One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about writing is I get to travel to faraway places.
I used to travel a lot when I was younger, but now I’ve settled down on an almond farm in the remote mountains of southern Spain. I share the farm with a lot of animals (and my husband) so leaving the place is not an easy option, and most of my travelling is done vicariously when I write.
There’s a well-known piece of writing advice which is—write what you know. I’ve never taken much notice of it, especially when deciding where to set my books. I prefer to write about places that interest me and discover everything about them on the writing journey.
So while some of my books are based in places I’ve visited or even lived in (a lot of my contemporary romances are set in London) others are based in places I’d love to visit, such as New York or Chincoteague Island in Virginia. But my all-time favorite setting for romance is one that I’ll likely—though I still live in hope—never get to visit in reality. Outer space!
My latest release, Insurrection, book 3 in my Dark Desires Origins series (though it’s a standalone romance) is set in outer space, five hundred years away from Earth. It’s a combination of science fiction, paranormal (the hero is a demon, and the captain of the spaceship is a vampire!) and romance. It follows the adventures, romantic and otherwise of a band of paranormal beings who stowed away on the fleet that fled a dying Earth.
I love stories which combine genres, but science fiction and romance is probably my preferred mix. Growing up, some of my favorite books were science fiction: Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C Clark, Isaac Asimov… Then I discovered romance. I would have loved stories combining the two, but back then it was rare to find a science fiction book where the focus was on the love story. That’s not so true anymore, and these days—happily—there are a number of authors writing fantastic stories merging the best of science fiction and romance.
And there are a lot of reasons why the combination works so well…
I think one of the reasons people love to read romance is to be carried away to exotic locations, and what could be more exotic than the far reaches of the galaxy? There are vast opportunities for different settings in space: spaceships, planets, wormholes… Insurrection takes place partly on the spaceship that carried humanity from Earth, but also on the (very inhospitable) planet where they hope to make their new home.
The setting works so well for me because I’m actually predisposed to falling in love in space. The first crush I ever had was on Han Solo at a very impressionable age. More recently, my devotion to Han has been severely tested by my attraction for Captain Mal Reynolds…among others. And there is a reason most of my love affairs (imaginary at least) have been with “space men.” I adore a bad boy hero, and space men, whether human, alien, demon, or something else entirely, can be the ultimate bad boys; living on the edge of civilization, boldly going…. Pirates, bounty hunters, cops, gun fighters (albeit with a laser pistol rather than a six shooter.) In sci-fi romance, there’s no limit but your imagination to what your hero can do and be.
And don’t forget the kick ass heroines. I want heroines who match their heroes. And in sci-fi romance, more often than not, they more than match their male counterparts. In fact, the heroine is just as likely to be the pirate or the bounty hunter, and just as likely to rescue the hero as vice-versa.
So, outer space can provide a fantastic setting for adventure and passion. And for me, both as a reader and a writer, the real appeal is that the possibilities are as endless as the universe itself. And that’s why it’s just about my favorite location for falling in love.
How about you? Would you like to fall in love in another galaxy or do you prefer to stay closer to home? Let me know for a chance to win a paperback copy of Malfunction, book 1 in my Dark Desires Origins series.
another galaxy
Me too!
Let’s go traveling – to another galaxy please. And lucky you living in Spain, my dad’s homeland!
Happy November 🦃