Alien Landscapes
Blurb:
Matthias Reynolds loves his life. He's starting to make it as a graphic artist at last and has a job he really likes at a local café that pays the bills. When a night out clubbing leads to an awkward morning after, he's embarrassed and more than ready to forget all about it. When Talani Enforcers show up at the café, he doesn't know what to make of it all as he's led away in restraints.
Standing accused of crimes he struggles to understand, he finds he has an unexpected champion: the Talani warrior and war hero J'nah Quislin. J'nah knows that Matty is his. All J'nah has to do is keep Matty safe from those who engineered Matty's charges and sentencing. That, and get Matty to accept that universe always intended them to be together as one. All it requires is for Matty to return J'nah's devotion and offer his willing submission. Can Matty do it, with all that it will mean for his future?
Alien Landscapes
Matty has lived in a big city his entire life, so he's seen
a lot of different things and encountered
folks from a host of different cultures. The Talani Embassy is in his
city, and while he'd never personally encountered any of the Talani (or any of
the other peoples from their Alliance for that matter), he'd certainly seen on
TV and heard stories from his best friend, who worked at the Embassy, in the
trade department.
He'd had pre-conceived notions about the Talani. They looked
human, just much larger and very green. They were engaged in trade, allowing
human corporations to operate within Talani space. He even knew about the
Volunteer program, where humans could go to work for the Talani, usually
leaving Earth to in exchange for a job and training. It was all so friendly
sounding, that he quite missed one big thing. The Talani aren't human and they
have a vastly different history, set of laws, and so on.
Yet, when confronted with this reality, he can't help but
find things somewhat familiar, even if he quickly learned to not assume that if
it looked like a bag of crisps, it quite likely was not like any crisps he'd
ever seen before. The things that were similar only served to highlight the
differences, making him all the more homesick until he found a balance. His
sense of curiosity coupled with his becoming familiar with the ways of the
Talani quickly imbued him with a sense of belonging. It certainly didn't hurt
that he had his very own Talani warrior showering him with affection, either.
Creating the alien landscape was not without its pitfalls.
What to call things, so they seemed familiar, bit not? What sort of advances would
my aliens use without it seeming overly fantastical? I didn't want to get up in
technology and end up distracting readers from the plot. I'm hoping that I
struck the right balance so that readers will feel they are in an alien
environment standing right next Matty, but not feel lost within technobabble or
superfluous uses of advanced technology. As for the food and their biology-
hey, they're aliens. Evolution threw different numbers on the dice, and they
were six-sided at that.
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Author Bio:
Leona is a longtime
staunch supporter of human rights and environmental causes. Her favourite genre
to read is M/M fiction and she particularly enjoys science fiction, fantasy,
and action/suspense sub-genres—especially if they have a nice seasoning of
romance. She has far too many books on her Kindle, has overloaded her phone
with even more and, when not reading, writing, being driven to distraction by
her children, or being overlorded by her three cats, can be found trying to
locate the portal that the sock monster uses to steal socks from her dryer.
Recent head-reeling news
for her included her novel Jared:Urban Wolves #1 being nominated for an Indie
Award from Metamorph and placing as a finalist in the 2016 Rainbow Awards,
earning an Honorable Mention. She's still suspicious that it's all been a
dream, but as long as her readers are happy and she can find at least one of
the missing socks, she's happy.
You’ll
find her books on Amazon (universal link is http://author.to/LeonaWindwalker),
including on Kindle Unlimited. You’ll also find her on Facebook at Leona Windwalker, where you can keep up
on news regarding current, new, and upcoming releases.
Don't forget to put it on
your Goodreads shelf! (Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33414912-accused)
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