Starbound Lovers

Do you read steampunk?  What's your favorite gadget?

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games is a smash hit. Oh, if we could all be so lucky.


In real life, I work in a county library as a catalog technician. I've only been at this job for about two years, so I missed out when The Hunger Games first came on the scene. I did catalog a copy of Mockingjay that our sister library lost (i.e. some punk stole it!) at the end of last year. I read the first few pages and was confused as heck. What was this supposed to be about? Is Katniss a boy or a girl? You miss a lot of info if you just pick up the last book in a series. What little I read was kind of gruesome and depressing. I was like, pffft, so not reading that.


Admittedly, I didn't pick up The Hunger Games until the movie came out. I wanted to see it because I liked Jennifer Lawrence's performance in Winter's Bone. Daniel Woodrell, the author of Winter's Bone is actually a local author here in Missouri. I've never met him, but I really admire his writing for his portrayal of life in the Ozarks. Winter's Bone is eerily accurate for some of the things that go on in this part of the world. No wonder he doesn't have a Facebook page.


Anyway, my husband and I went to see The Hunger Games. I was motion sick about five minutes in because of the camera. But Katniss' character really caught my eye. She was a survivor, right from the start. Never giving up, never backing down. Which makes her a danger to the Capitol, which wants bloodshed, not heroes.


I managed to get my hands on a copy of The Hunger Games right away because a generous patron donated a paperback copy. Did I mention some punks stole not only Mockingjay, but the first book too? For shame! A pox upon your house.


I struggled with Katniss, who fought and bled and came pretty close to dying in the arena on more than one occasion. I pulled for the romance between her and Peeta because I'm a sucker for a love story. And I liked how Katniss came by the mockingjay pin in the book a lot better than they showed it in the movie.


Dystopian YA has never been on the top of my list for reading. I've since changed my mind. Until last week, I'd been on the hold list at the library for Mockingjay for two months. What was taking so long? The day it came in, I devoured it in about six hours. Collins did a remarkable job of writing a character that people--not just the YA scene--can relate to. Actually, I think if I'd read this as a teenager, I wouldn't have been as responsive to it then as I am now. She crossed a genre that adults can get in to because so many can relate to the sense of loss she presents.


Not your typical sci-fi and sure not an average romance, it had enough of that in it to keep me occupied. If you haven't read it, get your hands on it, because it's amazing. My other recommendation, if you like YA although it's fantasy rather than sci-fi, is Maggie Stiefvater's The Scorpio Races. OMG, easily the best book I've read this year (it came out in Oct. 2011). I wish I had the lyrical voice Stiefvater has.


Next on my list is Veronica Roth's Divergent.


When I'm not here, you can find me at my blog Have Novel, Will Edit, on Facebook, Twitter and sometimes G+.

Allow me to introduce myself. It won't take long. Basically my "real" life is vanilla bland, so my bio is short and pretty boring. Here goes: I'm Elysa Hendricks. I'm 5'6" tall. I have brown eyes and curly hair. I'm an author, a wife, a mother and a daughter. Everything else is subject to change without notice.



Because physically I'm clumsy, I have no sense of balance, and I'm a BIG coward, my rule for living is: "Boring is good. Excitement is vastly overrated." Once I tried riding a motor scooter. After a wobbly start I ran it into a ditch. When my so-called friends told me it's like riding a bicycle and I had to try again, I then wiped out. I guess I forgot to mention I'm no good at riding a bicycle either. In my younger years before I discovered I'm a klutz I broke my foot trying to ride a skateboard.  Heights terrify me. I get dizzy just watching movies about mountain climbing. After watching JAWS I decided I didn't like swimming in places where I couldn't see what was underneath me. So forget me doing things like sky diving, water skiing, or motor cross racing. Adventure is NOT my middle name. I like things calm and safe. How I managed to live through raising too adventure junkie sons is a miracle I'll never comprehend.

But in my fiction I break my rule into itsy bitsy tiny pieces and scatter them in space during a solar storm from a space ship, preferably a pirate one. I grew up reading Robert Heinlein, H.G. Wells, Issac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and watching cheap, trashy sci-fi movies and TV shows. Still watch them - hubby is a videoholic. Without risking a single hair on my head (and I have lots of them) I can get all the adrenaline rush I need from fiction.

