Book picks similar to
Angel Mine by Vijaya Schartz
science-fiction-romance
steam-4
first-in-a-series
genre-sci-fi
Baldwin's Legacy: The Complete Collection (Books 1-6)
Nathan Hystad - 2021
Starshine: Aurora Rising Book One
G.S. Jennsen - 2014
Now two individuals from opposite ends of settled space are on a collision course with the darkest of those secrets, even as the world threatens to explode around them.The year is 2322. Humanity has expanded into the stars, inhabiting over 100 worlds across a third of the galaxy. Though thriving as never before, they have discovered neither alien life nor the key to utopia. Earth struggles to retain authority over far-flung planets and free-wheeling corporations while an uneasy armistice with a breakaway federation hangs by a thread as the former rebels rise in wealth and power.Alexis Solovy is Earth Alliance royalty, her father a fallen war hero and her mother an influential military leader. But she seeks only the freedom of space and has made a fortune by reading the patterns in the chaos to discover the hidden wonders of the stars.Nothing about her latest objective suggests the secret it conceals will turn her life— not to mention the entire galaxy—upside down. But a chance encounter with a mysterious spy leads to a discovery which will thrust Alex into the middle of a galactic power struggle and a sinister conspiracy, whether she likes it or not.When faced with its greatest challenge, will humanity rise to triumph, or fall to ruin?Aurora Rising is an epic tale of galaxy-spanning adventure, of the thrill of discovery and the unquenchable desire to reach ever farther into the unknown. It's a tale of humanity at its best and worst, of love and loss, of fear and heroism. It's the story of a woman who sought the stars and found more than anyone imagined possible.
Star Nomad
Lindsay Buroker - 2016
It should be a time for celebration, but not for fighter pilot Captain Alisa Marchenko. After barely surviving a crash in the final battle for freedom, she's stranded on a dustball of a planet, billions of miles from her young daughter. She has no money or resources, and there are no transports heading to Perun, her former home and the last imperial stronghold.But she has a plan.Steal a dilapidated and malfunctioning freighter from a junkyard full of lawless savages. Slightly suicidal, but she believes she can do it. Her plan, however, does not account for the elite cyborg soldier squatting in the freighter, intending to use it for his own purposes. As an imperial soldier, he has no love for Alliance pilots. In fact, he's quite fond of killing them.Alisa has more problems than she can count, but she can't let cyborgs, savages, or ancient malfunctioning ships stand in her way. If she does, she’ll never see her daughter again.
Restore
Susan Kaye Quinn - 2015
But Unit 7435 finds there is a price to be paid for love… and for failing in its primary mission. Restore is a standalone short story that takes place in the world of the Singularity novels. Start the novel series with The Legacy Human (Singularity 1).A NOTE FROM THE AUTHORThe future is… unsettling.Technology isn’t just racing forward, it’s accelerating. This isn’t just our imagination, it’s a natural consequence of innovation building upon innovation. The gap between what we can imagine and reality shrinks every day. Our relationship with technology is already one of the defining issues of the 21st century. As we integrate it ever-more-intimately into our lives and bodies and brains—as we mold our creations in our own image, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally—our tech will shape us in ways we will barely understand.The 21st century will challenge us to remember what it means to be only human.But creating a truly sentient Artificial Intelligence is far more complicated than first dreamed in Asimov’s Bicentennial Man. As we learn more about the three pounds of meat and electricity between our ears, as well as consciousness itself, we are realizing how difficult the job is. In a sense, creating an AI will force us to answer some of the deepest questions humanity has ever asked… about ourselves and our place in the universe.What does it mean to create intelligence if you intentionally limit it? Is it cruel or compassionate to keep your tech from evolving above a certain sentience level?I hope Restore will provoke a bit of thought in your own personal set of three pounds of meat and electricity.
Kidnapped by the Alien Barbarian
Ella Mansfield - 2015
She will be forced to have a career she doesn't want, marry a man a computer chooses for her, give birth to children who will be taken from her, and basically spend her entire life doing as she's told.Drrrl is the prince whose family has been exiled from his home planet due to a centuries old feud with another family. His family has been cursed to have no female offspring. Instead of choosing one of the exiled women convicts brought to his planet, he decides to go to Earth and choose a woman he would prefer. As soon as he sets eyes on Lela he realizes she is his fated mate. Dare he take her with him against her will and make her his bride? Will they ever be able to get past the fact that he kidnapped her to live together in harmony?
