenaries, Book 3

Garth Marks and his brothers are space mercenaries and traders. Their life’s mission is to find their younger sister, who was kidnapped ten years before. Their search has led them to Eden, a planet that is home to a cult-like group.

Lacey Freshlan wants to get away from Eden, and the strangers who have come here might be her ticket out. Garth is willing to use the sizzling attraction between them to get information from her, but he won’t agree to take her with him. As much as he’s drawn to her, Garth won’t risk the safety of his family.

When Lacey foils a plot to poison them, Garth takes her with them when they flee. But they are not free yet. Betrayal and lies lead to a battle not only for their safety but also for their hearts.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TW5VSFR/
Evernight Publishing: https://www.evernightpublishing.com/liberating-lacey-by-n-j-walters/
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/946620
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/liberating-lacey-n-j-walters/1132291334
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/liberating-lacey-5

About the Author

N.J. Walters is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author who has always been a voracious reader, and now she spends her days writing novels of her own. Vampires, werewolves, dragons, time-travelers, seductive handymen, and next-door neighbors with smoldering good looks—all vie for her attention. It’s a tough life, but someone’s got to live it.

Visit me at:
Website: https://www.njwalters.com
Blog: https://www.njwalters.blogspot.com
Newsletter: https://eepurl.com/gdblg5
Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/N.J.WaltersAuthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/njwaltersauthor
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/NJWalters
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/njwalters
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/n-j-walters

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Are there really? From the expression of Edwin Booth on this 1866 playbill from the New York Public Library’s digital collection, he looks like he’s thinking that might not be such a good thing. I first encountered Hamlet’s sentiment in an eighth grade English class. I always thought it strange that he would feel the need to say it when both he and Horatio have just seen and heard the ghost of Hamlet’s dead father. It is a line that has stayed with me fifty years later as I have pondered just what those “things” might be. Those things we can only detect through a mind open to the possibility of the sixth sense or extrasensory perception (ESP).

There are nine types of ESP that, when explained, show how being attuned to the feelings and/or our surroundings, ESP feels quite logical and for a writer pretty darned cool elements to incorporate into a story.

Precognition – The ability to see into the future.
Retrocognition – The ability to see into the distant past.
Clairvoyance – The ability to see events without being physically present.
Mediumship – The ability to communicate with spiritual world and talk to the deceased.
Clairsentience – The ability to feel the emotions of others.
Clairaudience – The ability to receive messages and information through “psychic hearing”.
Telepathy – The ability to read the minds of others and know what they’re thinking.
Clairalience – The ability to get psychic impressions from the sense of smell.
Clairgustance – The paranormal ability to taste a substance without putting it in mouth.

Check out this link if you’d like more detail on them: https://www.psychics4today.com/types-extrasensory-perception/

Hamlet and Horatio experienced mediumship. I wonder if during the African-American walking tour I did last Fall I didn’t experience it as well. Was it only my vivid imagination that allowed me to feel, see and hear the spirits of those Africans and African Americans striving for freedom, for a better life?

Why can’t a person be so sensitive to another person’s body language that they can feel what someone is feeling? Couldn’t you be so knowledgeable about a place, an era and particular events that when you’re in that place you can connect to the energy still inhabiting that place and see what took place there as if you had actually been present?

A smell, a sound, a taste can thrust us back to a moment and cause us to from the past only be stored in memory?

What if we intentionally trained ourselves to use our five sense to their fullest capacity? It’s a myth we only use 10% of our brains, but I’m willing to bet we’re only fully focused and intentional is using our brains 10% of the time. What if we could harness our ability to see, hear, taste, smell and touch to the point where we transcended time and space?

Being in the moment doesn’t only have to mean we’re only aware of what’s here and now. William Faulkner wrote “The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.” Being in the moment also means being aware of what came before and by extension what might be to come. I like to think so. How about you?

Better To Marry Than To Burn

Freed Man seeking woman to partner in marriage for at least two years in the black township of Douglass, Texas. Must be willing and able to help establish a legacy. Marital relations as necessary. Love neither required nor sought.