Though I read and write all types of romance fiction: sweet contemporaries, gritty western historicals, and fantasy, my favorite is sci-fi romance. In my books I can be brave and daring. I can climb those impossible alien mountains. Wrestle shardak bears and water worms. Fight space battles. Have sex with a hot hero or two. All while wearing my flannel PJs, and sitting in the comfort of my cozy office with my fur babies in my lap.

But while I might avoid adventure in my own "real" life, I love hearing from readers and other authors about theirs: http://elysahendricks.com/



STAR CRASH is my first futuristic sci-fi romance.

When Star Trek meets Planet of the Apes, what's a girl to do?

After recon pilot Cora Daniels crash lands on an alien planet she finds herself a prisoner of the Flock: a race of birdlike humanoids. Trapped in their zoo she discovers they intend her to mate. To breed. To be part of their human herd.

She's placed in a cage with a man - a powerful, virile man, but not just any man - Alexander. Was he her lost love, who'd disappeared so long ago? Here he was: naked, glistening, a warrior trained by the Flock to fight for their amusement. How could the brilliant man, the tender lover she remembered have become this animal born to dominate and destroy? Was he a pawn of the Flock or would their flight to freedom be a long-sought reunion?

STAR CRASH is available from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Star-Crash-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B007T2J9T0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1337177350&sr=1-1

Over a year ago several of my writer friends and I thought of putting together a short story series about a pair of special sunglasses that get traded from person to person and how those glasses affect that person's life. All of the stories have a decidedly romantic theme, but they are also filled with a mix of humor, fantasy and suspense.

I'm busy working on the final edits of my short story Shades of Gray, the first in the series. I had to put a dark spin on it.

Kennedy Sinclair is given a pair of simple sunglasses. Or so she thinks. Within twenty-four hours, though, she discovers they are far from simple or normal. The lenses open a door to the dark side of her personality and a serial killer who turns his focus on her. Can she outwit, outrun a murderer? And if she survives the night, does she have the strength to become the person destiny has created for her?

Tentative release date: June 7, 2012.

My mother is a wonderful person. As the daughter of sharecroppers, she never had much and rarely spoke of those tough times. I know she'd often go to school hungry and most winters she didn't have shoes. Yet, her childhood stories were always full of laughter and fun.
She taught me so many lessons while I was growing up but the one I've kept closest to me and learned the best is probably the one she never knew she was teaching me.
 I am the youngest of six and after a while, she was able to stay at home and keep an eye on us. Because of that money was tight and often she would take it upon herself to fix things that were broken around the house. There was very little my mom couldn't do and I found myself watching her, following her around and eventually getting to help her.
 The first time I was a full on apprentice, my mom wanted to string lights in our two-car garage, she'd turned into an art studio. She'd already erected a wall, dry-walled, taped textured and painted it, plus she built rows of shelves along the side, so now she just needed to adjust the lighting. The single bulb and small window in the garage side door just wasn't enough. So on a piece of paper, she sketched out where she wanted the lights to hang then wrote out the items that she would need and the approximate lengths.
After she had her list, she and I headed out to the home improvement store. She found most of the items without help but eventually one of the salesmen found us and asked if we were lost. Lost? Really? Do most lost people stand beside a cart full of stuff waiting to be rescued by salespeople? My mom said no, but could he direct her to the thingies that hold the wiring.
 I guess he was bamboozled by her technical jargon because he asked if Mom wanted my Dad paged, apparently to rescue us.
 With grace my mom said no again and asked about the thingies.
After about a couple more offers to find my dad, the man finally took us to the thingies (junction boxes).He then lectured my mom about the dangers of everything she touched and flat out told her she shouldn't be messing with anything.
 She thanked him, got her stuff and off we went to the register to check out. I couldn't believe she let him talk to her like that. Why didn't she stand up to him, tell him she knew more than he did? She just looked at me and said, "Why? I learned something new. These things are called junction boxes and I didn't need as many because of the sizes. He saved me money."
 By dinnertime that night, my mom had wired five fluorescent lights and the garage glowed--perfect for her art studio.
From that example, I learned that there will always be people who think you're not capable, that bad experiences can teach us unexpected things and that it is faith in your own abilities that matter, not a stranger's opinion. I've never told my children these lessons, but I live by them everyday and I see that by doing so, I've passed them on to the next generation. Of course, I usually have thingies and doohickies on my list of stuff to get at the DYI store.

