March Madness means basketball at our house. Hours of basketball. Especially if a Michigan team is playing. But only for Hubs. I am not a sports fan unless it’s baseball. To me, March means Opening Day is around the corner. So while he is glued to the TV watching really tall guys run back and forth on the court, I’ll be on my laptop with Enya blasting through my earbuds writing the next chapter of my latest book.
Besides signaling the coming of
Major League Baseball, March is such an iffy month here in the upper Midwest.
Is it the end of winter or the beginning of spring? Sometimes Mother Nature
can’t make up her mind. Snowstorms and crocuses sticking their tiny heads out
of the snow. That first bit of green poking through the dead brown grass along
the highway. Daffodils? Well, maybe not yet.
In March, I start planning my
garden. What new flowers will I plant this year and where? Will I go with
tried-and-true petunias in the flower boxes and impatiens on the shady
northside of the house and marigolds on the south? Or will I be adventurous and
try something new? Then I count down the days until our local nursery has
annuals for sale. I don’t dare buy them too early as our area of Michigan often
has late frosts. Who wants to do all that work preparing the beds and planting
flowers only to lose them to the cold?
Since March this year opened with
snowstorms throughout the country, this month should go out with gentle warm
breezes and lots of sunshine. I can only hope.
Blurb for The Pilot:
Life on the frontier of space is
hard enough so when pirates stole Celara d'Enfaden's cargo, she vowed not to be
tricked again. Determined to make an
example out of indie pilots who disobey orders, Coalition Administrator Trevarr
Jovano impounds Celara’s starship and cargo. If he backs down, he’ll lose
respect. If she can’t deliver her cargo, she’ll default on her loan and lose
her only home—her ship. More important than her ship, though, is her brother.
To rescue him from a galactic gangster, she’ll even work with Jovano who is
bent on avenging his wife’s murder.
Excerpt from The
Pilot
Celara stopped
looking for the Dockmaster when she saw a pair of legs topped by the most
gorgeous set of male buns she’d seen in at least a year. The owner of the
aforementioned body parts, encased in the dark blue uniform of the repair crew,
was bent over the open hatch of an Agilean Speeder.
Now, there was a
ship. The sleek vessel—one of the fastest in the galaxy—almost distracted her
from the mechanic. He’d shrugged off the top portion of the jumpsuit so that it
pooled around his waist. The environment of the repair shop affected many
newcomers, especially those unaccustomed to the heat.
As she stared at
his butt, all she could think was oh,
mama. She hoped he was human and that the rest of him lived up to the
preview. Better yet, she hoped he was in a party mood. After escaping from the
pirates, Celara wanted to howl . . . and someone to howl with.
“Hey, big boy,”
she called to the mechanic. “Wanna party?”
As the mechanic abruptly
straightened, he whacked his head on the raised engine hatch. He muttered a
Bricaldian curse about origins. She hoped he meant the ship’s, not hers. But
then, considering her origins, that curse wasn’t out of line. When he turned
around, she sucked in a breath. Oh, yeah.
A primal part of her sat up and took notice. His backside, gorgeous as it was,
didn’t compare to the rest of him. He had the broad shoulders and muscles of a
laborer plus the black hair, square jaw and blade-straight nose of Bricaldian
aristocracy. What a delicious combination.
“Did you arrive
on that hauler?” He nodded to her ship. His voice, a tantalizing allure of
baritone and chokiris, sounded vaguely familiar.
“Yep. That’s my
ship.” She tucked her thumbs into the side pockets of her trousers and thrust
out her chest a little in pride. “D’Enfaden’s
Thermopylae. Fastest little transport in three sectors.”
He walked past
her to examine her ship then ran his hand—long, strong fingers, she noted—over
the dents and scrapes along the aft section. “It appears to have sustained
damage.”
“My thruster
gimbal got damaged when I kissed an asteroid evading filthy pirates. They
didn’t catch me, though.” She grinned. “Hey, you new around here? Don’t
remember seeing you before—and I sure would remember seeing you.”
He arched his
dark eyebrow.
She raised her
hand, palm outward, in the traditional indie greeting. “Celara d’Enfaden.” As
he stared at her with green eyes as sharp and clear as veridion, she raised her
own eyebrow. “And you are . . .”
When he reached into the pocket of his work uniform and pulled out a
zircan leather folder, she groaned before he even opened it. She knew what the
folder contained. A shiny gold badge, carved with an intricate array of stars,
swirls and a tiny red jewel in the center. The insignia of the Coalition.
“I am
Administrator Trevarr Jovano.” He snapped his fingers and two armed Security
personnel stepped out of the shadows of the Agilean Speeder. “I am impounding
your ship and confiscating your cargo.”
What flowers are your favorites?
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Bio:
Diane Burton combines her love of mystery, adventure, science fiction
and romance into writing romantic fiction. She’s a member of Romance Writers of
America® as well as the Mid-Michigan and Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal
RWA chapters. She is the author of the Switched
series, about twins exchanging places—from Earth to a starship and
the reverse. With The Pilot, she begins a new series about strong women on the
frontier of space. She is also a contributor to the anthology How I
Met My Husband. Diane and her husband live in Michigan. They have two
children and two grandchildren.
