How Many Sleeps Until Christmas?

 Hi, I'm Pippa Jay, author of sci-fi and supernatural stories to engage your emotions. It's that time of year again when Halloween is paste and I'm thinking of Christmas, so here are a few seasonal reads to consider for the holiday season.

Four-year-old Maggie Bock loves living aboard her parents’ space cruiser, but it’s almost Christmas. What if Santa doesn’t know where she is now? Someone will have to find him and tell him, of course. But when she stows away on her mother’s transport to Terr, she sets off a chain of events that brings the holidays to the Atlantis.

Join Maggie and her family for a hilarious and heart-warming adventure as Matirans and Terrians come together to celebrate what makes the holiday season so very special.

(Blue Christmas is a companion story to my novel Prophecy, Book One of the Prophecy Series. This story takes place three months after the end of Prophecy.)

Stranded on Earth after a hyperdrive malfunction, the five surviving members of the Zau’gaut’s crew learn to blend in and survive on a backwater world. Opening a seasonal decorating company, their captain hopes it will help them blend in while learning about Earther culture. Despite Earth’s primitive state, they find themselves growing attached to the planet and its people. When one crew member takes a chance and finds himself growing attached to a certain human woman, the crew begins to wonder if being stranded on Earth means they must also give up their chances at finding love.

Our heart has its own compass. It knows where we should be heading, even if the rest of us doesn’t. Through loss and love, our heart’s compass guides us through life, often to somewhere completely unexpected. When the world ends, the heart’s compass of several people has them headed in directions they may have never traveled otherwise.

Each book in the series is a stand-alone story, but is written within the same fictional setting in which the Earth has just been struck with several massive solar flares. All modern technology has been rendered inoperable. Cars, computers, city infrastructure, phones – all gone in an instant and without warning. In the days directly following the end of the modern world, people must learn to depend on each other, and on their heart’s compass, if they hope to survive.

She doesn’t want a lot for Christmas…

Claire Otton dreads spending another holiday alone. When her best friend convinces her to approach the sexy mall Santa, she takes the chance and asks him out, hoping for so much more.

He’s waiting under the mistletoe…

Although Andreas Castellanos blends in on Earth, he knows he will never belong. But when the gorgeous woman he’d been staring at invites him to dinner, he has a hard time saying no.

All they’re asking for…

Can these two lonely souls find magic together or will their secrets steal their chance of a happy Christmas?

To find more, please visit the SFR Station.

An Abundance of Aliens

Unexpected

A Scifi Romance Novella

Goodreads | Webpage

Amazon | Other Retailers

So Unexpected has lived up to its name yet again. Much to my amazement, it won a SFR Galaxy Award last week (my fourth now since the awards began), for one of the best and most interesting aliens. Of course I love my two MCs, but it's always great to learn someone else did too, and enough that they chose it as one of their standout SFR titles of the year. It's restored my faith that maybe my particular brand of SFR has an audience, albeit a small one. You can see judge Jo Jones' other selections HERE, and check out the rest of the winners and info on the awards themselves HERE.

The Highs and Lows of #Amwriting

Hi, I'm Pippa Jay, author of sci-fi and supernatural stories to engage your emotions. When it comes to favourite writing achievements, for me it has to be finishing. I've always written but I still have a huge stack of unfinished pieces from my pre-teen years when I would run with a shiny new idea only to tire of it (sometimes with several 'books' of a series part written) and move onto the next one. I couldn't write fast enough to keep up with my imagination.

That changed during a rather traumatic experience as a teen (an age when even little things seem traumatic). With my parents going for the title of world's messiest divorce and my mum undergoing treatment for cancer while I was retaking my A levels at a distant college, the news that my long time favourite sci-fi series - Doctor Who - was about to be cancelled for good was kind of the last straw. My universe was collapsing around me!

