To Gareth's surprise, marriage with the feisty Princess Izbal is better than he imagined. His new bride is even willing to accept a relationship with both men, and before long, the trio has bonded both physically and emotionally. One obstacle remains, though: duty soon calls Gareth back to his ship and Brennar to his home planet. Now the three mates must find a way to stay together without risking intergalactic peace.
[PolyAmour: Erotic Sci-fi Ménage a Trois Romance, M/M/F]
Read an excerpt from Captain Gareth's Mates
Visit Cassandra Pierce's web site
About Cassandra Pierce
Cassandra Pierce has been a fan of Gothic literature for most of her life, even studying the origins of the genre in college and graduate school. Before long, she got the urge to create paranormal romances of her own and is now hard at work on several new projects. When she is not writing, she teaches English at a small New England college and is active in a charity that rescues and rehomes abandoned pets.
Back list
HEIRS TO DARKISLE, Darkisle Book 1
LOVING TWO VAMPIRES, Darkisle Book 2
An Interview with the Cassandra Pierce
By Holly Hewson for The Romance Studio
HH: Cassandra, thank you so much for talking with us. Your featured book is Captain Gareth's Mates. An arranged marriage in a future world between a princess, a captain and his male lover. Where did you get the idea for this sizzling tale?CP: Believe it or not, it just sprang into my head fully formed one day. The names, the plot, everything…all I had to do was sit down and type it up. I finished the whole thing, from outline to final draft, in 23 days. And it was summer, and scorching hot, so I guess that helped heat up the prose, too!
Subconsciously, I guess I had been toying with the idea of an erotic sci fi for a while. I got my start writing Star Trek fan fiction when I was a teenager in the 1970s, and in some ways this was a way to revisit my writerly roots. I'm really not sure where the whole thing came from -- but I certainly enjoyed the ride.
HH: What do you like best about Gareth and Brennar and why will they appeal to romance readers? CP: They're complete opposites -- aside from the fact that Gareth is from Earth and Brennar is a bluish-skinned alien, they have totally different approaches to life. Gareth is a rough-and-tumble career military man, Brennar a sensitive diplomat who is afraid to go swimming for the first time. Yet the attraction between them crackles, and they complement each other perfectly. And yes, Gareth does teach Brennar how to swim.
HH: What do you like best about Izbal and why do you think readers will relate to her? CP: Izbal is the eldest daughter of the ruler in an intensely patriarchal society, but she is tough and intelligent and knows how to make the best of her life in her limited circumstances. Though she is presented to Gareth as a sort of reward for saving her father's planet, she sees in him someone who will respect her for who she is and allow her a freedom her own culture will not. And she is adventurous enough to take on his male lover as her own, too. She is definitely ahead of everyone else in her community, and I think many readers can relate to her spirit and willingness to take a chance with two men from different planets. I think we'd all like to walk in her shoes, at least in our fantasies.
HH: How did you go about creating the world where their story takes place? CP: I wanted something kind of medieval, yet set on a distant planet. I finally made the community on Anubis a many-times-removed offshoot of an Earth-based culture. They are patriarchal, with clearly defined gender roles and polygamous marriages, at least among the upper classes, but they retain a sense of fun and community spirit. It's a simple way of life the modern Earthman Gareth objects to, yet finds appealing in a way he couldn't have predicted before his marriage to Izbal.
For world-building, I made sketches and drew on my own knowledge of history and agrarian feudal societies. It was great fun, and now I want to create a whole galaxy of planets!
HH: What challenges were there for you as an author writing a story of not only more than two lovers, but a relationship that encompasses m/f and m/m? CP: It was incredibly challenging -- the interplay of two personalities is hard enough, but three? It's probably not even that difficult to juggle emotions and personalities in a real-life threesome! One has to consider the issues of loyalty, jealousy, and commitment from three different perspectives. The fact that each character has other duties outside the relationship -- Gareth to his ship, Izbal to her community, and Brennar to the diplomatic corps -- made things even trickier, But the characters were good sports and worked all their issues out for me once I turned the story over to them and let them react naturally to the situations I'd set up for them.
On a technical level, the use of pronouns got confusing at times, too—when there are two guys and you write, "his hand crept up her shoulder while she caressed him," it's hard to keep track of who is doing what to whom! I am thankful to my editors at Siren for helping me get all that clear in the final draft (I hope!).
HH: What else do you have in the works for lucky readers? CP: I just had a merman romance accepted by Siren. It should be out in the summer. Aspen Mountain is currently preparing my m/m werewolf story for publication, too.
As for what's in progress, I'm doing another scifi right now, plus a sequel to Gareth, and I am also tinkering with steampunk. That's a new genre for me, but my fellow Siren author and beta reader Rachel Clark suggested I try it because of my interest in both Victoriana and scifi. We jokingly call my aristocrat hero "Lord Tightbuns," so I will let that whet readers' appetites for now. I hope to finish it by the summer.
I am also working on Darkisle 3—since Darkisle 2 featured two new vampires, this one naturally will feature three. Not sure what I will do if I reach book 10, though. That would be a lot of viewpoints to juggle, and I don't even want to think about the pronoun issues there!
HH: Cassandra, why did you want to be a writer? Why do you still?
CP: I've been typing away since I was 7 or 8 and owned a little red child's manual typewriter. It's just who I am. If life gets in my way and I don't write for a while, I get surly and crazy. In the interest of world peace, I need to keep creating. Ideas crowd my head at all hours of the day and night—I struggle to get them all down on paper before new ones come crashing in.
HH: If you weren't a writer, you'd be a...?
CP: My other passion is art, especially sculpting with polymer clay. I have sold some of my pieces and that is a great feeling. Writing is very time-consuming, but if I had more hours in the day or I didn't have so many stories to tell, I would definitely throw myself into my artwork. I would be quite happy having a studio and creating fantasy pieces all day and night.
HH: What's your favorite guilty pleasure?
CP: TV. I especially love reality shows and court shows. I haven't missed a single episode of COPS or Judge Judy since they've been on the air!
HH: What is your biggest hope for 2011?
CP: I'd like to get my writing area organized and be able to write faster. I have something like 13 novels in progress right now (some are just one-paragraph ideas), but it would be amazing to make significant progress on at least half of those before the year is out. I'd like to clear the clutter off my desk and out of my head and forge ahead efficiently and confidently.
HH: Thank you!
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