Seasonal Stories #scifi #paranormal #romance

Hi, I'm Pippa Jay, author of scifi and supernatural stories to engage your emotions. Tomorrow is the spring equinox, and I'm so happy about that. January and February are such gloomy months, and all the more so with yet another lock-down in the UK since Christmas. At least now the days are getting longer and warmer, and I can spend time in the garden soaking up the emerging rays and work on new housing for my much diminished flock of feathered friends.

But with a new book release tomorrow as well, I decided to look back at the seasonal stories I've written, published, or am still agonising over. 

A few years ago I decided I wanted to write some holiday stories. They seemed popular and I like a challenge. Unfortunately my muse didn't like the challenge of Christmas in Space, so that kind of stymied that idea. Fortunately I can't confine myself to one genre (as long as it's speculative) so a paranormal Halloween story offered itself as an option...even if it did start out as a 13 year old young witch who managed to morph into a 30-ish year old warlock. Such fun! It also happened to be set in my favourite season of the year - autumn - but shh! Don't tell the others! Just look at the glorious colours in that cover, part of what I love about that time of year.

But muse still wouldn't play ball with a Christmas story. Instead I turned to more pagan origins and a winter solstice story. I could do that, couldn't I?! Unfortunately muse decided to turn it into a mystery scifi rather than a scifi romance, and that didn't work out particularly well to begin with. When you're a pantser and don't write linearly, trying to hit the correct plot points, deaths, disappearances etc and build up the clues is a pretty hard ask. As a consequence, Solstice on Vintro took a stonking SEVEN YEARS to complete and finally publish.

By this time, muse had gotten over her hissy fit on Christmas in Space to deliver A Merry-traxian Christmas for the family in my main SFR series, and a few years before the solstice story. Ah, well, good things come to those that wait...? The story is very much based on my own thoughts of Christmas and how my family have come to celebrate it and what it means to us. How cute is that alien Christmas tree on the cover?!

So now I have an autumn story and two winter stories. Again, a few years back I came up with an idea for an Easter story, again based on the original pagan festival of Eostre, a celebration of spring. Which...also isn't finished. (This isn't going too well, is it?).

But that still leaves one season out. I did think about a Midsummer story, and that was as far as it got. Until I saw a call for paranormal short stories for an anthology. I wrote an angel story for it, but then the anthology got cancelled. This was not going well. It was only as I struggled for a new title for it because too many stories and songs had the same name that I took note of the time of year I set it, and that decided the title - My Summer Angel. It's still in edits, but at least it's getting closer to publication.

And maybe this year I'll finish that Eostre story too and have the full compliment of seasons. Or has winter been given an unfair advantage now...

For now, I have to share my spring release (even if it isn't exactly the spring themed story I plan to finish one day).

How could a moment's anger destroy so much happiness?

It is a question that will haunt him. When an old enemy comes to Kasha-Asor to kidnap their daughter, armed with a weapon that could end everything, Keir is forced to leave an injured Quin on Lyagnius. But his quest for a cure and their missing daughter will come at a terrible cost.

Book #2.5 of the Redemption series. Releases 20th March, 2021 (pre-order available now)

Trigger warning: the loss of a child.