And so over three weeks leading up to Christmas I scribbled frantic pencil notes (for some reason I prefer a nicely sharpened pencil to a pen when writing by hand) on my A4 lined paper pad, the sheets held together by metal binder rings. My favourite time to write - the one hour train journey to and from college each day.
And then disaster. I fell asleep on the journey home one day, woke with a jolt at my station, and ran off the train leaving my notes behind! I rang the station and lost and found, only to be told that a collection of pencil written sheets would just have been thrown in the bin. Aaaaaarrrrggghhhh!!!!

Fortunately back then I had a close to photographic memory and was able to rewrite the majority of it (and probably even improve it). I borrowed my mum's electronic typewriter, borrowed a book from my local library on formatting books for submission, and by the time the college term restarted, I had a completed 40K word Doctor Who story. My first ever completed book, and despite all the odds.
After a brief detour to the BBC - I was eighteen and there was no real internet so I didn't know any better - who redirected me to the then publishers of the Doctor Who books WH Allen. They rejected it, but I had a long letter with constructive criticism and encouragement. I learned later via a more famous author - the now sadly departed Graham Joyce (but that's a whole nother story) - that their constructive criticism was actually a request to rewrite and resubmit. I didn't realise that at the time, but eighteen years old me was pretty chuffed even by the rejection and kind words. After all, I never really expected to be a published author. That would be silly, right?? 😆
So my first and favourite writing achievement was also in many ways my most stressful at the time. I still have that original manuscript, nicely bound by a friend's dad who liked to bind his own pieces, and with the rejection letter. That first submission was also the birth of my pen name as I hated my surname at the time. Thirteen years later, a character and an alien from that story teamed up with another from a short story prompted by a dream, to become my first published novel Keir. It all came good in the end...

Keir (Redemption Book One. Part of the Travellers Universe)

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A demon waiting to die...

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An outcast reviled for his discolored skin and rumors of black magic, Keirlan de Corizi sees no hope for redemption. Imprisoned beneath the palace that was once his home, the legendary 'Blue Demon of Adalucien' waits for death to finally free him of his curse. But salvation comes in an unexpected guise.

A woman determined to save him.

Able to cross space and time with a wave of her hand, Tarquin Secker has spent eternity on a hopeless quest. Drawn by a compulsion she can't explain, she risks her apparent immortality to save Keir, and offers him sanctuary on her home-world, Lyagnius. But Quin has secrets of her own.

When Keir mistakenly unleashes the dormant alien powers within him and earns exile from Lyagnius, Quin chooses to stand by him. Can he master his newfound abilities in time to save Quin from the darkness that seeks to possess her?

Book One of the Redemption series and part of the Travellers Universe. Previously released by Lyrical Press Inc. 7th May 2012

​A Science-Fiction Romance Novel, Readers Favorite Contest Awards Finalist 2012​, HOD RWA Aspen Gold finalist (3rd place), The Kindle Book Review's 2013 Best Indie Book Awards semi-finalist, and a 2012 SFR Galaxy Award Best May to December Romance winner.

Available in all digital formats from Amazon, All Romance eBooks, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and Smashwords. Print is now available from Amazon, B&N, The Book Depository, and CreateSpace. Download a free pdf sample and read the reviews at Goodreads.

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​"One of the sweetest romances you’ll ever read."

        Elle Hill, author of the Hunted Series

My Best Book of 2018 #superhero #romance

Hi, I'm Pippa Jay, author of sci-fi and supernatural stories to engage your emotions. I had a really bad year reading wise in 2018. I started a few books but didn't finish - not through the fault of the book. Several were non-fiction, most not romance. Mostly the few I did read were old, familiar favourites from Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams and Barry Hughart.

So when I saw the first topic for 2019 would be my fave read from the previous year, I thought I'd better try a bit harder. I read two shorts/novellas, one that had been on my to-read list for a while, and the latest release from one of my auto-buy authors. And the auto-buy won.

