Doc--Delilah Oliver Clementyne's—orders are simple: do the impossible and do it yesterday. A genius/bad ass, she does the impossible on a regular basis. But this time the impossible is complicated by an imminent war between the Earth expedition to the Garradian Galaxy and the Gadi, an encounter with some wife-hunting aliens, and not one but two bands of time travelers.
The only way it could get worse? If the heart she didn't know she had starts beating for the wrong guy…
Reviews for Girl Gone Nova
"After a multiyear absence, Baird Jones makes a very welcome return by once again visiting the alternate reality first explored in The Key. Time paradoxes run amok in this extraordinarily complex tale. Amongst the densely packed and mind-bending action, there's also some welcome humor. A spectacular ride!" - Romantic Times Magazine, Jill Smith, 4 and 1/2 stars!
"Pauline Baird Jones has created an amazing universe with lots of fun and quirky characters. The main female character is a riot to read, and I really enjoyed getting a peek into her head. Her writing style is fun and amusing. I really enjoyed this book a lot and plan to go back and read the Key so I can catch up on what I missed. If you enjoy science fiction and romance, this book is definitely for you." - LeeAnn, Reviewer for Coffee Time Romance & More
"This is a WOW-WONDERFUL Sci-Fi, romance. The sequel to The Key. I am amazed at the depth of the world created and how well the author kept track of all the details!" - Martha Reads Blog
"Pauline Baird Jones does a wonderful job of getting into the minds (and hearts, and other parts of the anatomy) of her protagonists as she crafts a supple plot shot through with sexy romance. Pitch-perfect notes of villainy, heroism, and courage enhance the romantic story. Girl Gone Nova is either the most engaging and fun of any way-over-the-top SFnal adventure I've ever read or the most way-over-the-top of any engaging and fun SFnal adventure I've ever read. . . ." - Alexis Glynn Latner, Hurricane Moon
"Girl Gone Nova had interesting characters that I cared about—especially the lead female and her quirks and flaws, an interesting universe and interesting situations. It was fast paced and action filled, it kept my attention and I didn't want to put it down." - Dr. Eileen K. Stansbery, Space Physicist
Pauline Baird Jones is the award-winning author of nine novels of science fiction romance, action-adventure, suspense, romantic suspense and comedy-mystery. She's also written a steampunk novella called Tangled in Time that will release in 2010. She's written two non-fiction books, Adapting Your Novel for Film and Made-up Mayhem, and she co-wrote Managing Your Book Writing Business with Jamie Engle. Her seventh novel, Out of Time, an action-adventure romance set in World War II, is an EPPIE 2007 winner. Her eighth novel, The Key won an Independent Book Award Bronze Medal (IPPY) for 2008 and is a 2007 Dream Realm Awards Winner. She also has short stories in several anthologies. Originally from Wyoming, she and her family moved from New Orleans to Texas before Katrina.
Also by Pauline Baird Jones...
The Key
Managing Your Book Writing Business
Adapting Your Novel for Film
Made-up Mayhem
Re-releasing back list:
The Spy Who Kissed Me
Do Wah Diddy Die
Out of Time
The Last Enemy
Byte Me
Missing You
A Dangerous Dance
An Interview with Pauline Baird Jones
By Holly Hewson for The Romance Studio
HH: Pauline, thank you for talking with us at TRS! Please tell us about your featured book, Girl Gone Nova.
PBJ: Thank you for having me here!
Girl Gone Nova is a connected story in my Project Enterprise/Garradian Universe science fiction romance series. It follows The Key, but both books can be read stand alone. It's two years since The Key and the Doolittle (intergalactic space craft) is back in the Garradian Universe. (Now) General Halliwell left some people behind and he wants to retrieve them. It's taken him two years to get the one person he thinks can do it, but...
Doc--Delilah Oliver Clementyne's—orders are simple: do the impossible and do it yesterday. A genius/bad ass, she does the impossible on a regular basis. But this time the impossible is complicated by an imminent war between the Earth expedition to the Garradian Galaxy and the Gadi, an encounter with some wife-hunting aliens, and not one but two bands of time travelers.