Congrats to Kiru Taye. She won the amazon gift card. Please contact me at linda at lindaandrews dot net to collect your prize.



Viking, the rat hunter, in Noah's Ark



I once had an English teacher who taught us Shakespeare with an episode of Star Trek--even wheeled the big AV Dept television set into class. Obviously, he was my favorite teacher.

The Star Trek episode was based on The Tempest and featured Kirk mincing around in a diaper-looking thing as Ariel. Shakespeare had never been so fun.

My teacher was a huge fan of the show because no matter what crazy things happened--space babes, time-travel, man-diapers...the characters always acted true to their established arcs. They were faithful to themselves. They were human--and acted every inch of it.

Another show that offered a bit of wisdom in this area was The Brady Bunch.


I was a latch-key kid and must've seen every episode about ten times after school. In one particular episode when Marsha is trying on her mother's makeup in an effort to be cool, she tells Carol "Times change." Carol comes back with "Times change, but people don't".

That has always stuck with me, and for me, is a reason why science-fiction romance resonates with readers. Not only are plots and story ideas as endless as the writer's imagination, but they can always resonate with readers when we realize people are still people--who will act in predictably human ways.

Even in the most trying circumstances throughout history, people still met and fell in love, and made babies to repeat the cycle. It's what makes it all worth it.

That's what grounds us and makes us able to endure wildly changing circumstances--and the sight of William Shatner in a pink loin cloth.

There are days when you're thankful you have a list with kind authors who will prod you when you don't realize it's your day to post. Good job, ladies. High fives all around.


I think the topic this week was supposed to have to do with Mother's Day. Okay, I can handle this. I'm not a mother. Unless you count furbabies. I have a 4-year-old Japanese Chin named PeeWee, a 6-year-old toy Aussie named Bandicoot (aka Cooter) and a 4 year-old Border collie/Australian Cattle Dog named Mungo. As a mother, you shouldn't have favorites, but dogs can't read, so I'm going to admit that PeeWee is my favorite. He sits on my lap while I write and whispers plot turns in my ears between sneezing on my laptop screen. In this photo we were working on a critique for one of my very good friends. PW is hell on grammatical errors. Also, I'm not entirely sure he is all dog. I suspect he may be part horse and/or alien.


I could talk all day about PW and his fursiblings, but I want to do something else instead. Yesterday was my brother's birthday, so my family got together to celebrate. Little did they know that I received my proof copy of The Treasure Hunter's Lady in the mail. So I whipped it out of my purse and you should've seen the look on my mom's face. It was like she'd won the lottery. And I didn't even let her keep the copy I had. She had to order her own this morning. But here's a shot of her holding at the restaurant we went to.


My mom and I haven't always gotten along. It comes from being too much alike. My dad worked unusual hours, so I didn't see him as much as I saw my stay-at-home mom while I was growing up (although I was very obviously a Daddy's Girl). But throughout my life she's helped me with decisions big and small. She taught me to read, suffered through math and science with me, played Jeopardy! with me, said yes when my dad found a Mustang he wanted to buy for me (after years of telling me no). 


She's always supported my writing, even when it gets a little weird. She edits and reads first drafts, she makes the best suggestions on covers. She was the first person I called when I got my contract for The Treasure Hunter's Lady and she was there to hug me when the publishing house went under before it got published. I don't think I could have asked for better support. 


I just wanted to say, "Thanks, Mom" for everything. By the way, spot on on that font size for the next book in my trilogy.


I hope everyone has a terrific Mother's Day this upcoming weekend. If you still have a mom, tell her you love her, or at least I hope you have someone in your life who was a positive female role model. 


So until next time, when hopefully, I'll remember to post on time, you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, & at my blog Have Novel, Will Edit.


Also, don't forget that we're giving away a $25 gift card to a commentor on this blog, so be sure and leave a comment for a chance to win!