Mercenary Instinct
Ruby Lionsdrake - 2014
But Ankari Markovich needs a few archaeological samples for her latest business venture, a venture that might prove lucrative enough to move her family off the impoverished planet where she grew up. Unfortunately, she has no sooner collected her samples than she’s captured by a band of brawny mercenaries. The captain might be handsome, but he’s intent on turning her over to some finance lord who has, for reasons unknown, put a bounty on her head, a ridiculously large one at that. If she can’t figure out a way to escape before she’s delivered to the lord’s home world, she could be forced into a life of indentured servitude—or worse.Captain Viktor Mandrake doesn’t usually take on piddling bounty hunting gigs, but when his intelligence officer informs him of a criminal on a nearby planet, he decides it wouldn’t hurt to take a shuttle down to collect the woman. But Ankari Markovich is trouble from the start, nearly eluding his elite forces, then fighting and tricking his people left and right. He finds himself admiring her spirit, but according to her warrant, she’s a criminal. The safest thing is to keep her in the brig and ignore her until she can be handed off to the man who wants her.But the situation grows more complicated when other bounty hunters show up, wanting to claim Ankari for themselves. Thanks to this woman, Viktor’s ship is in danger, his crew members are going missing, and he’s fighting enemies he never asked for in a jungle in the middle of a hurricane. He’s either going to strangle Ankari… or fall in love. Either scenario could get him killed.Mercenary Instinct is a full-length, stand-alone novel of 90,000 words. It is part of the “Mandrake Company” series of science fiction romance stories and is recommended for readers who enjoy space-based adventure (such as Firefly) and steamy love stories (in the style of Linnea Sinclair).
Suddenly a Bride
Ruth Ann Nordin - 2011
What he longs for is a life mate: someone who'll complete him, someone he can love who’ll love him back, someone who’ll ease the aching loneliness that haunts his life. So he leaves his world, takes on the Earth name Chris West, and makes a payment to Star Systems Unlimited for a life mate.When he bonds with Caitlyn Davis, he thinks life can't get any better. But she was married before, and memories of her deceased husband still linger around her home. Will he find a place in her heart or will he have to become like her first husband in order to get her love?
Secrets in Bar Harbor
Katie Winters - 2021
For years, she was a sensitive yet lively woman and an eternally devoted wife. She worked as a children's fantasy writer and poured her life and love into her relationships with her husband, Max, and her twin daughters, Kristine and Bella.But all that changes when Max, an oceanographer, disappears off the coastline, never to be seen again.Grief is an understatement. Heather’s depression is insurmountable.With her daughters both away at college, Heather retreats to Bar Harbor, where one of her sisters has taken up operation of the Acadia Eatery, which is attached to their inherited Keating Inn.But almost immediately after her arrival, Heather discovers old letters that indicate that Jane, the woman she thought was her mother, was never her mother at all. There’s nobody else around to ask – her father and "mother" died years ago.In the wake of her torrential grief, Heather now finds herself sliced off from the sisters she once so loved, facing trauma she hadn’t known existed.Will she discover the truth? And what will become of her relationship to the women she always called “sisters” if it’s true she doesn’t really belong?Dive into this new women’s fiction series, Mount Desert Island – an unfolding family drama of heartache, longing and secrets on a beautiful island off the coast of Maine.
The K9 Files: Books 1-2
Dale Mayer - 2021
Gabriel (Clan Companions, #1)
Tracy St. John - 2021
Then he met a Kalquorian clan.After fleeing Earth’s Mercy Colony six years before, Gabriel Rossi and his sister Iliana have carved out a decent life on a remote Adraf space station. Each avoids contact with other humans as much as possible. Gabriel’s life is adequate, but he yearns to be free to love as he was born to.Clan Baknu has been tasked with convincing Iliana to return to Kalquor with them to join a clan. But when Baknu, Takat, and Kisk meet her stunning older brother, they’re eager to claim an Earther companion of their own.Though Gabriel falls for the three men on sight, his priority is Iliana, who’s less than enthralled about joining a Kalquorian clan. Worse still, a sadistic slave trader is determined to claim Gabriel for purposes too terrible to imagine.Clan Baknu pulls out all the stops to convince the Rossis that they can find love and happiness among the Kalquorians. They dare death to keep Gabriel out of the grasp of a murderous crime lord, who won’t stop until the Earther is his. Yet their greatest challenge is showing Gabriel dreams can come true…if he’ll accept their love.