I'm a huge fan of Liana Brooks' Heroes and Villains series, so I snapped up the latest soon after its release in October. I know I will get a sweet superhero romance with caring heroes and sassy heroines (regardless of which might be the super). The Polar Terror is a side story in the main series, and the hero is viewed as a bit of an anti-hero by name. I liked the idea of someone who could be seen either way by the general public. The heroine is a sceptic, the only person in the book who isn't convinced...

Kaddy Chaak’s career is in jeopardy, her social life is non-existent, and instead of spending the holidays at home with everyone she loves, she’s in the hospital with her chronically-ill, probably-dying nephew Everett, wondering if her dead sister could have fixed this. The one bright note in an otherwise bleak winter is a potential visit from the Polar Terror, the only super villain north of the 66th parallel, to make little Everett’s hospital wish come true.  

Kaddy’s not really expecting him to show. At best, she expects a lackluster cosplayer with a half-hour to spare.  

What she gets is a swoon-worthy stranger full of secrets, who might just sweep her off her feet–and maybe help her leave the past behind, once and for all.  

***

As always, a sweet, heart-wrenching yet also heart-warming romance with some superhero action thrown in that earned a 4* rating from me and a highly recommended.
Maybe this year I'll get a bit more reading done. 😱

Happy #WinterSolstice!

Hi, I'm Pippa Jay, author of scifi and supernatural stories to engage your emotions. Are you all excited for Christmas? I may be celebrating something a little earlier...
Aside from Christmas itself, the winter solstice is my favourite day at this time of year. Why on Earth would the darkest day of the year and the first day of true winter be anyone's favourite?!

Well, not only do most of the Christmas traditions come from this pagan holiday, but it means after today...the days start getting longer again. Yay! Of course, we still have a couple of cold, dark months to go before we're back to spring, but those few extra minutes of daylight each passing day can make all the difference, even if in reality it's more the thought than any actual sunlight thanks to the traditional gloomy British weather.

The solstice marks the point when the sun is at its most southerly point, directly over the Tropic of Capricorn. Technically that will take place at 22:23 GMT today. Here, the winter solstice is still a major pagan festival celebrating rebirth, with many visiting Stonehenge to watch the sunrise. Many of the things we now associate as Christmas traditions have come from the pagan holiday, including Christmas trees, Yule logs, and mistletoe - evergreens such as holly and mistletoe being symbols of everlasting life.

It has also been the inspiration for a story that I'm working on. After struggling with the concept of Christmas in Spaaaaaace!, I went back to basics. Since many of our modern holidays came from pagan origins based around seasonal changes (which in turn have planetary causes), I figured that while holidays like Christmas might not survive in its current form, perhaps colonizers of other planets would go back to astronomical events. Landing Day, of course, but whatever the planet it would have its own solstices and equinoxes that could be used for celebrations new or old. So instead I wrote a winter solstice story (and maybe one day I'll actually finish it!).

So while Christmas is the big holiday for my family at this time of year, I will raise a glass of hot berry cordial to toast out the day as I look forward to those few extra minutes of even the murkiest daylight tomorrow, and maybe use the cold and gloom to help me finish that solstice story.

Out of this World Holiday Reads #scifi #romance

Hi, I'm Pippa Jay, author of scifi and supernatural stories to engage your emotions.
while my little Christmas SFR story is still in edits (ugh!), I have some more to warm your heart this winter, including a new release at the end of this post from one of my favourite authors (saving the best until last!):

Open With Care by Pauline Baird Jones and Genie Davis
Beware of aliens bearing gifts 
Christmas is coming and so is All I Got For Christmas. Inside you’ll get the evocative and haunting, ”Riding for Christmas,” and the offbeat and heartwarming, "Up on the Housetop.” 

Riding For Christmas:
A mesmerizing tale of interstellar time travel and romance!
Jane MacKenzie, visiting her grandfather’s abandoned ranch, discovers something in the snow. When she opens the ribbon-wrapped box, it mysteriously returns Sam Harrington, who “disappeared” in an 1885 blizzard. 
There’s nothing alien in this enduring tale of holiday homecomings and the hope of love that lasts a lifetime. 