Caesar King’s ad for a mail-order bride is an answer to Queen Esther Payne’s prayer. Her family expects her to adhere to society’s traditional conventions of submissive wife and mother, but Queen refuses. She is not the weaker sex and will not allow herself to be used, abused or turned into a baby-making machine under the sanctity of matrimony. Grateful that love is neither required nor sought, she accepts the ex-slave’s offer and heads West for marriage on her terms.

Her education and breeding will see to that. However, once she meets Caesar, his unexpected allure and intriguing wit makes it hard to keep love at bay. How can she hope to remain her own woman when victory may be synonymous with surrender?

Excerpt

With thanks to God, he pushed past her flimsy drawers to the moist welcome of her center. Her vaginal walls gripped his fingers with surprising force. No amount of twisting or turning wrenched them free. God, to have that grip surrounding his shaft.

He pulled back and studied her face. Eyes still closed, a sly smile bowed her perfect lips. She enjoyed this battling as much as he.

“Was I too brutal for your enjoyment, Mrs. King?”

Her eyelids rose with the slow grace of sunrise. A gleam as sly as her smile shone in her gaze. “You call that brutal, Mr. King?”

She unclenched her lower muscles, allowing his fingers momentary retreat. With great care, she grasped his hand then slid his fingers between her folds once more.

“Holy Christ, woman. What—?”

The gentle rubbing robbed him of his ability to think.

“Jesus, have mercy,” he wheezed.

She slid his fingers from her wet sex into his mouth. He moaned, lost in her delectable taste.

Without taking her gaze from his face, she raked her gloved hand down his chest, across his belly, to his groin. Anticipation tensed his muscles in the wake of her touch. He watched mesmerized as, with a practiced ease, she unbuttoned his fly, pushed past the fabric, sought, found and stroked his cock. Her woolen gloves imparted a delicious friction he couldn’t oppose, even if he’d wanted. Delight enlivened every muscle in his body, including his jaded heart.

Jesus. This couldn’t be more than arousal. Could it?

Her fingers squeezed and his body arched upward on the yes swelling his spirit with joy. He threw back his head, mouth open, ready to shout as he neared the point of release.

Then she let him go.

He doubled over, slain by the abandonment. His lungs constricted, bereft of air. Reason deserted him too.

She stood and smoothed down her skirts with the hand that had massaged his shaft more deftly than he ever had. Reseated, she grabbed the reins and snapped the leather against his horse’s rump.

“Get up there.”

The wagon jostled Caesar from side to side. Still unable to straighten up, he looked into eyes gleaming with triumph. Her lips curved in a regal smirk.

“Was I too brutal for your enjoyment, Mr. King?”

Buylinks:
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2KTaGPH
Wild Rose Press: https://www.thewildrosepress.com/books/better-to-marry-than-to-burn

UPDATE: The winner is…bn100!

*~*~*

So here we are on a Saturday. Nothing better to do, right? You’re bored with Pinterest. Have answered all your emails. Spied on your friends and enemies on Facebook. Now, what?

Let’s play a game! I love this photo. I used it in my ad for my next short story anthology, First Response, for which I’m still collecting submissions.

For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, tell me a story, based on this photo. Doesn’t have to long or eloquent. Just have fun!

Thought I’d pop in. I’ve been religiously “listing” the past few days, meaning not going to bed at night before I have the next day’s to do list sitting in the middle of my desk. I’m trying to get the work done, plus clear some space in my cluttered office. So, lots to do! I was sooooo efficient yesterday, I even wove a potholder for my dd! 🙂

Anyways, I wanted to let you know about the two stories I currently have up for pre-order so you have them in your crosshairs, or better yet, so you can pre-order the books! Below the books, take a look at 4 OPEN CONTESTS you still have time to enter, and at the very bottom, I’m sharing a spooky excerpt! Let’s get started…

Mambo’s Door

Coming August 30th! This one’s f/f erotica, but if you can get past that fact, it’s a very cool story about a fledgling witch who faces Baron Samedi in limbo—it’s part witchy tale, part voodoo lore, part horror (not too much, swear), and part romance, and it’s set in New Orleans! You have to read it to figure out how those things work together. LOL! Oh, and if you’re curious, read an excerpt below!

