“It’s not all about serving coffee and typing reports.”
Working for a secret organisation specialising in alien cover-ups, Connor Smith is no stranger to the abnormal or dangerous. His love life on the other hand… not so exciting. Until he reluctantly agrees to a blind date and meets the perfect bloke, Jason.
Things are finally falling into place for Connor, so of course that’s when he attracts an alien stalker.
Noah Jones, ex-alien, has been stranded on Earth and forced to live as a human since 1648. Alone and detached from the world around him, Noah has spent centuries observing and recording humankind. In all that time, he’s only experienced a connection with a human once… until he finds Connor.
Even knowing Connor is in a relationship, Noah can’t ignore their potential bond, or stay away.
While dealing with missing alien artefacts, a dangerous and shadowy group of collectors, and the ever-present Noah, Connor finds his orderly life crumbling around him. At least he still has the perfect boyfriend…
When Noah goes missing, Connor is forced to face the feelings growing between them and the mounting evidence that Jason isn’t who he says he is…
Giveaway
Blaine is giving away two sets of "A Triad in Three Acts" & "Oren's Right" with this tour – enter via Rafflecopter:
Excerpt
The Dross Woods, four-bloody-something in the morning, hunting for six-armed, two-legged white creatures.
Agent Connor Smith, personal assistant of Chief Security Lieutenant Natalie Tallis of Primrose UK, yawned. The lingering mist clung to his ankles as he tightened the straps of his field gear. He took his tranq out of its holster and flicked his torch on. The dense, tall trees hampered visibility, and the smattering of shrubs didn’t help, either. The path, at least, was wide enough for two.
“How many were there again?” Agent Simpson, team Alpha’s leader, asked. His dark, bald head gleamed in the early dawn as he moved to stand next to Connor.
“Ten, I think.”Or eleven. Connor hadn’t been awake enough to pick up everything during the interview with the Cleaton brothers, two aging sheep farmers, who had called it in. Why have a sheep farm so close to this vast and dense piece of forest? It was asking for trouble.
“They kept them in the stables, right? So, what happened?”
“Broke out,”Connor said as he trailed into the woods after Simpson. Though Connor outranked the stocky but agile team leader, Simpson had at least a decade of field experience on him. Simpson’s torch lit up the uneven, knobby-rooted ground, and Connor used his to search the shrubbery next to the path. He wished he’d brought an extra coffee, because he was not awake enough for this. Hopefully, the pale colour of the creatures made them easier to spot.
“So, broke out?”
“Have you seen the thing they called stables? It’s nothing more than a rickety old shed. Even one-armed creatures would have had no problem breaking out, let alone these... Noren, I think the brothers called them.”
“All I understood was that we’re here to catch us some aliens.”Simpson veered left, following the whimsical bend in the path, and looked back. “It was a late night.”
“Right, you were chasing another missing artefact. Lieutenant Tallis filled me in. File’s probably making its way to my desk as we speak.”Connor squinted, aiming his torch at the shrubbery to his left. A mix of red, yellow, and purple flowers brought some colour to the otherwise dreary looking forest. “It’s the eighth time this has happened. It’s becoming a problem.”
“Don’t I know it. So, did they say how big these fellas are?”
“Chest height or about. Why? Spot something?”Connor pointed his torch along Simpson’s.
The shrubs shuddered and shook until Simpson stepped forward. A twig snapped, followed by meowing. A cat. Just a cat.
Connor shrugged at Simpson and they moved forward again.
Somewhere a shout rang out: a high-pitched screech that caused goose bumps.
“One down!”someone called through the commlink—team Bravo’s Forente or Briers, Connor guessed. “There are at least two others here.”
“That way,”Simpson said, pointing to their right, onto a narrow path overgrown with creepers.
Connor nodded, but Simpson had already turned away.
Step by step, they followed the narrow path, the darkness only broken by the light of their torches. They were hampered by the creepers as they moved along—listening, stopping, and listening again—as well as having to push low branches out of their way every other step.
One by one, more teams called in their catches.
“They seem to like sheep,”Forente commented after his first catch. “I heard one bleat, and the next thing we know, one of those Noren is coming right at us.”
“Good to know,”Simpson said. “Keep up the good work.”
“How many is that now?”Connor eyed the shrubbery in front of him, squinting as he pointed the torch at it. Eerie how dark a forest could be at daybreak. He preferred the smell of fresh moss to the damp, woodsy smell that now hung around him.
“Seven. I think.”
So, three to go, and he and Simpson had yet to run into any.
Something rustled behind them, and Connor turned, aiming his tranq. He hoped it wasn’t another cat. More rustling, but no movement in the shrubs. The foliage was denser here—they must have reached the middle of the woods by now.