Up on the House Top:
Will her Christmas be ho, ho, ho? Or oh no, no, no?
Gini knew Christmas in Wyoming would be challenging as she headed over the frozen crick and through the woods to the family cabin. The lights are going out in her mom’s attic, the guy who broke her heart is on the porch…and there are aliens on the roof.
According to her mom, it’s going to be the best Christmas ever.
194 pages, $3.99
Amazon, Kobo, Nook

Batteries Not Required by Christine D'Abo (Christmas themed and erotic)

Love Transcends Circuits

Zoe is all alone on an outpost monitoring a lonely quadrant of space. It’s nearly Christmas and all she has for company is her computer AI, Rupert. She isn’t expecting a present from Xion Corporation to help pass the time, but when she opens the box to find a sex bot, a whole world of steamy entertainment possibilities come to mind.

When Zoe activates Sam she doesn’t realize the trouble she’s in for. Sam takes Zoe to sexy new heights and Rupert does a stellar impersonation of a jealous boyfriend. Zoe struggles to ground herself in reality despite her growing lust, but it’s becoming more and more obvious she’s falling in love. But with who—Sam or Rupert?

When a computer virus is unleashed on the outpost, Zoe must choose—or risk losing them both.
128 pages, $1.99
Amazon, Kobo

Noelle In His Heart (Celestial Seasons #1) by C.E. Kilgore, now available with other holiday SFR tales as an omnibus edition: Details here: http://cekilgore.com/books/celestial-seasons/
A Christmas romance with a Sci-Fi twist!
Noelle has made the same wish for the past six years to the angel on top of Father Nathan’s Christmas Tree. All she wants for Christmas is someone with warm arms to hold her and who can understand that she has commitments – commitments which include the twenty-six children at the foster center she volunteers for.
Stranded on Earth six years ago, Steve and his crewmates have done a pretty good job of secretly finding a place in human society, but it doesn’t erase the loneliness that hits hardest around the holidays. He longs for companionship and someone who will understand that his alien heart can love just as deeply

Hey, Santa: SciFi Holiday Romance by Jessica E Subject

She doesn’t want a lot for Christmas… 
Claire Otton dreads spending another holiday alone. When her best friend convinces her to approach the sexy mall Santa, she takes the chance and asks him out, hoping for so much more. 
He’s waiting under the mistletoe… 
Although Andreas Castellanos blends in on Earth, he knows he will never belong. But when the gorgeous woman he’d been staring at invites him to dinner, he has a hard time saying no. 
All they’re asking for… 

Can these two lonely souls find magic together or will their secrets steal their chance of a happy Christmas?
Amazon

A Galactic Holiday: SciFi Romance trilogy
Do androids dream of electric sugar plums?
A detective who refuses to modify her body teams up with her cyborg rival to track down a burglar who is putting toys into homes. A solitary ice miner finds love and friendship while stranded on the surface of Galileo. And two hardheaded negotiators put their differences aside to evade an assassin and save their planets. Enjoy these visions of Christmases yet to come with three science-fiction novellas from Carina Press.
How the Glitch Saved Christmas, by Stacy Gail
Galileo's Holiday, by Sasha Summers
Winter Fusion, by Anna Hackett
Stories also available for purchase separately. 86,000 words
Amazon, $7.99

