Summer Reads Past and Present

Hi, I'm Pippa Jay, author of scifi and the supernatural with a romantic soul. Just over a week ago I celebrated my third anniversary as a published author by re-releasing my debut novel Keir. Both it and I have been through quite an adventure since it first released with Lyrical Press Inc. on the 7th May, 2012. Less than two years later, my publisher was bought out by another and Keir came down from retailers. It's taken me over a year to put it back out myself, losing another publisher in the process less than a week before it released. But I'm not quitting!

One reason I started writing aside from a love of words and creating worlds was a love of reading. I read prolifically, widely and pretty much endlessly every minute I could get from the day I first learned to read. After pony books and adventure books like the Famous Five series, I moved onto fantasy, then to science fiction. But in the last few years it's got harder and harder to find reading time because I want to be writing, and having written and been published means having to spend time editing and marketing too. I've also got a lot more picky over what I read. So I thought for my summer reads post I'd share my favourites of the last year, and what I'm hoping to read over my summer holiday (I have scheduled the whole of August as a month off. We'll see if I can actually stick to that!).

Books I've read:
1. Spark Rising by Kate Corcino. This was my absolute favourite read of 2014. It's a post apocalyptic adventure with romantic elements, and I had the privilege of reading it before release in order to write a review quote for it. It also has one of the prettiest covers I've ever seen!
2. Deep Deception and Rulebreaker by Cathy Pegau. These are both f/f scifi romance thrillers, though I prefer Rulebreaker over Deep Deception. Cathy's books were my first f/f reads, and I love them! The romance between the two central characters really hooked me in both cases, and if the scifi element puts you off, trust me - it's not so heavy you'll ever feel it's dragging the story down with too much technical details while still satisfying a scifi addict like me.
3. Inherit the Stars by Laurie A Green. This is classic scifi romance along the lines of Star Trek and films like The Fifth Element. You can buy it in a serialized form to test it out or as a complete novel. Again, I had the privilege of reading this before release, and I can't wait to get it in print (I try to buy all my favourite reads in paperback if I can, though I always buy the ebook first).
4. Angel's Keeping by Brantwijn Serrah. Now, I don't read a lot of fantasy/paranormal any more, and not a lot of erotica either. And this might seem an odd choice for a summer read as it's set at Christmas (which is when I read it). But since a lot of my faves are SFR, I thought I should mention something else I loved in another genre! This is very explicit, but one of the sweetest and cutest romances I've ever read. Again, it's f/f - I've read a lot of that this year. This is a story about how even demons can fall in love. (unfortunately it's not available just now due to the closure of the publisher, who also happened to be my publisher too. But hopefully it'll be back soon!).
5. My Name is A'yen by Rachel Leigh Smith. Again, this is scifi romance, but paranormal fans will love this too. It's more social science fiction than tech heavy and/or military scifi. The central character repeatedly broke my heart, and just when you think nothing more can go wrong for him, it does. You'll rush to the end hoping for his happily ever after!

On my TBR pile:
6. Queen of Nowhere by Jaine Fenn. Jaine is one of my automatic buy authors (I just bought and read a scifi short by her last month) but I haven't had a good clear day to sit down and just lose myself in this. Jaine Fenn writes space opera, which generally means lots of spaceships and explosions, and maybe a bit of romance. This is the last book in her Hidden Empire stories, and I've loved all the previous ones.
7. Removed by SJ Pajonas. Japanese themed post apocalyptic NA. Yup, you read that right. I've had this on my to-read list for a while. The author often posts about Japanese culture, and the whole idea just has me really intrigued. (psst, it's free right now at Amazon!)

And of course, I can't go without mentioning my newly re-released and award winning scifi romance Keir. ;)

A Science Fiction Romance Novel
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Whatever you pick up for the summer, enjoy your reading. I know I shall. :)