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Tag Archives: excerpt

Exiled (Arcadia, #3) by Mary Brock Jones – Guest Post with Excerpt

23 Thursday Jun 2022

Posted by WWMB in Featuring...., guest post

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Eco Scifi, excerpt, guest post, Mary Brock Jones, romance, scifi, series

Today, I am welcoming Mary Brock Jones. She is here to introduce us to her new release, Exiled, the third book in the Arcadia series. This Eco-Scifi series is currently relevant and also contains that perfect combination of Scifi and Romance. I’m currently reading Exiled, so I hope you will look for my review in the future.

EXILED
ARCADIA Book 3

Release Date 23 Jun 2022

Guest Post by Mary Brock Jones

Exiled is the third book in a science fiction series about a planet facing an environmental crunch point. Arcadia is an earth analogue world not too different from Earth itself. One rich in resources and so ripe for development that the settlers fell into the trap of thinking their world’s tolerance is infinite. Now, their changes have stretched the planet’s ability to cope to its limit and the Interplanetary government has given them an ultimatum:

Change your ways, or we’ll ship you all off and replace you with settlers who respect this world.

I started this series focussed on the physical challenges of meeting that ultimatum, but became more and more interested in the human dynamics behind that. In particular, the series looks at how two families face being forced to change what they do in order to save their world.

The hero of EXILED is Seolta den Coille, second son of a family living in the forests cloaking the western sides of a major mountain range. He was also one of the villains of the second book, and as a result was sent into exile off planet. This book tells what happens to him after that.

Why choose a villain, a character that may have appeared to have few redeeming qualities in the previous book (TAKEN)? It’s simple. He interested me the most, and as author, I get to play with the character that looks the most fun at the time. I once read that villains see themselves as the hero of their own story, (Marvel’s Loki is a prime example of this) and that was definitely the case with Seolta. In EXILED, he is forced to realise there is a fatal flaw in that, and what it takes to be a real hero. Despite being known as the cleverest of the den Coilles, he is not, unfortunately, the fastest of learners.

*****************************

Excerpt

The planet receded below him, a patchwork of blue and green fading into the dark. The trip on the shuttle to the space hub had been bad enough, but now he was on board an interplanetary ship and watching his world slowly and inexorably disappear from sight, taking with it everything he’d known for certain since birth. Even his name. He was plain Seolta den Coille on the passenger list, no longer Seolta mar Bram an Scathach den Coille. Seolta of the house of Coille. A man with a family, a home, a land like nowhere else.

A family and a home that he had thrown away in a singular act of stupidity. Out his porthole window, the sharply defined outlines of mountains, plains and sea dwindled to splotches of colour, then to a sphere glowing in the dark, then nothing as his ship twisted away from the planet and headed into the void of space.

All he had left was his new mission. Marshal an Fallon’s order had been clear and unequivocal.

“Find out who’s behind the plots against us.”

Find out and report back, that meant. Don’t do anything else. Don’t make things worse than you already have.

We don’t trust you, it meant.

Only the debt he owed to an Fallon had kept him quiet. The man had led those who broke him out of prison and saved his life. A debt he could never repay. He hadn’t even tried to, embarking instead on a stupid quest for revenge that had cost him everything he valued from those who mattered most to him.

You betrayed us once. We will not let it happen again.

His family had farewelled him with pity and closed mouths. His older sister had tried to say he could return one day, but he knew the truth. A sentence of exile was forever.

He shut his eyes to banish the blackness and heard with relief the signal for translation. He’d flown in space once before and remembered the stark warnings to all passengers. He wasn’t ready to die yet, whatever he might face, and dutifully settled into his floating pod. Escape came as the hiss of the drug infusions at last gave him oblivion.

When he woke, days later, he had a headache, a dry mouth, and the knowledge that he was worlds away from home. Below floated the station hub where he must change ships.

His route had been carefully mapped out by the Galactic Ministry offices on Arcadia, along with exhaustive instructions on whom to talk to and whom to absolutely avoid.

Top of the second list: Deputy Malgrave of the Alliance and Hilmar a Kevand3 of the planet Surned—the two offworlders who had led him into this hell in the first place. He’d thought himself so clever, but all the time they’d been the ones laughing. He’d been such a fool.

A com chime warned him to prepare for landing and he turned in relief to readying for disembarking. Too soon he was part of a crowd of passengers following station guidelines and waiting for clearance into the hub. A sharp odour of disinfectants and machinery stung his nose, and the underlying mechanical hum of the station systems throbbed through his feet. Missing was the constant motion of the living branches of home as rigid metal engulfed him. This was no planet. He remembered the strangeness from his one other off-world trip, the uncertain bounce to his stride from the lighter gravity of a standard space habitat, but that time it had been part of the collected memorabilia of a tourist soon to return to the normality of home.