Satisfied a Noren wasn't stalking them, Connor went to catch up with Simpson. when a sudden crunching of leaves to his right stopped him again. Something whitish moved behind a tree, too large to be a rabbit. He wished he’d paid more attention when Tallis had told them what to look for. Not that she’d been any more awake than he was. Simpson wasn’t the only one who’d been working late. The—
Another crunch, nowhere near, though. If there were two Noren around, he'd need Simpson. He tapped the commlink. “Simpson?”
“That was me. The path circles back onto itself.”
That was a relief. “There’s one behind a tree in front of me.”
“Right. Want me to move around it?”
“Good idea.”Then he remembered the comment about the sheep. “Wait. You don’t have to. Draw it out, bleat if you have to. All I need is a clear shot. I can’t take a shot as long as it’s hiding behind that tree,”Connor said, keeping an eye on the tree the Noren hid behind. He hoped it was just the one, even though they didn’t seem violent towards humans.
Simpson’s imitation of a sheep sounded nothing like the real thing, yet the Noren thought it genuine enough, since it came out from behind the tree, straight into the dense shrubbery next to it.
“Bugger.”Connor tracked the movement, but the shrubbery blocked his view. “I don’t have a shot. It fled right into the bushes.”
Simpson didn’t reply. Instead, he made his way around Connor, judging from the flashes of torchlight jumping around, and repeated his sheep imitation.
The leaves shuddered, and Connor narrowed his eyes, hoping to get a clear shot.
Simpson bleated again, and this time the Noren came running out of the shrubbery. Connor aimed and pulled the trigger. The Noren went down hard. Hit in one. He knelt next to the creature, taking the cuffs out.
“Nice shot, Smith,”Simpson said when he reached them.
“Thanks.”Connor cuffed all three sets of arms. It seemed like overkill, but he knew better than to take any risks. He was about to activate his earpiece to ask how many were still on the loose when a shrill whistle sounded, calling them back.
“Well,”Simpson said as he helped Connor pick the Noren up, “I guess that’s that.”
“All in a day’s work, Simpson, all in a day’s work.”At least, for a personal assistant at Primrose.
Enjoy this Interview with my favorite character, Isa
What
is your full name? Do you have a nickname (if so, who calls you this)?
Isa Griffin.
When I was younger, my mother called me
sprite, but other than that I don’t care for nicknames and prefer to be called
by my name. Of course, some have tried and walked away limping.
Where
and when were you born?
Stroud, Gloucestershire.
Though we lived all over, and even spent some time in France.
Do
you have any siblings?
I’m an only child. Mum would have loved to
have another baby, but Dad passed away less than a year after she miscarried,
and she has yet to find a boyfriend one would call father material.
On
what occasions do you lie?
Aside from any and all questions about my
job, I don’t. I learned early on that the truth, no matter how hurtful, is the
best policy. Though, if you don’t ask me whether that shade of green suits you,
I’m not telling.
How
would you describe your childhood?
Happy and difficult at the same time. As I
mentioned, Dad passed when I was very young, and Mum wasn’t exactly in a happy
place then, so l did a lot of stuff on my own early on. But, happy or sad, she
never shut me out, and always encouraged me to talk to her about anything and
everything. And no matter how many boyfriends came and went, she was always
there for me.
When
did you have your first kiss, and who with?
Oh, crikey. Davey Summers. He lived one
floor up from us. We were twelve and caught his older sister snogging in the
stairwell after walking home from school, and we wanted to know what all the
fuss was about, so, we tried it on… for a couple of weeks at least, until his
mum caught us, and we were both grounded.
Do
you put on both socks then both shoes, or one sock, one shoe, other sock, other
shoe?
One sock, one shoe, then the other sock and
shoe. It’s more efficient that way, especially when I’m called in in the middle
of the night. My work boots have their place right next to my bed. Cleaned and
all, I may add.
Do
you grind your teeth?
Only in frustration. I received enough long
lectures from both my Mum and my orthodontist about how to not to treat my
teeth during three years of braces in my early teens to last me a lifetime.
Do
you believe in the existence of soul mates and/or true love?
I did, once. Whenever Mum talked about Dad,
it was obvious he’d been hers. And I thought I’d found mine just after I’d
started at Primrose… until he dumped me because I spent more time in the office
than he did.
L guess my friends Ellen and Darius come
close to being soulmates. They at least belong together. But, even though I
liked barely half her boyfriends, I think Mum’s philosophy on dating isn’t that
bad. She just enjoys it while it lasts, and throws them out when the fun is
over. Quite literally sometimes.
Who
are your friends? Do you have a best friend?
Ellen, Darius, and Connor. Those are my
core friends. And Connor is my best friend.
What
do you most value in your friends?
That they take me as I am, and let me be
me.
Can
you tell me a little about them?
Ellen is… it’s not easy to describe her.
