Behind the Book: GIRL GONE NOVA

As I mentioned last Monday, back in the day, when I was a new author, no one wanted to interview me, so I interviewed myself. These interviews became my Behind the Book series. With the opening of this new, alternate reality website, I thought I’d bring the relevant ones over a little at a time. So here is the second one on the new site!

First, what is this Girl Gone Nova of which I speak? 

She’s an interstellar spy. He’s an alien warlord. Can their love heal a rift in time and space? 

Delilah Oliver “Doc” Clementyne specializes in impossible missions. When relations between the Earth Expedition and the Gadi starts to turn ugly, she’s sent on a desperate mission to bring their people home before war breaks out. But Doc nearly blows her cover when she saves the life… and loses her heart… to the most hated leader in the galaxy. 

Helfron “Hel” Giddioni has survived more than his fair share of assassination attempts. And he’s not about to ruin his perfect record by letting a drop-dead gorgeous spy cloud his judgment. But when she’s abducted by primitive brutes wielding high-tech weaponry, he can’t help but tempt fate and fly in the face of danger. 

With war brewing all around and celestial chemistry sparking between them, Doc and Hel uncover a startling secret with the power to bend space and time. To save the galaxy, they must battle their way into the past to safeguard the secret from forces who would use it to destroy the future. 

Girl Gone Nova is the second standalone novel in the high-adrenaline Project Enterprise sci-fi romance series. If you like badass women, bad boy love interests, and interstellar showdowns, then you’ll love Pauline Baird Jones’ time-traveling adventure. 

Buy Girl Gone Nova to go undercover in a star-struck romantic adventure today!

And now that we know that of which we are speaking, here is the interview:

Me: So, you finally finished another BAB (i.e. big a** book)?

Myself: Finally. Though I would like to point out, it is not as big as The Key.

Me: Yeah, that five, six thousand word difference is huge.

Myself: Are you going to make editorial comments or ask me questions?

Me: Can I think about it?  (I glare at me and myself in the monitor) Okay, fine. A question. I heard a rumor that this book almost made our head explode. I’d like to have seen that.

Myself: We’d have to be looking in a mirror for that to happen. And still not a question.

Me: Why did it almost make our head explode?

Myself: I know I have something of a reputation for complicating my plots, but I exceeded all previous complicated plots with this one. And it started out so straightforward, too. Doc (my heroine) arrives in the Garradian galaxy with a simple mission: retrieve the people who went through a Garradian portal during the war two years ago. Introduce some complications and a love interest, maybe blow up some ships, and then provide a happy ending. Nothing in that to make my head explode.

Me: It’s the complications that get you every time. And you can’t tell us what they are without giving too much away.

Myself: Makes it hard to write the book blurb, too: Doc travels to another galaxy to face (author) head exploding complications in the Garradian Galaxy.

Me: I’m sure you’ll think of something. Unless your head really does explode.

Myself: That would be OUR head.

Me: Right. Let’s move on from that. Can you tell us about the hero of Girl Gone Nova?

Myself: I can. It might surprise readers of The Key. Helfron Giddioni, the almost bad guy of The Key, was really pissed at me when he didn’t get the girl. He bugged me for two years to get his own romance. I thought it was hard to write a science fiction romance, but writing one with a POLITICIAN as the hero–well, that’s one of the reasons my head almost exploded. Luckily, Hel had some interesting secrets and an alter ego that helped. And he was willing to be sorry for what he’d done (mostly) and teachable (in some areas) to achieve hero status in this new book. But he also has to get his trash kicked a few times during those complications that I can’t reveal.

Me: And then there’s Conan, aka Vidor Shan. You had some trouble with him.

Myself: I’m still having trouble with him. I created him, not sure if he was a good guy, a villain, or something in between. My sister, who read the book, hates him and wants him to be punished. Other readers want him to get a girl, any girl. LOL! I’m still not sure. I just know he’s not finished and he will be showing up in the next book. [Author note: he kept showing up until I made him the hero of Kicking Ashe.]

Me: And he’s not the only character refusing to go quietly into the good night, is he?

Myself: Sigh. No. There’s quite a clamor going on inside my head. So it might just explode for real this time. (very big grin) NOTE: My writing took a slight detour into a steampunk offshoot of this series. Colonel Carey, hot guy pilot from both books, will be taking the role of hero, but not sure who else will make an appearance…well, the main bad guy from Girl Gone Nova will definitely show up. It’s a bad guy requirement to show up when and where he/she can and make trouble.

Me: Without giving too much away, I can’t think of anything else to ask you, except when will Girl Gone Nova hit the e-shelves?

Myself: It will release in April, 2010! [Author note: it did release and received some acclaim and adulation, to our shock. Thank you to all the readers who bought it, read it, and reviewed it!]

So that’s it. That’s the interview. It wasn’t quite as crazy because we couldn’t talk too much about the book for fear of spoilers. I hope you’ll check it out if you haven’t already. It’s a big book to get finished reading before the other Project Enterprise books (and Doc and Hel *might* have made an appearance when the series returned to the series’ original story universe in Found Girl!) And, um, there’s another BAB after Tangled in Time. 

Perilously yours,

Pauline