Even Villains Have Interns is set around Christmas and ends with a Christmas Day proposal (psst, recommended - this is one of my favourite series!)
It's Chicago's favorite city son vs Delilah, daughter of Dr. Charm. America's second city will never know what hit it. 
Bootleggers, drug dealers, crooked cops, and dirty politicians... Chicago has always had a reputation for indulging in the finer vices of life. That’s why Doctor Charm’s favorite daughter found America’s Second City so appealing; criminals are never boring. As second in command for the powerful Subrosa Security group, Delilah Samson finds opportunities to use her superpowers at every turn. Whether it’s stealing a priceless French painting from a mobster or stopping a drug deal, she’s game. 
In fact, the only thing she doesn’t care for is Chicago’s favorite native son, Deputy Mayor Alan Adale, the man who made Lucifer jealous. Sinfully handsome, or possibly just sinful, Adale has been pursuing Delilah since she first arrived, and she’s been dodging. 
When she finds ties between the new kingpin in town and a drug The Company wants to buy so they can create more superheroes, Delilah takes the gloves off. Teaming up with the spooky Spirit of Chicago, she aims to take down the dealers, the mobsters, the kingpin, and The Company. All without falling in love with the one man capable of capturing her heart. 
Amazon

The Polar Terror
Kaddy Chaak’s career is in jeopardy, her social life is non-existent, and instead of spending the holidays at home with everyone she loves, she’s in the hospital with her chronically-ill, probably-dying nephew Everett, wondering if her dead sister could have fixed this. The one bright note in an otherwise bleak winter is a potential visit from the Polar Terror, the only super villain north of the 66th parallel, to make little Everett’s hospital wish come true.  

Kaddy’s not really expecting him to show. At best, she expects a lackluster cosplayer with a half-hour to spare.  

What she gets is a swoon-worthy stranger full of secrets, who might just sweep her off her feet–and maybe help her leave the past behind, once and for all.  
Publisher's website
(not set at Christmas but it is mentioned, and the book is set in Alaska).

Enjoy!

Love Among the Stars #scifi #romance

Hi, I'm Pippa Jay, author of scifi and supernatural stories with a romantic soul. When I wrote my debut novel back in 2009, I never considered it a romance. Unlike many of my peers in all genres of romance, I didn't come from a romance background but a scifi and fantasy one. I am a complete and utter geek. I grew up reading and watching speculative fiction where, if there was a love story, to my young mind it was always secondary or insignificant compared to the world building, characters and adventure, never once considering how the stories might have fallen apart without that element.

So when I set out trying to find a publisher for Keir, I never once mentioned or thought about the romantic element in the story. I marketed it as a sci fantasy adventure along the lines of Doctor Who and Farscape. It was only after a fellow author took me under her wing and offered to do a read through that I was faced with the truth. It came as a shock when she pointed out that the story was as much a romance as scifi, and that I should be selling it as such. Me? Written a romance? When, to my mind, I'd never read a romance other than a couple of my mum's Georgette Heyer books when I had literally run out of new things to read.

I didn't know anything about romance (a fact my editor later went on to point out as she helped me fix it. I hadn't been entirely wrong as I'd made a very poor effort overall, but my author mentor hadn't been completely wrong either). After submitting to my three top choices of small presses, a romance publisher picked up Keir and I had my first official published work - a science fiction romance.

Then and now, the changing face of Keir.

It was around now that I first met Laurie A Green, the creator of the Science Fiction Romance Brigade. Until then I hadn't even realised the genre exited, and suddenly I found a whole bunch of authors writing similar things. It was like I'd come home. This was a group that understood the difficulty of blending two genres and marketing them as a whole. Back then, science fiction romance didn't even have its own category on Amazon. Many romance readers seemed put off by the scifi element, while the die-hard scifi fans seemed aghast at the idea of icky romance in their SF, despite such pioneering authors as Anne McCaffrey and Linnea Sinclair. Fortunately romance readers are an open minded bunch, and I've had the odd scifi reader come to my books and not be scared away by the idea of smooching in their SF. There is an audience out there. Somewhere. But I'll keep on writing it because I love it.

And so we boldly go forth, writing love amongst the stars or in the far future, at the end of the world or the beginning, with humanity or alien contacts. If you'd like to explore more, please check out the Science Fiction Romance Brigade's fanpage on Facebook HERE or the Twitter account @sfrbrigade or the blog HERE. Or you can check out my own personal favourite SFR reads on my Goodreads shelves HERE.