Now, it must become his normal.

*****************************

About Exiled by Mary Brock Jones

Sentenced to exile by his home world, he’s hungry for revenge. Only he isn’t innocent and Alliance space is no safe haven.

After Seolta den Coille is falsely imprisoned by the corrupt Ecological Survey bosses then saved by his sister and her husband, he wants one thing only. Revenge. When offworlders offer him a way to get back at those who threatened him, he grabs hold with both fists. Not surprisingly, it doesn’t end well and he’s banished into exile. All that does is give his hunger for vengeance a few more targets. Top of the list, the two off-worlders who lured him into betraying his home world.

Anyara a Prithand2 wants only two things in life: to be left in peace to manage the biota systems of her space station, and to avoid giving her uncle an excuse to kill her. When a newcomer to her home world offers to help her escape, she accepts. Now she just has to survive the adventure—and the unexpected desire flaring to life between them.

Chased across Alliance space by their enemies, Seolta and Anyara’s only chance lies with the Alliance Council, the overall governing body of settled space. An organisation as riven with political strife as the enemies they are fleeing.

Can the cleverest of the den Coille’s and the habitat worlds’ best biome scientist stay alive long enough to expose those threatening their worlds?

*****************************

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Razor Strike by Lee Sarpel – Feature with Excerpt

17 Tuesday May 2022

Posted by WWMB in Featuring....

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excerpt, feature, Lee Sarpel, romance, scifi

Debut author Lee Sarpel’s Razor Strike released on May 15. SciFi Romance readers might want to check this out. I’m looking forward to reading this one soon!

About Razor Strike by Lee Sarpel

Eight years ago, Harbor Corporation hired Trez as one of its Strikers, cybernetically outfitted commandos who carry out high-risk missions to advance the company’s semi-public corporate wars. It should have been the perfect job for an adrenaline junkie: break into the opposition’s building, dispatch the guards, find the target, do whatever the higher-ups demand. But Trez can’t cope with the violence anymore.

She also can’t afford to retire any time soon. Her hapless father owes money to the Makos, the most powerful crime ring in the city-state of Portland. If Trez can’t pay off his debt, the Makos will expose Trez’s carefully hidden past misdeeds to her employer. Forget being out of a job: she’ll be jailed for life if Harbor doesn’t eliminate her first.

Luckily, her longtime friend, colleague, and onetime fling Eric is determined to help her fix her problems. Can Trez swallow her pride, navigate mob politics, evade a colony of robot iguanas, and face down an anarchist cell before the life she’s built for herself crumbles?

*****************************

Razor Strike – Excerpt

A sudden screeching noise made Eric’s danger sense flare. What could be …his eyes widened. That was one pimped out dirtcycle headed his way. It careened hard into a nearby storefront with a loud crunch, throwing the rider a few meters down the road. Eric ran toward the cyclist even as the other pedestrians gave the bike some distance. Dirtcycles spruced up like that often had some crazy volatiles in their tanks. You never knew what could explode when.

“You all right?” He checked the crumpled figure for obvious injury. The rider was breathing and conscious. The half helmet, now dented in near the right ear, had taken some of the impact. He wore a suit with a sharktooth motif. Mako member then. Probably suffering massive road burn under there. Maybe even broken bones.

“Ugh,” said the cyclist. He shook his head as if there were an object in there he needed to jar loose. “What the … Shit …” His face turned toward his bike, now embedded in the cement next to the front door of a building signed ANUPAM’S SYNTH SWEETS. “Well, fuck me.” He grimaced, and braced his hands on the road to get back on his feet. He failed to push himself up then he collapsed.

A beat-up truck swerved onto their street, and two goons wearing flannel bandannas to cover the lower half of their faces came out. They didn’t sport any Mako symbols, and red-and-green plaid was definitely not a Mako color combo. One of them had a baton attached to their belt. Eric’s metal detector didn’t pick up any other weapons.

He hadn’t acquitted himself well in the earlier fight today. Here was a chance to impress the Makos. Never hurt to be in good graces with the mob.

Eric’s heartbeat sped up. He had been tired, but he could feel a second wind coming on. This could be more fun than he’d expected. He turned to face the thugs, angling his body and putting one foot forward. His farther hand made a fist. “Looking for something?”

