When I sold my futuristic romance novels to BelleBridge Books the plan was to scan and reprint. Maybe I’d tweak some scenes, but I certainly had no intention of re-writing an entire book. Yet when I re-read Island Heat, I wasn’t happy with the story.
Now, there was nothing wrong with Island Heat. The book was intentionally written to bring new fans to the genre—a gentle introduction to futuristic romance. So I set the book on Earth.
The book lacked fire. It lacked my usual edge.
And the plan backfired. New readers never found the book and my fans were disappointed. Why? Because it wasn’t different enough—which had been my intention all along. But it was a mistake.
So the good news was that I got the opportunity to fix the book. It needed so much altering that it became a new story. Some changes were easy. The Nevada desert became a MartianDesert. Montana became Io. And upstate New York—well that became the Moon. And instead of an island on Earth, my heroine now owns a private asteroid that orbits the planet.
People no longer drive cars—they fly hovercars. But changing the setting wasn’t enough, I wanted to dig deeper into my hero and heroine’s characters.
And this time around, I really explored what it means to sexually dominate. I did a lot of research . . . And the book now has more edge. So I’m issuing a warning. Lunar Heat is sexier. The story explores adult issues. And those love scenes . . . aren’t just about the sex, it’s about the feelings, too.
LUNAR HEAT goes on pre-order at Amazon.com in Oct and is set for a November 15th release. You can read more about the book at www.susankearney.com
I just checked my ‘keeper’ shelf and, sure enough, there’s my old copy of “Island Heat.” I keep very few books, (well, in contrast to how many I’ve actually read) and this one sits right on the top shelf. I look forward to reading the new version. In fact, I may just reread the old version so I have it fresh in my mind when I read the next!
Thanks Kaye, I’m so glad you liked the original. Changing the story was a lot of work but I like this version way better. Please write me and let me know how the two compare!