The Final Countdown!

It's just five days until The Runaway's Escape drops into your kindles. So, what better time to send out one last excerpt, this one with all four of our main characters featured.

If you don't already know, in Amaran society, there are three recognised genders. Our quartet is made up of all three. One male, two adalan and one human woman.

Amarans views on sex, love and sexuality could be called liberal. A male is as likely to take another male lover, as an adalan or female. When a triad is formed, they fall in love, each with both their partners. Making love is a group experience.

Amara has societal issues with adalan. They can be viewed much the same way as women are viewed in human society, but on the whole they’re moving towards a world where few differences are recognised between them and all parties rights are protected under the law. But this doesn't mean issues don't remain. Especially in those quarters where life doesn't mean much.

I realise that this is going to be a skip book for some of you and I understand why. Because adalan have penises, they will be considered male by some, even though the niche they fit isn’t either male or female. Even those who have no issue with that, may be put off by the fact that sex is very much a group activity. So absolutely, pass if you need to.

For me though, it’s not just about sex and neither is it just about sex for Amarans. They’re a race that enjoys physical intimacy that is not sexual in nature. When Vedian shows affection, it will be to the mate that is closest regardless of their sex. In cases where there is more than one male in a relationship, they will engage in acts of sex and physical intimacy as much with each other as with their other lovers.

In 2023, The Ilia’s Lovers will be released. This is also set on Amara and will go deeper into this dynamic with multiple relationships, sexual and non-sexual,all intertwined and intersected by the heroine. For Vedian, Aran, Tyne and Ariana, they are a closed and complete circuit.

I love this quartet so much. The pain and horrors they've experienced will begin to heal because of the love they have for one another. I hope you enjoy reading about them and their book, as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Excerpt to use for Newsletter and Facebook Group

By the time Ariana got to the mess, Tyne, Aran, and Vedian were already there. As soon as she walked in, she saw the tension in Tyne’s shoulders and the downward slump in Aran’s. Vedian seemed quiet, though he was putting on a good show, talking to everyone and attempting to lighten the mood. It simply wasn't working.

‘So what’s for grub?’

Vedian looked at Ariana, confused. ‘Grub?’

‘Food. Military speak for food.’ She took a seat on the bench next to Aran. He was sitting on one side across from Tyne and Vedian on the other. She smiled at him in encouragement and took his hands, giving them a squeeze, then relaxed her hands on the table, still entwined with his.

At the brothel, she and Aran had become intimate, though never kissing or touching sexually. There was already too much of that in the brothel, but holding one another at night became routine; hand squeezes and resting with feet on laps was normal for them. She extended it now, giving him the intimacy she could feel he needed, though it was apparent, to her at least, that it was Tyne he needed that intimacy with, and from what she could see, Tyne felt the same way.

For a moment, she considered bringing it up, but Tyne seemed like the kind of person who didn’t talk about these things, and Ariana knew, from time served with him, that Aran was the same way. She didn’t think either of them would appreciate her elbowing their feelings out into the open against their will.

‘Erm, it’s an Amaran dish. It’s precooked,’ Vedian said, ‘but it’s one of the best. I was thinking, when we stop at Dorson, we could buy some fresh Fiolda produce.’

‘Dorson’s where we’re going?’

Vedian nodded. ‘It’s a larger colony world. Though not in the style most would recognise.’

‘What do you mean?’ Ariana turned her full attention to Vedian.

‘The Fiolda go to extreme measures to remain living in a natural world,’ Tyne answered.

‘Exactly.’ Vedian smiled at Tyne, then turned back to Ariana. ‘They’re arboreal, so they live in trees. They build whole societies up there, cities and towns suspended in these trees they call ikikol trees.’

Ariana listened to her translator as it took the word ‘ikikol’ and turned it into ‘very strong tree’, and she laughed.

Vedian grinned. ‘Ikikol trees grow over patches of amot and reinforce their cellular structure with it. They obtain many of the behaviours of amot, including the ability to become stronger when energy is exerted against it.’

‘That’s incredible. It must have made their world a target in the past.’

‘Our own people targeted them in our imperial expansion,’ Vedian confirmed. ‘But Fiolda society was already a thousand solars more advanced than us by then.’

‘They kicked our butts, as you humans would put it,’ Aran said, grinning. ‘I’ve always admired them for that. We were very bloodthirsty in our past. There weren’t many who could stand up to us.’