Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and Commentary

SF Signal, a major internet source for SF books, hosts weekly feature called Mind Meld. This week’s topic was “What’s Your Favorite Sub-genre of SF and/or Fantasy” and SF Signal invited Heather Massey, blogger at The Galaxy Express, to participate. Massey took the opportunity to promote SFR to an audience of SF and F readers.

And there’s nothing like a maelstrom of conflict as the hero and heroine face seemingly insurmountable obstacles, whether from interpersonal misunderstandings or feelings of fierce, stubborn protectiveness about their significant other’s safety. Aren’t Han Solo and Princess Leia, the quintessential science fiction romance couple, known as much for their romantic bickering as for the hot chemistry between them?

Go Heather.

Dear Ms Sinclair,
You really love Star Trek, don’t you? Not that I hold that against you. I love it too, including the original series (TOS) with Kirk where men were men and women were, well, sometimes they were clouds of energy that sucked the very life from you, but at some point they could always kiss back.
Your book really reminds me of TOS. No nice Klingons here. The villains are evil bastards without a hint of redeemable material. The monsters? Screw IDIC, kill them all. (IDIC, for the reader, is a Vulcan ideal, Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, actually mentioned in the book).
And the hero and heroine don’t spend all that much time on introspection. Sure, they’ve both had major problems, especially the heroine, but other than the occasional nightmare she seems to buzz right past them. But then that could be alien psychology, or military psychology, which is at times even more mysterious.
It’s fairly clear from the hint you dropped at the end of the book that the similarities were intentional. …

Dear Ms Harte,

I was checking out New Concepts ebook site, looking at some of the offerings and decided to take a chance with Forest Whispers. I’m glad that I did. It’s got a strong heroine who’s always had to fight to earn her place but one who can change her stance on men when she meets one who deserves it. The hero never comes over all alpha and dominant but he’s quite a warrior and ready to defend what he cares for.

There isn’t an apostrophe or hyphen to be found in any of the names and the story makes sense. It’s short (eight chapters and an epilogue - but no babies) so there are some things that you hint at but don’t really have time to explain that I would have enjoyed reading about in more detail. The world building is sketchy but adequate for the length of the story. The violence against women is hinted at except in one spot and even then we only get a brief description of the aftermath but the “take down the villain” scene is told as it happens. The sex is hot and graphic but …