Coming Out!

Yes, yes, she's coming out! My new Women's Science Fiction story, Case of the Naga People (Interstellar Intelligence Agency, #2), officially releases today.

See the wonderful cover? Here, here right here! Squeeee!

I can't really call it straight SFR because... well, you'll just have to read it to find out. I do have to say, I really loved writing Becka's story. She had so many surprises for me along the way.

Whereas Raina in Book 1 was a rookie on her first case, Becka has been in the game the longest in the squad. Not to mention her race has no emotional cues. Of course, it doesn't mean she'd emotionless. No, quite the contrary. We also learn a bit more back story about the mysterious lead agent, Sophia Galleon. All these little components (among the regular SF elements) made for a challenging write.

Okay, so let's give the "formal" spiel.

Purchase Links - er Link

Because Patience left me for another woman a long time ago, the book is only uploaded to Amazon, but should be up at the other distribution site in a couple days.  

Blurb
Becka, the most experienced quantum agent in the squadron, faces her most difficult case yet... one involving her ex-husband. Compared to Dane, the Siwa demon Naga people claim is taking their people will be nothing.

Excerpt

     Ice surface of crystalline white.

     Snow covered mountain ranges in the distance.

     Large pink mother planet hanging on the horizon, framed by the universe beyond.

     And silence.

     Wonderful, peaceful silence...

     Agents each mentally prepared in their own ways. Some meditated. Some did yoga. Some danced. Some thought of nothing at all, blocking everything out but their inner being. Of course, there were also those rare few who needed adrenaline instead of peace, such as Aleron Tripp who listened to heavy, fast, loud music to get ready to quantaportate.

     Hers was always to envision a place that no longer existed. Using the sadness and pain of that moment to -- in that weird, twisted way -- focus for the next journey. Grief, her old friend, bubbled in her abdomen to percolate like the lava of a volcano readying to explode. Instead of allowing it, Becka gripped it with mental hands, and turned, kneaded, and molded appropriately, as if she were performing a simple, everyday task like making homemade bread.

     "Images please, Trinity," she mumbled, knowing Trinity would hear the quiet request through the speaker system.

     The white, barren room stuttered and disappeared, to be replaced by an old, wooden room of some sort. In the center, the galaxy materialized, the brightest tan dot being Naga. Becka focused on the centermost part of the floor and let her subconscious soak in the peripheral view.

     All the molten core of her emotions was molded into a tight ball, and she imaged blowingon it, cooling it until it turned white. In her mind's eye, she took her world and placed it in the center of the town hall as her reference point, then backed away again.

     Her limbs grew heavy, and she felt welded to the ground. Focusing on her world in the center of the wooden room, she allowed the desire to take over. The desire to be in that place at that moment.

  Nerves tingled throughout her body, almost ready. Every particle of her slowly lit with awareness. 

Everything popped, akin to little mini explosions sizzling in her conscious hearing, as if she were discerning microscopic popcorn kernels expanding. Releasing the grief and channeling the yearning desire of returning home allowed her body to break apart in a gust of warm wind.

Now as only essence, she could stay here as this simple blip of conscious. Just stay...