A f/f paranormal novelette…

Ingrid Kassel is a fledgling witch, uncertain and not in complete control of her powers, especially after drinking a double-shot of vampire blood. Charged with retrieving an object buried with a daughter of the Voodoo Queen—she angers the spirit guarding the tomb and finds herself entering a shadowy limbo, where she meets beautiful Marie, living in fear of a demon who also desires the black magic candle infused with the powerful mambo’s blood.

In desperation, Marie tricks Ingrid, capturing her and seducing her to charge the candle for her own bid for freedom.

Pre-order your copy here!

Montana Bounty Hunters: Quincy

And of course, there’s a bounty hunter coming on September 24th! One I had a ton of fun writing about in my short story, “Quincy Down Under“, which you can read at the back of Big Sky Wedding, inside Stranded: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology, or as a standalone shorty! You don’t want to miss how Quincy and his beautician-in-the-bunker first met!

MONTANA BOUNTY HUNTERS: Authentic Men… Real Adventures…

Quincy James and Tamara Adams met under less than idyllic circumstances—trapped inside her doomsday-bunker-turned-beauty-shop while he was hunting a skip. Now that he’s settled into his new job with the Montana Bounty Hunters, he knows he’s dawdled too long asking her out on a legitimate date. But then, he gets a new case right in the pretty beautician’s neck of the woods. A dangerous new assignment he doesn’t want her anywhere near. However, NOT bumping into her proves tricky, and when they do cross paths, he blows it.

Tamara’s already feeling foolish over the fact she got way too friendly with Quincy when they were trapped together, but then, he never contacts her again. When she sees him on the street in her little town, she’s ready to give him a piece of her mind, but he acts like he doesn’t know her. What they hell?

When the pair find themselves trapped together again, there’s time for a reckoning…

Pre-order your copy here!

Open Contests

These contests are still open, so be sure to enter now before they’re gone! The oldest contest is at the top!

1. Caroline Clemmons: An Agent for Magdala (Contest, FREE Read, & Excerpt) — Win an Amazon gift card!
2. A Puzzle & a Contest! — Win a download of a recent release!
3. Melanie Jayne: Decision Time (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
4. Flashback: Cochise (Contest & Excerpt) — Win a download of an MBH story!

Excerpt from Mambo’s Door

A drunk on the sidewalk bumped past Ingrid Kassel.

Instinctively, she turned her head and issued a hiss, baring teeth. Not that she had fangs to back up the warning, but her temper simmered at a slow, angry boil, and her reactions weren’t entirely her own. A single taste of blood had ignited a hunger for more, it seemed, and the loss of control pissed her off.

If this was what it felt like to be a vampire, it was a damn good thing she was a witch.

Ever since Magda, the coven’s priestess, had given her Elena Csintalan’s blood to drink to lend her strength for her quest, Ingrid had fought to retain a sense of self. Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE: The winner is…Eileen McCall!
*~*~*

It’s Thursday! Just past Hump Day. Tomorrow’s Trash Day (the day we take the bins to the road for pickup). Then it’s the weekend… So, we can start the celebration now, right? We’re almost there…

Today’s also the day I begin writing the next installment of the Montana Bounty Hunters series! Woot! It’s Quincy’s time to shine. Don’t forget to pre-order your copy. The wait won’t be long. Quincy drops on September 24th, so I better get my butt in gear and write it, right? No worries, I’m super motivated. I love Quincy and his beautician-in-the-bunker! I hope you have it pre-ordered already. If not, here’s the link: Pre-order Quincy now!

In the meantime, drool over the eye-candy cover of today’s featured flashback story, read the exciting opening pages of Cochise, and enter the contest! Happy Thursday!

