Musings and Ramblings

Blood and Metal

Dark Desires, #5

Nina Croft

Genre: Sci-Fi Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Entangled
Date of Publication: August 25, 2015
Number of pages: 268
Cover Artist: LJ Anderson

She's his last chance for redemption...if she doesn't kill him first.

Copilot of the Blood Hunter, Daisy is a newly-turned vampire, and she's hungry. Really hungry and it’s interfering with her plans for revenge. Unfortunately, the only thing that can distract her from said hunger is sex... which is a problem when she can barely refrain from draining any man dry within moments. But old flame Fergal Cain might just be the sexy-assed solution to her problem.

Part human, part cyborg, and with a poison coursing through his system, Fergal's running out of time to find the scientist who has the cure. Unfortunately for him, the misfit crew of the Blood Hunter put a serious kink in his plans. And if the poison doesn't kill him, the hot little vamp he can't resist might do the honors herself...

Guest Post: 

This week, I’m celebrating the release of Blood and Metal, book 5 in my Dark Desires series. The books are a mixture of science fiction and romance, with a little twist of paranormal, and they follow the adventures, romantic and otherwise, of the crew of the space ship, the Blood Hunter.

I love stories which combine genres, but science fiction and romance is probably my preferred mix. Growing up, some of my favorite books were science fiction: Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C Clark, Isaac Asimov... Then I discovered romance. I would have loved stories combining the two, but back then it was rare to find a science fiction book where the focus was on the love story. That’s not so true anymore, and these days—happily—there are a number of authors writing fantastic stories merging the best of science fiction and romance.

So what makes the mix work so well? Here are a few of the things I love:

Bad boys in space.
I fell in love with Han Solo at a very impressionable age. More recently, my devotion to Han has been severely tested by my growing attraction for Captain Mal Reynolds… among others. So I’m predisposed to love sci-fi romance.
But there’s a reason most of my love affairs (imaginary at least) have been with ‘space men.’ I adore a bad boy hero, and space men, whether human, alien or something else entirely, can be the ultimate bad boys; living on the edge of civilization, boldly going…. Pirates, bounty hunters, cops, gun fighters (albeit with a laser pistol rather than a six shooter.) In sci-fi romance, there’s no limit but your imagination to what your hero can do and be.

Kick ass heroines
I’ve loved reading romance from an early age, but when I first started reading them, the heroes tended to be gorgeous, larger than life, and just a little bit on the forceful side. And the heroines were often… well feeble; young, ravishingly beautiful, innocent, and in desperate need of some man to come along and save them.
I want heroines who match their heroes. And in sci-fi romance, more often than not, they more than match their male counterparts. In fact, the heroine is just as likely to be the pirate or the bounty hunter, and just as likely to rescue the hero as vice-versa.

Opposites attract
I’ve always loved romances that focus on people from diverse backgrounds and cultures. I enjoy the clash of different beliefs and discovering how couples overcome those differences to fall in love. Mixing science fiction and romance allows you to push that premise to the limit, bringing together people from not only different backgrounds but also different planets and even different species. The possibilities are endless.

Anywhere
I think one of the reasons people love to read romance is to be carried away to exotic locations, and the opportunities for that in science fiction are unending. Space ships, different galaxies, Earth of the future, even Earth of the past (if you happen to come across a time machine—which we do in my stories.)

Any time
People often think of science fiction as happening in the far future, but it could take place at any time. Who doesn’t want to know what the world will be like ten years from now, or a hundred or a million.… Or maybe we’ll take a trip in that time machine and visit a long ago era. We can walk with the dinosaurs or meet a real live pirate.

So, while sci-fi romance can provide a fantastic combination of adventure and passion, for me, both as a reader and a writer, the real appeal is that the possibilities are as endless as the universe itself.

Have you read any sci-fi romance, and if so what do you love the most? If not, go ahead and give it a go. Chances are you’ll enjoy it.

Giveaway: 

Author Bio:

Nina Croft grew up in the north of England. After training as an accountant, she spent four years working as a volunteer in Zambia, which left her with a love of the sun and a dislike of nine-to-five work. She then spent a number of years mixing travel (whenever possible) with work (whenever necessary) but has now settled down to a life of writing and picking almonds on a remote farm in the mountains of southern Spain.

Nina writes all types of romance, often mixed with elements of the paranormal and science fiction.

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