Our next featured author is Donna S. Frelick. She has donated a copy of Unchained Memory to our Blog Lovin’ Bundle giveaway, so be sure to enter (often)!
UNCHAINED MEMORY
Three hours ripped away her past.
His love promised her the future.
From the night she wakes up in her pickup on the side of the road, three hours gone and everything of value lost to her, Asia Burdette is caught in a clash of invisible forces. She has only one ally in her struggle to understand why–Ethan Roberts, a man she shouldn’t love, a psychiatrist who risks everything to help her.
With black ops kidnappers dogging their trail, the lovers race to navigate a maze of mind control, alien abduction and interstellar slavery. If they keep following the signs, they’ll find a battle that’s been raging since the first silver saucer was spotted in the skies above Earth.
Get it on: AMAZON and other retailers.
DONNA
Donna S. Frelick was an RWA® Golden Heart® Double Finalist in 2012 in the Paranormal category for the first two novels in her SFR Interstellar Rescue series. She currently lives in Virginia with her husband and two talkative cats. Find her at http://donnasfrelick.com; blogging at http://spacefreighters.blogspot.com; and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/DonnaSFrelickAuthor.
Mini-Interview
Q. When did you realize that SFR was a genre?
A. Probably when fellow SFR writer (now blog partner and friend) Laurie Green sat down across from me at my first Romance Writers of America conference and started talking. She had big ideas to take over the universe for this thing she called science fiction romance. And it turns out that’s what I had been writing since my days as a STAR TREK fanfic writer.
Q. What SFR book had the most impact on your reading and writing?
A. I really admire the pioneers who defined our genre in modern times–Linnea Sinclair and Susan Grant especially. But my writing and reading habits were formed much earlier, with the humanists of the New Age of science fiction. I loved Zenna Henderson and Theodore Sturgeon and others of that time, but Ursula K. Leguin was my favorite. I quoted from a very romantic SF book called The Dispossessed in my wedding in 1976, just as the Big Split between fantasy and SF was making it harder and harder for books like hers to find a respectful audience among SF readers.
Q. Do your books lean more to SF or romance?
A. Definitely romance. I try to balance the two, so that the external plot (which is SF) is entertaining and makes logical sense, but there is no question that my books are romances–girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy back, happy ever after. I’m not ashamed of that, or of the fact that there is lots of, ahem, sex in my books. People are people, even if they are part alien or stuck in space and the biological imperative will assert itself! The one caveat I insist upon is that my love scenes advance the plot emotionally. So no skipping, readers!
Donna’s question for readers:
What can we as writers do to make it easier for you to find new SFR titles? Believe me, that is the question of the hour right now, not only for us, but for writers in any genre. Honestly, we’re not trying to be invisible–we know you want to find us! Tell us how!
Answer for an entry in our drawing!
Smart Girls love SciFi 
Make sure the editors of SciFi Romance Quarterly know about your new releases. Letting those of us who blog and review SFR about your books is another way.
Making the rounds of the SFR blogs is a MUST for SFR authors. You’re absolutely right, JONESJAR! And the SFRQ has been a boon for all of us–not to mention that the articles are always a blast! Thanks for the tips!
Difficult question, Donna. I wish I knew the answer to that one. As for myself I rely heavily on readers/bloggers and their recommendations. Often they will provide links or mention other sites I have not heard of where more SFR info can be found. (Like this site mentioning the SciFi Romance Quarterly – new to me!) Although not on Facebook, I am on Twitter and have discovered some wonderful books just by readers tweeting about them. If someone takes the time to think up some cute one-liner and provides a link to a good read my curiosity won’t let that pass.
What can we as writers do to make it easier for you to find new SFR titles? That is really a very difficult question. Although I have been aware of the genre for a while now, finding new authors and stories has been done purely by word of mouth from authors I already knew. It has been a slow process, but I now subscribe to several sites (like this one) that promote the genre so can find new stuff more easily. Social Media seems to still be a bit light. I am not aware of how many of the authors I “like” on Facebook that write SFR, and not all the blog and/or author sites run a fb page. I do not tweet.
But for me, I do know that any author, no matter the genre, that interacts with me will get my attention and support. I not only stalk (follow) them all over the web, I also promote on my fb page, my goggle + page and sometimes on pinterest. So I guess that all boils down to – interact as much as possible with your readers. From my limited experience, maybe a street team to help with the social media promotions. That way you are interacting with a finite amount of people but getting a larger amount of promotion.
Great thoughts!
Sorry, I don’t have an answer, but I do have some encouraging news: My local Barnes and Nobles recently reorganized their Science Fiction/Fantasy section and romance section. Before, all the SFR could be found mostly in the Romance section. Now, there is no SFR in the Romance section; it has all been moved to the Science Fiction/Fanatasy section. Hopefully that means SFR will be exposed to a larger audience of Sci Fi lovers who would have never been caught dead in the Romance section!
One of the ways I have been introduced to new SFR authors is through other SFR authors. Whether it is through a blog like Spacefreighters Lounge or SFR Brigade or through a review of an author I follow on Goodreads, this is a way to hear about books I might otherwise miss. So the more authors support each other, the more they expose your own work to other SFR readers.
All great ideas, folks, and thank you! I love interacting with readers, PANSY PETAL, and I try to keep a wide presence on social media through Spacefreighters Lounge, the SFR Brigade, on Facebook and through wonderful opportunities like this one (thanks for the invite, Riley and Charlee!). Still, there is the danger of overplaying one’s hand, (What, HER again? SHEESH!) I just hope through all of this that those of you who read and enjoy the book pass the word on to others in your circle. You know that saying about a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world . . .
I’m the member of only five discussion groups on goodreads, and a lot of book recommendations I follow up on come from scouting those conversations or from friends’ update feeds. And I have to say the one with the least activity is – by far – Sci-Fi Romance (only 1 post in the last 30 days!). Or maybe I am just missing the group where new SFR authors or existing SFR authors with new titles and readers are chatting? I do frequent author websites, SGLSFR, Brigade, Spacefreighters Lounge, etc, but sometimes I just don’t have time to tap into so many disparate sources. I like the convenience of discussion notifications on goodreads, but maybe reviewers have become too mean so authors avoid? Or there needs to be a new discussion group formed with more active moderators? I don’t know. But I feel this is an untapped resource for sharing new titles.
I do think some authors are wary of interaction on Goodreads due to the lurking presence of trolls who make it difficult in some cases to carry on a friendly conversation. In my case, I’m open to interacting there (well, just about anywhere!)–I have an author page and solicit questions from my readers. But reviews have been thinner than on Amazon and those questions have been few and far between–so far. Probably just because I’m a newbie.