Cochise

MONTANA BOUNTY HUNTERS: Authentic Men… Real Adventures…

“Excellent… Cochise (Book 4) was exciting, fast paced, scary, filled with plot twists, & with humorous moments… The bonus material, The Bounty Part, 2 was also A+++.”

A hunt deep in a national forest forges bonds between a bounty hunter and a woman desperate to find her sister…

Former Army sniper, Cochise Mercier, left Denver SWAT under a cloud of controversy, which was why he ended up back home in Montana, and where he heard about the Montana Bounty Hunters. The “cloud” didn’t seem to bother his new boss, so he’s all in and finding he enjoys hunting down fugitives for bounties, encumbered by fewer rules.

Sammy McCallister is a by-the-book sheriff’s deputy, who has a beef with bounty hunters. Forced to stand by with her gun in her holster, while hunters take down scumbags, she’s particularly irked by the new guy in town. Cochise, with his long black hair and thousand-yard-stare makes her uncomfortable, itchy in ways she’s never felt before. When she finds herself needing his help, the reason for her irritation becomes all too clear. She wants him. But first, they must make it out of the mountains alive…

**Includes a free short story at the end!**

Contest

Comment below for a chance to win a copy of one of the MBH books shown below!

Are you all caught up with the bounty hunters?
Check out the latest release, Big Sky Wedding!

MONTANA BOUNTY HUNTERS
Authentic Men… Real Adventures…
Reaper: https://amzn.to/2NztLpv
Dagger: https://amzn.to/2zo6Dav
Reaper’s Ride: https://amzn.to/2KKkisI
Cochise: https://amzn.to/2zq4avV
Hook: https://amzn.to/2UrpyYh
Wolf: https://amzn.to/2yUTjr5
Animal: https://amzn.to/2H4Roob
Big Sky Wedding: https://amzn.to/33GprwK

Excerpt

Cochise Mercier, the new hire at Montana Bounty Hunters, took a deep breath to force his heart to slow its pace. A trick he’d learned as an Army sniper to make sure a jerking breath didn’t mess up a shot. The trick worked in most situations when he needed his mind to slow and for his focus to home in on a target or a situation. Clearing his mind meant he was able to take in more of what was happening around him and enabled him to discard the things that weren’t important—like the way the wind beat a tree branch against the side of the house, a steady thump that sounded almost like clomping footsteps. Instead, he concentrated on the way the light, beaming through the tall arched windows at the front of the house, flickered whenever his target paced left or right, telling him where their mark was. An important fact, because in minutes, he’d have to breach the oak front door and be ready to take him down—with his weapon or his body, depending on whether Randy Pinter was armed. A fact Cochise would have to ascertain in a split second.

“Can’t see any movement in the back rooms,” came Jamie Burke’s voice through his earpiece. “I think he’s alone.”

He still wasn’t used to hearing a woman’s voice on the comms. He’d never had a female as part of any of his missions on the ground with the Army, and Denver’s SWAT had, at the time, been all male. That voice interrupted his calm. His instinct was to protect women and children, but she was a part of this team—and his boss—so again, he drew a deep breath, pushed aside his concern, and concentrated on his target. Pinter was pacing in front of the window to the right of the front door.

“Girlfriend’s car isn’t in the garage,” came Sky Reynold’s deep voice. “Must have gone for takeout. I’m moving around to the front.”

“Deputies just arrived,” Lacey Jones’s too perky voice sounded. “I’ll go brief them about what’s about to go down. Make sure they know we have the owner’s permission to be here.”

Cochise could hear the excitement in her higher pitch. Thank God, she was back at the road with the vehicles. The thought of her cotton-candy sweetness being anywhere near Pinter made him shudder. The girl might have qualified with her weapon and might be doing well with her self-defense classes, but she had no real experience going head-on with bad dudes. He didn’t want to be around the first time she was truly tested.

“You call it, Cochise,” Jamie said.

With his heart as slow as when he slept, he felt the familiar ice-water chill flow over him. “Ready,” he whispered and then stepped away from the bushes beside the porch. “Moving toward the door… On three. One…two…three.” Read the rest of this entry »