The only way it could get worse? If the heart she didn't know she had starts beating for the wrong guy...
HH: How is Delilah different from your other heroines to date?
PBJ: Oh, Delilah! She started out a bit bland and with a different name, then I heard a song on iTunes called Hey there Delilah sung by Plain White T's and I knew that was her name. That like Delilah in the Bible, she was someone who takes your strength and uses it against you. She is dangerous—and by her own assessment (the people around her who call her Morticia)—a bit creepy. She's a genius/bad a** with a secret, a really big secret that is her Achilles heel and the reason she can be who she is.
She doesn't just dance on the head of a pin, she lives there all the time. And when she falls off…even I was surprised by what happened.
I always try to push my characters and myself, but based on early reader feedback, Delilah is the most complex character I've ever written. I loved her, I loved getting to know her, and she almost made my head explode. She made me work for every scene, trying to figure out what she'd do next.
At one point in the story, I sat down with an early reader and said, "Am I crazy? Should I even write this book?" (Like I had a choice! LOL!) When I wrote "The End" I honestly didn't know what readers would think, but I suspected they'd either love or hate her. To date, I've only had one mixed review and I couldn't tell if it was Delilah or the story or the author that prompted the reaction. LOL! But the "yeas" far outweigh the lone "nay" so I'm happy. (And relieved!)
HH: How do you go about creating a character who is a (and I love this) "genius/bad ass"? <g>
PBJ: Shall I sound really pretentious and say it's "organic?" LOLOL! She began as a genius and I wrote and rewrote and I realized that she needed to more, how shall I put this? Um, she needed to be more forceful and proactive. She needed to be someone who made things happen and when I realized that, I got my first glimpse of Delilah, though at this point she had that another name. (I can't remember that first name which is telling. LOL!)
The hardest part about it is making a character who was smarter than I am (because I'm SO not a genius). How do I write really smart? How do I make her sound smart? As I wrote, I realized that she is a genius in hiding. I didn't need to give her geek talk, because most people didn't know who she was or what she could do. I literally peeled back the layers of Delilah as I wrote the book, so as the reader finds out about her, I did, too. She surprised me at every turn.
HH: How did you go about creating the world your story takes place in?
PBJ: I created "my" universe the same way I do characters. I feel my way through it, peering around, sometimes thinking, wow, I did not see that coming. At one point, while writing The Key, I knew I needed to figure out some basics about this new universe, but I don't know it all yet. "We" haven't explored it yet. I know some readers have been bugged that so far, the people we've "met" are on the misogynist side. It's not a slam at guys. Truly. It was a considered choice. If we look at our own history, women's emancipation is fairly recent and has certainly not reached to all corners of our world. One of the themes I wanted to explore (and still do) is the impact on a civilization that doesn't use all its resources. In Girl Gone Nova, one question I chose to explore is what happens to a people who glorify sons and not daughters? I mean, let's face it, without girls, you don't get boys. It seems so obvious and yet we see this attitude in our world. Some of the science fiction I've read has other worlds being smarter than ours about that. I just went the other way.
HH: What else do you have in store for lucky readers?
PBJ: After a three year hiatus due to a family crisis, I was chomping at the bit to get writing. Girl Gone Nova came first, obviously, but I also managed to write a shorter novella, a Steampunk/science fiction that fits into my series in what I think is an interesting way. It's called Tangled in Time and will release in December. And I'm already at work on a new Project Enterprise/Garradian Universe book, which is a follow-on to Tangled.
This year I will also be re-releasing my entire back list with L&L Dreamspell. The books will be repackaged for a more consistent look. They've also been re-edited and, in the case of The Spy Who Kissed Me (formerly Pig in a Park), it's an expanded edition. When I originally wrote it, it was 500 pages, which makes for a tough sell for a first book. I kept cutting it and cutting it, and at the time, I also planned to go back to it and maybe write a sequel. Well, my life moved on, the window where I could have written another one closed and I always wished I'd added some of the deleted content back in, but I thought it was gone. Well, one day I was going through my hard drive, looking at content I'd saved from other computers and I found—not the original 500 page edition, but—a older, longer edition. I did NOT add back in everything, but I did go through looking for content that would enhance and deepen some of the "thinner" scenes. In the end, I added about 5,000 wds to the original edition (my editor was relieved!) and an epilogue that gives readers a glimpse of what happened to Kel and Stan after "The End."
