I had a lot of fun with the fourth novella in my Scifi Romance series, The Department of Homeworld Security.
Tied up in Customs is linked to the earlier books both through Brendan (her hero, Eric, is Brendan’s handler) and with Sorca, chief of security for the Arbiter. As much as I wanted to learn more about these characters, my driving goal in writing this story was turning a classic Scifi trope on its head.
“Abducted by Aliens” is probably the most famous type of Scifi Romance story. Usually, it’s Earth women who are taken. I wanted to turn that around and have it be the guy. Even more, I wanted it to be a big, burly guy who knows how to fight and is absolutely unprepared to be taken down by a spunky (and deeply weird) alien half his size.
Sorca ended up being this incredibly confident and kinda crazy alien. She’s a Sadirian-Cygnian hybrid, which opened up all kinds of new opportunities that I knew I’d explore eventually. The biggest surprise was learning that Sorca’s odd behavior wasn’t an artifact of her horrible mistreatment by the High Council but is a manifestation of her Cygnian DNA. I’m having a ton of fun learning more about the Cygnians in their series, Cygnian 7!
Sorca herself surprised me most in her story with this incredibly bittersweet moment. I won’t spoil it here, but I will share that while writing the fight scene, and Sorca has that line (you’ll know it when you get to it), I just immediately burst into tears. That’s when I knew for sure that The Department of Homeworld Security series had moved beyond wacky, steamy Scifi Romance and had the potential to head into deeper emotional territory.
In short, Tied up in Customs has all the feels 💖
On the battlefield of desire, he has the advantage.
Eric Peterson has one goal: get his AWOL asset, Brendan, back to work on a classified communications relay his superiors want finished yesterday. When Eric tries to reconnect, a gorgeous—and strange—woman shows up in Brendan’s place, claiming to be an alien on a mission to save the planet.
Sorca has been sent to bring Eric to the Arbiter so that he can join the Department of Homeworld Security…or receive a mindwipe if he’s not interested. As the strongest soldier in the Coalition fleet, her plan is simple—ask him nicely, and if he says no, take him anyway. But the more contact she has with the Earthling, the more her thoughts turn from battling the human to bedding him.
The distraction could land them in the claws of an enemy they’ll never see coming, because Sorca isn’t the only alien on Earth. Will their missions align as well as their passions, or will they be lost to a force that no one sees coming?
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