She’s like a sun we all revolve around. She makes us feel like stars and loves us
with everything she has. She certainly made me feel that way when we were
dating. Still does.
What can say about Darius? He is the
kindest, most grounded person I’ve ever met. He’s the one who keeps Ellen
shining bright.
And Connor is like the brother I never had.
We understand each other, and the fact that he’s my colleague as well as my
best friend means we can talk about everything I can’t talk about to anyone
else.
Who
would you turn to if you were in desperate need of help?
Connor. He’s young, but a quite capable
problem solver under pressure. As long as the problem isn’t personal to him, he’s
the complete opposite then. That he is fit, after playing rugby for years,
certainly helps as well when a particularly insistent male specimen needs more
than a “no”. And he doesn’t scare easily.
Who
is the person you despise the most, why?
Yves the eel, a slippery French painter Mum
fell for when we lived in France. I’m still not sure what he wanted from Mum,
but he seemed to think she and I were a package deal. He won’t make that
mistake again.
What
is/are your favourite hobbies and pastimes?
I practice Tai Chi almost every day, but,
no thanks to the eel, I dabble in painting as well. A couple of years back work
was particularly stressful, and Tai Chi just wasn’t calming me down. Ellen, one
of my best friends, and the only ex I’m still talking to, dated an artist at
the time who suggested painting as meditation and release. I was sceptical,
since I couldn’t paint to safe my life, but it did calm me down, and enjoyed it
more than l expected.
Are
you generally organized or messy?
Organised. Always. Mess is distracting. Everything
in my house has its own place, and I don’t like it when someone puts things
back in the wrong place. Let Connor tell you how twitchy I get when Mum stays
over. I love her dearly, but she can never remember where my plates or cups go.
All she cares about is that she put it all back into the cupboards.
The only messy room is the room where I
paint and practice Tai Chi. Though, messy is probably not the right word. It’s
the only room where I don’t mind things being out of place. Of course, no one else
is allowed in that room.
Name
three things you consider yourself to be good at, and three things you consider
yourself to be bad at.
Hmm. I think on my feet, have a good
memory, and know plenty of ways to incapacitate an attacker.
Sitting still for long, waiting, and seeing
through a date’s lies.
What
do you have in your pockets or purse?
Both my cross-body bag and my backpack
contain enough to survive the unexpected. From a swiss army knife to a mini
first aid kit, and from a water bottle to emergency snacks, to an extra set of clothing.
REVIEW
I liked this book. It had a lot of original ideas for aliens.
Noah being a Rei from another planet that is basically all energy based and not a "fleshy" life form, gets stranded on Earth. He's beyond the normal amount of time, and must sacrifice his original form to become "human". He has lived on this planet now for 300 + years and has only felt one "energy" connection with one other...until Conner.
Conner works for Primrose, which is an undercover agency to protect stranded aliens from humans and humans from aggressive aliens. He's an assist and to Lt. Tallis, but don't let his paper pusher status fool you, he's also a highly trained agent.
Conner's best friend and colleague, Isa, is constantly trying to get him back in the dating field. Bless her heart, she tries, and they're usually the "wrong" type. This time though, she seems to have nailed it. It's almost too perfect...
This is kind of where things got a little confusing for me, but also a little predictable on other ways. The introduction to Conner and Noah made me a little confused. I wasn't quite sure was happening...but then I guess, neither did Noah. Now Conner believes he has a stalker on his hands and things go a little belly up for Noah. In the meantime, Conner and Jason's relationship seems to be going really well.
This story contains a lot of the weird connection between Conner and Noah and figuring out (on Conner's end) what it all means and trying to retrieve alien artifacts and finding a group of "collectors" who are stealing said alien items. So it offers romance, aliens and mystery.
For me, having felt the story was a bit predictable, at times I thought it was a little "boring". I struggled to read through parts, while flying through others. I am also very upset about the outcome of my favorite character, so that lost some points in my book. Otherwise I did enjoy Conner's and Noah's unique journey. I rate it a 3*
Author Bio
Blaine D. Arden is a purple-haired, forty-something author of queer romance mixed with fantasy, magic, and suspense who sings her way through life in platform boots. She is an EPIC Award winning author, and her scifi romance “Aliens, Smith and Jones” received an Honourable Mention in the Best Gay Sci-Fi/Fantasy category of the Rainbow Awards 2012.
Born and raised in Zutphen, the Netherlands, Blaine spent many hours of her sheltered youth reading, day dreaming, making up stories and acting them out with her Barbies. After seeing the film “An Early Frost” as a teen in the mid-eighties, an idealistic Blaine wanted to do away with the negativity surrounding homosexuality and strove to show the world how beautiful love between men could be. Our difference is our strength, is Blaine’s motto, and her stories are often set in worlds where gender fluidity and sexual diversity are accepted as is.