Femme Metal
Nathalie Gray - 2005
Soldier. Enemy. Bodyguard. Bitch. Her body's been through enough refits to trip every metal detector in the system. But nowadays, she's what is politely referred to as a ""privateer."" A new tag for an old job-slaver. On the Femme Metal, a tough, ugly-as-hell little ship, she prowls deep space procuring males. Human or alien. She doesn't much care. As long as they generate profit. And nothing will stop her from supplying her wealthy customers with top-grade male specimens for their brothel ships. Not even the seven-foot, blue-skinned, silver-haired wonder her customer very specifically requested. Unfortunately for Alex, she hadn't counted on the gorgeous Yithian being a Hunter or how her own attractiveness and desirability could get her and her crew into hot water. Sekmeth Meroh always gets his prey. For an exorbitant fee, he will catch anyone, of any race, on any world. He's the best of his kind-a Hunter-and sneaky to boot. Sekmeth's latest assignment-capture Alexandra Novona and her all female crew for a brothel ship near his own home world. One little problem... Neither Alex nor Sekmeth can keep their hands-or lips-to themselves.
Blind Rage
Michael W. Sherer - 2016
Blinded in the accident, she hires a "seeing-eye guy" as her assistant. On her first day back she gets emails from "Dad," asking her to find and upload computer files. But the emailer isn't the only one who wants whatever's in those files, and suddenly people around her start dying violently. Tess wonders how much her Uncle Travis, a former assassin for the Army Special Forces, knows about the files. He returned from a mission a year earlier to guard the family from a potential threat. And since he was on watch at the time, she also wonders what he knows about the accident that took both her sight and her parents' lives. In a race against time, Tess and her companion Oliver must learn the secret of the mysterious computer files before the killers stalking her get their hands on technology that could change the balance of world power.
Abducted
Cassandra Logan - 2015
She has a career she loves, an apartment that, while small, meets her needs, and a best friend that is helping her find someone to spend the rest of her life with, or at the very least someone to have a good time with. Zeke is only on Earth long enough to make repairs to some salvaged equipment and relax with the local natives. Just a few, short weeks and then he, and his shipmates are on their way back to their home world. Then he catches Anika's scent and his wolf is gone. Unable, and unwilling, to fight the instant attraction Zeke soon finds himself head over heels, but will the secret he's keeping cause him to lose his mate? Meanwhile, Anika has a secret of her own that could end up having a huge impact on the couple’s future. Disclaimer: This story has several graphic sex scenes and some mild language.
The Solid-State Shuffle
Jeffrey A. Ballard - 2016
Goodbye entire cities. Goodbye entire states. Goodbye entire countries. And when the authorities outlawed salvaging from these sunken sites, why say hello to a new breed of criminal: underwater reclamation specialists. Even a hundred years later, there’s still a whole lot of loot for the reclaiming.But it’s not theft if you put it back, right?After cracking an underwater vault in their first major heist in the Seattle Isles, Isa and her crew think they’re on easy street again—that is, if they can figure out what it is exactly they stole. A question, they soon learn, where their very lives hang in the balance.Thrust into a high-stakes game of subterfuge and deception by the local mob boss, Isa and her crew must scramble to unravel the mystery of what is they stole while unseen forces move against them.Harried. Threatened at every turn. Isa and her crew must stay one step ahead to stay alive.Sunken City Capers is a fun post-apocalyptic series with no zombies, just criminals and mischievous ne’er-do-wells. Fans of heist novels/movies and strong female protagonists will likely enjoy this series.Sunken City Capers Books:- The Solid-State Shuffle, Book 1- The Elgin Deceptions, Book 2- Leverage, Book 3- The Brummie Con, Book 4- Book 5 to be announced soon!