Science Fiction

TOIL and STRIFE content warning – why I’ve added one to the blurb.

I’ve now added a sensitivity warning to TOIL AND STRIFE, the first book in the Hathe series. I’ve resisted doing this for a long time, worrying it would detract from the story and act as a spoiler, or it might look as if I was apologising for putting in the scene or thought it was gratuitous.  Then I saw a social media post likening content/trigger warnings to the age and content ratings for films. Readers need to know if a book includes something that is a trigger or uncomfortable, and can choose if they like that or not. So now there’s a warning at the end of the blurb.
The warning refers to a scene with a description of sexual assault. It’s not that graphic and is a short scene, but it happens. I’ve thought long and hard about whether I should take it out, but every time came to the same conclusion. The scene is essential for the story and affects the characters actions for long afterwards. What the hero and heroine must do in this story is ugly – they are on opposite sides of a war that both believe they must win to save their people. Both put their loyalty to their people ahead of themselves and neither believes they have a right to do otherwise.
It’s an ugly position to be in. Both must set aside their own morals, their own scruples, if they stand in the way of their side winning.
But you cannot do that without paying a price. It’s an ugly way to live, and what they do is ugly. That changes them, and changes how they connect to the one person in the world most important to them. It was important to show that ugliness in the character’s lives and relationship. Sexual assault is as ugly as it gets.
But can they can live with it, or find a way through?
However, not everyone wants to read a book with such a scene and as an author and reader, I respect that.

Behind the Arcadia series

Exiled: Arcadia Book 3

Cover reveal for EXILED: Arcadia Book Three

 

EXiled: Arcadia Book 3
Exiled: Arcadia Book 3

Here it is – the cover of my latest book,

Seolta den Coille’s heads off into Alliance space ( and those already there kick back at him)

Sentenced to exile by his home world, he’s hungry for revenge. Only he isn’t innocent and Alliance space isn’t empty.

Release date in late May/early June.

I’m so excited to share the cover of the latest book in the Arcadia science fiction series.  Seolta den Coille, the cleverest or most devious of the den Coille family, depending on your view of him, was a fun book to write as he careered around Alliance space and was forced to face uncomfortable home truths. The heroine is a rare treasure.  The book is nearly finished editing and then only needs formatting to be able to get it out to you all. I can’t wait to share his story. He was a character who fascinated me from his first introduction. So clever, so angry and sooooo misguided.

EXILED – space opera at its exciting and epic best.

 

Behind the HATHE series

HATHE was my first science fiction series. First released as a trilogy, I’ve now combined the first two books as TOIL AND STRIFE.  This is Marthe and Hamon’s story, the story of the war between Hathe and the conquering Terrans. AFTERMATH  is exactly what it says – what happens on Hathe after the war has ended. It’s also the story of Jacquel, Marthe’s best friend, and Rheia, a Hathian diplomat.

The war I envisage is like the old war, a war waged by a secret Hathian resistance to the Terran occupation of their home world, a resistance Earth doesn’t know exists until the last moment. Conquerors should never become complacent.

AFTERMATH is a book that is close to my heart.  War is never a good thing. No one wins, neither the winners or the losers.  This is as true in the future as in the past, and as now. Humans ignore it at their peril.

Hathe the series – space opera at its convoluted best.