Please welcome author Heather Lin to the blog….

Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves
by Heather Lin

Hello, everyone! I’m so happy to be here at Smart Girls Love SciFi to kick off the blog tour for my new Science Fiction Romance novel, The System. It releases in ebook form today from Silver Publishing, and to celebrate, I thought I’d share a bit about my inspiration for the novel and offer one lucky commenter the chance to win a $5 Starbucks gift card! Because, really, what goes better together than a steamy book and a steamy cup of coffee? 😉 Just leave a comment with your e-mail address, and I’ll announce the winner tomorrow.

Anyone who comments is also automatically entered to win a bracelet engraved with a quote from the novel. Winner to be announced at the end of the tour!

Now, on to how The System began:

Since I was young, I’ve enjoyed darker stories—ones with plenty of angst, drama, and tormented heroes. It just seemed to me that the more turbulent and emotional the story, the more exciting the climax and the more poignant the resolution. My favorite bedtime story was The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes, and my favorite Disney movie was (and still is) Beauty and the Beast. In high school, I discovered the classic, gothic romances like Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. Although they weren’t exactly ideal men, Heathcliff and Rochester stole my heart.

And, through all of this, I remained fascinated with futuristic and fantastic worlds. I was a huge Star Wars geek as a child— the idea of distant worlds, alien species, and kicking butt with a lightsaber spoke to my imagination until I was playing with sticks in the backyard and trying to do my hair like Princess Leia. Firefly, Harry Potter, and The Lord of the Rings induced similar fits of nerdy obsession.

In The System, my goal was to pique the reader’s imagination the way these stories have piqued mine, to give them a different, exciting world in which they could immerse themselves. Hopefully, I succeeded.

I wrote the first half of what is now The System when I was seventeen. I only had to go as far as the news—oil spills, rainforest devastation, ozone depletion—to snag the idea for a setting. If we deplete our resources, would we all just perish on this planet? Probably not. I think we’d leave this world behind and make a go of it somewhere else. In The System, we’ve migrated from Earth to a solar system consisting of six planets, all of which are inhabitable by humans. Three belong to the UN as New Earths, two have been taken over by those who rebelled during the Migration, and one is a prison planet for the System’s worst criminals. Long-distance space travel still remains something that belongs solely to the government, but short-distance space travel is anyone’s game.

The System focuses on a young woman, Capri, who became a prostitute at a young age and is suddenly snatched from the life she knows by a crew of thieves who travel on the spaceship Gypsy Lass. Her one and only dissatisfied customer, Brody, happens to be their gunman, and they find themselves undeniably drawn to one another, though they both have painful pasts that keep them from jumping right into each other’s arms. In fact, they do everything within their power to push each other away. Spoiler alert: It doesn’t work.

But the story isn’t just about their secrets and their romance—during their travels, they discover a secret the government’s been hiding since the Migration, and if they thought their situation was complicated before, they’re in for a harsh wakeup call.

The System is a story six years in the making, and it is too close to my heart to express. If I could immerse myself in this world and travel with these characters, I would. But all I have is a laptop and my imagination, and that, at least, allows me to share this futuristic world with you. I hope you enjoy the blurb and excerpt and decide to visit the System yourself!

Get the Excerpt here!

About The System
Capri is an alluring young prostitute with a painful past; Brody is a ruthless mercenary for a crew of thieves from the spaceship Gypsy Lass. When he enters her brothel, the attraction between them is instant, electric, and too much for him to handle. After a robbery gone wrong, the crew takes Capri hostage, forcing her and Brody to remain in close quarters until they see fit to drop her on another planet.

But Capri’s plight and the intense feelings between her and Brody turn out to be the least of their problems. Together—whether they like it or not—they uncover a secret no one in the whole System could have expected.

About the Author
Heather currently resides in Delaware with her loving husband and beloved cat. She began writing romance and erotica in 2008 and hasn’t been able to keep her mind out of the gutter since. Like Heather Lin on Facebook or visit her blog at http://heatherlin88.blogspot.com/ for updates, talented guest bloggers, and the occasional piece of free fiction!