The two figures stopped short. One tilted their head at the other’s. “This isn’t your business.”

The words came easy. “Sure it is.” Come and get it. He smiled, not kindly.

*****************************

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Iron Paws and the Tinker’s Forged Marriage (Gears, Paws, and Puppy Dogs, #2) by Juli D. Revezzo – Feature

04 Wednesday May 2022

Posted by WWMB in Featuring....

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excerpt, feature, Juli D. Revezzo, romance, series, Steampunk, Victorian

About Iron Paws and the Tinker’s Forged Marriage by Juli D. Revezzo

A year ago, Vesta Bartlett received a rather unusual assignment.

Now, as if perfecting her clockwork puppies for Queen Victoria weren’t enough, a surprise invitation to present them to the Texas Republic president makes Vesta question a number of things, including will the president accept the clockwork from a woman? Unsure, she agrees to allow Henry to go along, as her spokesman and husband, regardless of how her father may feel about a fake marriage.

But they have bigger problems than her father’s anger when an anti-alchemist group takes issue with her clockwork creations and decide they need to stop Vesta’s work. By any means, no matter how violent.

*****************************

Excerpt

She handed him Mr. Toliver’s letter; her father leaned against the crank of a massive bellows attached to one side of the oven, to read the letter she handed over. “Well, well. I knew you’d succeed, my girl.”
“At least someone likes it.”
“Just look around town to find more.” He patted the bellows crank. “Are you ready to go back to work?”
She shoved the letter into her pocket. “Yes, sir.”
“I shouldn’t do this, but just to get you started. You remember what I showed you?”
Vesta tied a heavy, black apron over her yellow and blue gingham dress, but refrained from slipping on their work gloves. “Of course I do.”
“Don’t think about it too much. Just put the ingot in the flame. If you need it, I’ll give you a bit of air to help out.”
“I won’t need it.” She cracked her knuckles and picked up the cup of ingots, set it in the flame. Then she held her hands towards the fire. Heat licked her palms. You can do this.
Lowering her hands to the flames, she thought the spell. R’very Canine Verbemum. Picturing the flames melting the brass in her cup, she cracked one eye open. The cup did glow.
Joy tickled her. “I did it. Daddy, look!”
“Very good, princess.”
Ignoring a stab of triumph, knowing she might falter at any moment, she stepped back and snatched a small vial off the shelf. Blue and gold sparkled inside. She opened the top, releasing the tangy scent of aether into the forge shed. Taking a breath, she concentrated further and added three drops to the cup. Where the brass would’ve taken several minutes, with pure fire, this measure of brass melted and bubbled the instant the aether met the brass.
“Good girl,” her father said. “Keep going.”
Fingers shaking, she removed the mold from the fire. R’very Canine Verbemum.
The brass writhed within the mold, settled. Vesta removed it and plunged the shell of brass into a waiting bucket of water then set it on her anvil. The cylindrical lump of brass rolled on the anvil and her father stopped it with a skilled hand. “There now, that’s one piece.” He knelt down to study it closer. “And no maker’s mark this time. Good work, my dear.”
“Hm…” She picked it up and dried it off, turning the cylinder. A bump shone in the metal. “No, no maker’s mark, but see here?” She tapped the lump. “I ruined it.” With a scoff, she tossed the cylinder onto her reject pile. “I’m never going to get this right, am I?”
Her father retrieved the piece. “Nonsense. This piece looks like the beginnings of a fine fat canine to me. Finish it up and we’ll set it with the others to go to the queen.”
“Not this one. It’s for Running Cloud’s boy, remember?”
“Even better.” He patted her shoulder and setting the piece down, took a hammer off a hook on the wall. “The boy’s bound to add his own lumps to the puppy’s derriere, sooner, rather than later. It’ll be good practice for making toys for Elise’s boy.”
“When you bring her home, I’ll have one ready for you.” She smacked the hammer against the brass. “Maybe I’ll even make the two of you some wedding rings while you’re away.”
Her father scoffed and kissed her forehead. “Think about making your own, although, I’m sorely disappointed with Henry that he hasn’t bought you one yet.”
Vesta’s gaze strayed to the house her beloved was busy raising. “He is building me a house.”
“You can’t wear that around town to show he’s yours and vice versa. I will be reminding him before I leave that he doesn’t want those tavern wenches getting their hearts too set on him.”
She tapped the hammer against the hull. “Daddy, they won’t.”
“No?” Her father took the hammer from her and added a bit more force. “You forget, my outfit included many Irish and British boys.” That was how he’d met Henry’s father. 

*****************************

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