HH: What's the most important thing you've learned in your writing career since you first published?
PBJ: Wow. The most important thing. I think…what I've learned is that I'm always learning. That it doesn't stop. You don't "arrive" in a writing career, you progress through it. If you close your mind to learning, if you stop, you're stuck. It is your agility and ability to adapt, not just to outside forces, but the internal ones that make writing wonderful and terrifying and possible. When I made the leap (literally) into writing science fiction romance, it was terrifying, but looking back, I can see my steady progression toward…not necessarily science fiction romance, but certainly toward change. With each book I write, I try to push myself in new directions and I'm always trying to write books that surprise and delight me first. Because if I'm not feeling it, then my readers won't.
A really wonderful agent told me that I needed to focus and she was right—but not right for me. For me to do what I do, I need to focus on craft, but not on genre. If I'd "focused" on romantic suspense, I wouldn't have written Out of Time or The Key or Girl Gone Nova or Tangled in Time. I might have a more "successful" career. I don't know. I didn't take that road. I took this one. I know that for me I needed to take this path. I needed to write these books. I needed to be this author. It is terrifying and wonderful to not know where I'm going and to go there anyway.
HH: What accomplishment are you most proud of?
PBJ: My children. I am amazed and astonished that I had a part in who they are and what they do. I am probably the most ordinary person on the planet and yet here are these amazing people who call me "mom." We have three that are "ours" and then we have a constantly shifting number of what our kids call the "pseudo siblings." I always wanted to have a big family, but I never saw the way I would get that big family. LOL!
HH: As an author, how do you meet all of the demands of the industry and the readers and stay sane?
PBJ: Sane? I think sanity is in the eye of the beholder. LOL! There are those who would confidently assert that I'm not sane (and my hubby tends to ask perfect strangers to request an autopsy if he dies suddenly) but I think I keep a loose grip on sanity by staying fixed on what's important in my life. Family comes first. Always. Forever. We support each other and I am blessed by that support from my family because they help me with my career. One daughter is an editor, the other a graphic artist, and my son is my space battle/hand to hand fighting consultant. My hubby believed I would be published LONG before I did. My sister designs or acquires the cool prizes for my contests and talks me up everywhere she can and other siblings talk up my books. My parents love and support is a constant, too. As I said, I am greatly blessed by my family AND friends.
With that strong center in place, I try to prioritize the other stuff. I try to herd the promotion into a corral and always, always, always protect the muse. Because writing IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FORM OF PROMOTION YOU CAN DO.
HH: What are you reading right now?
PBJ: I just finished Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet, R.M. Meluch's Myriad series, and Linnea Sinclair's Rebels and Lovers and now I'm going to step away from these great books and try to write MY book without being too intimidated by these. LOL!
And waiting in the wings, I have a digital TBR pile trying to tempt me off the writing path that includes the hilarious Denise Robbins , some DK Christi, JM Cornwall, Shannon Baker, well, at last glance I had about 200 books on my kindle that I haven't read yet—not sure because I don't delete them when I finish!
HH: Any big plans for the summer?
PBJ: Usually summer makes me want to go fetal and whine (and long to be sedated until the heat and humidity are gone again), but my family is having a reunion/birthday party for my mom, so I'm hoping I can make it to that. (I make plans and LIFE pulls the rug out from under my plans, so I never know what's going to happen until it does, but I live in hope. <g>)
I'm also hoping to have a rough draft of the new novel by my birthday and hoping NOT to get hit by a hurricane. And in case Mother Nature takes my hope and steps on it, I'll be reconstituting our 72 hour kits (we always eat the food on Nov 15th). But those aren't big plans, are they?
