Hello, Nicola! Thank you so
much for visiting Written Butterfly with me today!
Q) How did you dream up the dynamics of your characters?
For me, character dynamics develop as I write the story. I
can come up with a general idea of how I want a specific character to behave,
but then they change during the actual writing process and I’m left to scramble
madly and play catch up. In Assassin,
for example, I wanted Taric to be tough but tender, Zhan to be sly, dangerous,
and sarcastic as all hell, and Duncan
to be a regular Joe who gets thrown into this alien bonding relationship. So of
course the characters shifted a bit; Zhan turned out to a hidden soft spot, Duncan
became far tougher than I originally imagined him to be, and Taric is the
(extremely patient) glue that holds their triad together.
Q) How much real life do you put into or influences
your books?
Depends on the book -- in the case of Assassin I don’t know any aliens in real
life (or do I?), but I have a background in police procedure thanks to my dad
and was able to call on that for Duncan and the New Black Watch, plus I’ve been
a science fiction writer since 1995 so that helped with the SF aspects of the
book. I also have a tendency to give friends cameos in my books -- Watchmen
Muenzler, Hutson, and Seaborn were all named after members of my writers’
group.
Q) What are your upcoming projects?
I’m currently finishing an MMF historical erotic romance set
in 1923 Berlin called Behind the Iron
Cross, and after that I start work on book three in my Olympic Cove series
(book two, Breaker Zone, will be out
from Evernight Publishing in late November).
BLURB
While hunting raiders,
Duncan Shea and other members of the New Black Watch run into a deadly ambush.
Injured and alone, Duncan stumbles across a grounded shuttle carrying an Alphan
warrior named Taric and a mysterious Xyran named Zhan. The handsome aliens
agree to help Duncan, but he quickly learns they also have a plan of their own
-- to claim him as their mate.
Forced to hide their bond
from their respective governments, Taric and Zhan never expect to find their
third bondmate while on an unauthorized mission to stop a vicious Xyran slave
master. Neither of them can resist the urge to claim Duncan, but will their new
mate help them catch their old foe, or turn them over to Earth -- and Alphan --
justice?
BUY LINKS:
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ARe
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Amazon
EXCERPT
Duncan stepped back as the
airlock hatch rose, revealing a huge golden Alphan warrior in a black uniform.
A brief memory flickered across his mind, an afternoon with a tall, broadly
built watchman who had tumbled him laughing into a bed of leaves before fucking
him senseless. The sex had left him with a distinct appreciation for men built
on the alien’s scale.
“Greetings, human,” the Alphan
said, golden eyes staring at him curiously. “Are you in need of aid?”
The low, rumbling voice knocked
him out of the memory. “Uh, yeah. I mean, yessir,” Duncan said, wondering if he
should salute or what. “Name’s Duncan Shea. I’m with the New Black Watch.” He
showed his right arm, where a band of green and blue tartan had been clumsily
sewn. At the alien’s puzzled look he added, “It’s a guard unit. We were
tracking some thieves when we got ambushed about five klicks from here.”
The alien glanced at the woods
behind him. “You are alone?”
Duncan grimaced. “My men are
dead. Bastards planted some kind of mine in the woods.” Like an alien’s gonna know what a mine is. “You step on it, it
blows up,” he clarified. “You heard anything about that, sir?”
The Alphan’s eyebrows rose.
“About … mines?”
“Or thieves, sir. Local ones.”
The alien shook his head. “I know
nothing about local criminals, Watchman Shea. Nor do I know anything about
human explosive devices.”
Duncan sagged. Even if the Alphan
was lying, there was no way he could prove it. And forcing his way on board an
alien ship, even if it wasn’t hiding outlaws on board, was suicide. “All right,
thank you.” With a weary tip of his hat, he turned to go.
“Wait,” the alien ordered. “You
were injured in this explosion.”
It was a statement, not a
question. Duncan shrugged, then winced as his cold, tight muscles cramped with
the motion. “Got banged up a little, yeah.”
This time the Alphan glanced up
at the gunmetal sky and the cold rain pouring down. “This weather is not safe
or healthy for an injured human. Board my ship and I shall assist you.”
It was Duncan’s turn to raise his
eyebrows. “‘Scuse me?”
“Did I use your language
incorrectly?” The Alphan switched to a loud, slow tone. “Board … my … ship …
and—”
Duncan shook his head. “I got
that. I meant, why are you gonna help me?”
The alien smiled. It made his
craggy, handsome face more human, somehow. “My race signed a treaty with yours
to offer assistance when and where we could. As such, it is my duty as an
Alphan warrior to assist an injured human warrior.”
“Oh.” That did line up with what
he’d heard about the gold aliens and their sense of honor. “Well, sir, in the
case, I’d be pleased to get out of the rain for a spell.”
The Alphan stepped back, and
Duncan climbed into the airlock, pulling off his hat and swallowing a moan as
the warm air hit his cold, wet skin. “Oh, that feels good.”
“I imagine it does.” The Alphan
towered over him by a good six inches, and a pair of pointed black horns on his
forehead added another inch of height. Duncan couldn’t help checking out the
thickly muscled body straining the seams of its uniform. While he was in good
shape, he suspected that the Alphan could crush him like a bug.
Or throw you down and fuck you silly, part of his mind suggested.
He shivered pleasantly at the
thought. “Um, do you—”
“What a sodden creature,” another
voice said sourly. “Do we let it drip dry, or do we wring it out?”
BIO
Nicola
Cameron is an expatriate Chicagoan who has lived in England, Canada, Holland,
and Sweden, and keeps a confusing amalgamation of languages in her head as a
result. Currently located in the clavicle of Texas, she has finally mastered
the proper use of "y'all," much to her Chicago family's dismay.
Despite
a healthy interest in sex since puberty, it wasn't until 2012 that Nicola decided
to try writing about it. As it turned out, the skills she picked up during her
SF writing career transferred rather nicely to erotic romance. When not
writing, she wrangles cats, smooches her husband, makes dolls of dubious and
questionable identity, and thanks almighty Cthulhu that she doesn’t have to
work for a major telecommunications company any more (because there’s BDSM, and
then there’s just plain torture...).
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Website
/Blog: http://www.nicolacameronwrites.com
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Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/nicolacameronwrites
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Twitter:
https://twitter.com/YesItsNicolaC
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Evernight
Publishing: http://www.evernightpublishing.com/nicola-cameron/
Thanks so much for having me on, Beth!
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