May the Force be with you. Always.

Creating Worlds I'd Want To Stay In #amwriting #scifirom

Hi, I'm Pippa Jay, author of scifi and supernatural stories with a romantic soul. A lot of the settings in my books are literally out of this world (though not all). Part of the appeal of writing is creating worlds I 'd actually want to visit, though many are based on locations in my real life. For example, the tropical islands of Metraxi in my scifi romance series Redemption are based on sunny days spent on the local beaches. In fact, I even ran a digital holiday tour of the planet!

Blue Moon Holiday Tours
Find your dream destination among the stars!

Hello, my name is Melanda Troi, and I'd like to introduce you to the latest and hottest destination in our brochure - the tropical idyll of Kasha-Asor on the planet Metraxi. 

Why should you visit? Well, have I mentioned the temperate climate, with 95% guaranteed sunshine during the extended summer? How about the fact that 70% of their land mass is small to medium sized islands, guaranteeing fairly secluded beaches of distinctive pale pink sand?

Or if you prefer moonlight walks by the sea, Metraxi has a single and rather attractive lunar satellite. Their moon also accounts for their gentle tides *hides winter weather statistics*

I suppose some might find the appearance of the native population somewhat...unsettling, but I can personally assure you of their friendliness!

Species: saurian
Planet of origin: Metraxi
Threat rating on the GC scale: moderate

However, visitors should be aware to read thoroughly all pre-arrival information regarding the planet before arrival to avoid any holiday spoilers such as an upset stomach.

Also exercise caution with certain marine species when diving/exploring the vast coral reefs.

Name: Sabre eel
Threat level: high (aggressive and territorial, soporific bite)

So Metraxi has lots to offer. Strings of tropical isles to pick and choose from, warm, safe seas *hides reports of gigantic sea monsters*, pink sand, a pretty moon, friendly natives, and an extensive range of delicious seafood. Why don't you come visit?

Of course, I suppose an endless seaside holiday could get boring after a while, so I make sure to keep my characters on their toes by adventures elsewhere. :P

Part of the first book is also set on a medieval level world based on my love of the period, although I'm not so sure I'd want to stay there for long. Not with the lack of civilised comforts a 21st century human like myself is used to! No proper sanitation, no real medicine, no social media...wait, that last bit is starting to sound attractive...

The other benefit to writing far future stories is all the amazing technology they have. Rooms, even cities that clean themselves and change colour or furniture on request, environmental control, free transport, miraculous healthcare, space travel, equality...who wouldn't want to visit there, or better still live there?! Of course, they aren't all perfect utopias (where would be the fun in writing or reading that?!) but a lot of things that I hope for humanity are there. If only we could stop being so self destructive...

The reactions of my Travellers when arriving on new worlds are based on the culture shock I experienced visiting Taiwan in 2000. But some of my books feature real life places I'd like to go to. My YA zombie novella Restless In Peaceville is set in Louisiana, with much thanks to my friends who live there and were able to correct any of my cultural or geographical errors, and to direct me to the best places to research it. Google Maps also came in handy, allowing me to virtually walk round the town that I based my own fictional one on. I even have an urban fantasy tucked away on my hard drive set in my historical hometown of Colchester, though I don't know if I'll ever finish it.

But in real life, there are other places I'd love to visit. New Zealand and Finland are both high on my list. I'd like to go back to Sweden sometime, and take my kids for their first visit. I have a hankering to visit Fuerteventura, a place hubs and I tried to go before having children, but time and money constraints meant we ended up on Gran Canaria instead - still a beautiful place and we got to see Atlantic dolphins and pilot whales in the wild, but not the original plan. So in the meantime, I have to settle for visiting the ones in my head and making them as exciting and interesting for me to create as it hopefully is for my readers to visit.