Guest post with Sharon Lynn Fisher

We’re so happy Tor reached out to us for a guest post feature because we love Sharon’s books here at the blog. Echo 8 is Sharon’s latest release and I can’t wait to read it. *grabby hands*

Three lives. Two worlds. One chance to save it all.

Tess is a parapsychologist, devoting her life to studying paranormal and psychic phenomenon. But when doppelgangers begin appearing from a parallel world, all her training couldn’t prepare her for what is to come.

Jake appeared from another Earth, shocked and angry, and is restrained by government investigators for study. But when he unwittingly steals energy from Tess, it causes a ripple effect across two worlds.

Ross is an FBI agent, ordered to protect Tess as she conducts her research into this dangerous phenomenon. His assignment was not random—he and Tess have a history. And when those feelings resurface, Ross will have to choose between his love for Tess and his duty to protect his world.

My Muse’s Favorite Food: Novelty
(A post in which I interview myself)

With my third sci-fi romance out from Tor, I’ve talked a good bit on the blog circuit about where I find my inspiration for my stories, so I wanted to take a bit of a different angle (which is foreshadowing for the post to come).

In interviewing myself before writing this post, I was able to identify a pattern.

Me: Why do you write speculative romance as opposed to say contemporary or historical?

Myself: I like love stories that have a different twist. I like to see how unusual situations affect relationship dynamics — the more unusual the better, which is why I gravitate toward sci-fi.

Me: But you started out writing fantasy. You read a lot of fantasy as a child and young adult. Why the sudden shift?

Myself: Possibly because the book I read the most times as a child was A Wrinkle in Time, which was in fact sci-fi. But also, when I wrote fantasy I struggled to come up with what I considered to be original plots and worlds. I’m sure this was my own failure to think out of the box. But as a result of reading so much fantasy, I had a pretty locked-in idea of what fantasy was. Having read less sci-fi, I didn’t feel constrained to follow genre-specific conventions. I’m a bit intimidated by the idea of writing about space (not having read a lot of stories set in space), so I don’t do it (so far). I come up with ideas, and then I read science books. The science research helps me build the world (my favorite part) and flesh out the plot.

Me: But I have it on good authority you’re writing a series of short fantasy erotica stories. In fact isn’t the series called Fantasies in Color?

Myself: Why yes! But I’ve never written erotica before, and only started reading it in the last couple of years. Voila, novelty!

Me: What are the speculative books you’ve most enjoyed? Do they give us any insight into what you write now?

Myself: I think they do. My favorite speculative books included a love story. Even A Wrinkle in Time had a small one. I also loved Dragon Prince (Melanie Rawn), Dragonflight (Anne McCaffrey), the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series (Tad Williams), and more recently, Outlander (Diana Gabaldon) and Wool (Hugh Howey). Richard Adams has also been a favorite author of mine, and his book Maia is a wonderful fantasy / erotic romance mashup. I adored the Lord of the Rings books, and those sort of break the pattern, but I consider those books an anomaly (who doesn’t love them?).

The other thing that’s interesting about this list: Of the ones that are part of a series but have a love story that wraps up happily in the first book (Rawn, McCaffrey, and Gabaldon), as much as I loved the first book, I never read the rest of the series. In all three cases I tried, but didn’t stick with it. I’m not exactly sure why. I think for me it was like some of the magic had faded. Also once the romance wraps up happily, I don’t want to see the couple fall apart again.

Likewise, my three Tor books are all standalone, and all set in vastly different worlds. It’s hard to imagine writing additional books about those couples again — the most interesting part of their relationship has already happened. I do have a sequel in mind for The Ophelia Prophecy, but it would follow a different couple. I think that world’s got room for another book.

What about you? Do you like speculative book series, or prefer standalone titles? (I’ll start. I think my favorites these days are the big fat books that can stand alone. Plenty of space for worldbuilding, character development, and a slow-burning romance. But not a lot of those are being published anymore.)

Three-time RWA Golden Heart finalist SHARON LYNN FISHER lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she writes SF/fantasy and battles writerly angst with baked goods, Irish tea, and champagne. A Romance Writers of America RITA Award finalist and a three-time Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Award finalist, Sharon Lynn Fisher writes stories for the geeky at heart—meaty mash-ups of sci-fi, suspense, and romance, with no apology for the latter. She lives where it rains nine months of the year. And she has a strange obsession with gingers (down to her freaky orange cat). Her works include Ghost Planet (2012), The Ophelia Prophecy

(2014), and Echo 8 (2015). Aboutme/SharonLynnFisher. @SharonFisher. Facebook. Goodreads.