Good morning! Please welcome guest author Veronica Tower. Though I will be away for part of the day, please feel free to leave comments for Veronica and I will post them as soon as I return. Thank you!
~Kate
Would you tell us about your latest release?
Thanks for hosting me, Kate. Jewel is the first book in a new venture for me into science fiction. I’ve been reading SF for a long time—writers like Olivia Butler, Ursula Le Guin and C.J. Cherryh. I wanted to tackle a book that was both true to these science fiction greats but that was also a really good erotic interracial romance. As you might imagine, these two fields don’t automatically go together. I needed a plot that was both completely dependent upon my heroine’s quest for love and I needed a believable backdrop of the far future with the inherent clash of cultures that makes so much science fiction so good.
Jewel brings both these elements together in a wild and erotic adventure. Jewel is a young woman running from an arranged marriage and searching for independence and love. She finds a lot more than she bargained for—dangers greater than she ever imagined and a man who just might be able to make her forget the cold and somewhat mysterious figure she’s supposed to marry—assuming, of course, they can survive a dramatic discovery on the fringes of human civilization.
Are you a plotter or a pantser?
Actually I’m a little bit of both. Jewel started with a scene bouncing around in my head. From there I started to develop the characters. Then I started wondering: How do I get to this great scene—a fantastic ending to a new book? I worked out the outline of a plot to what I thought would be a short novel—maybe thirty or forty thousand words—and started writing. But because I’m also a pantser, I let the story go where it needed to go, and that meant slowing down and telling it right. So Jewel became the first novel in a series as we work our way toward that fabulous ending I saw when I started it. That means I’ve had the time to fully develop Jewel, her boyfriend Erik, and her fiancé, Kole, not to mention a great cast of supporting characters. It also means I’ve had the time to let my readers discover my future milleau one piece at a time, so the SF cultivates the story instead of getting in the way of it.
When you’re writing, who is more in control, you or your characters?
Of course my characters are in charge. I set the scene for them and think up a few problems to get things moving, but it’s the characters who drive the action and tell me what they will do. Characters always know best.
What do you like about writing series books?
The single best thing about writing a series as opposed to a standalone story is that your characters and their relationships get to continue to grow from book to book. That’s very important. Events change people and a series allows you to explore the internal evolution people experience by overcoming life’s challenges.
In science fiction there’s an additional benefit to a series. SF is built on ideas and the cultures that evolve out of those ideas. That means you get to world build in SF in ways you don’t get to do in contemporary romance. A series lets you do that both more fully and more subtly.
What do you like best about writing erotic romance?
I hadn’t really thought about this issue that explicitly before. Lots of times, sex scenes just leap from the keyboard to the screen and my fingers can’t type fast enough to keep up with the action. But there are other times when I have to stop and insert a caption in the text that says, “Jewel and Erik make love here” and then come back and write it later. So I’d have to say that mood definitely helps.
Thank you, Veronica.
Thanks for having me Kate.
Veronica Tower
JEWEL by Veronica Tower
BLURB
Jewel’s family fortune is entirely dependent on the continuation of a multitrillion-dollar business relationship—a relationship to be cemented by an arranged marriage to Kole Delling, a man Jewel has no reason to love. Desperate to secure her freedom, Jewel joins the crew of the tramp freighter, Euripides, and passes her time on the outskirts of the Fringe and in the arms of Erik Gunnarson.
Erik calls to Jewel in every way Kole doesn’t. An honest worker scratching out a living he may be a little rough around the edges but there’s no question how much he wants Jewel—in his bed, against the bulkhead or in the shower. He can’t get enough, and he’s not too frigid to admit it. With Erik at her side, Jewel finds it easy to forget the opulence of her home world and the advantages of her birth.
But an accidental discovery near an abandoned planet threatens Jewel’s newfound happiness. Driven by greed, the crew of the Euripides is taking an awful risk, one that could jeopardize not only Jewel’s freedom, but the lives of every crewmember on board—including hers.
BUY LINKS
Ellora’s Cave
http://www.ellorascave.com/jewel.html
Amazon
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