Guest: Aubrie Dionne

Meet Aubrie Dionne

Hello Aubrie. Thank you for joining us at the blog today. Can you tell us about your latest release, Tundra 37? Where did the idea originate? How did the characters develop? And why did you choose the setting?

I feel like I live in the coldest place on Earth. Actually, I live in NH, and Alaska and Antarctica get much colder. But sometimes, when my eyeballs feel like they’re going to freeze, and my car is iced over so thick I can’t even open the door, it seems like the North pole.

So, the setting comes directly from my own experiences!

As for the idea: I already wrote about someone who didn’t like their lifemate match in Paradise 21, so I decided to go 180 degrees in the other direction, and set someone up with a lifemate they like TOO much! It was hilarious fun for me (and not so much for my poor character).

How much planning and plotting is involved in your work before you begin to write?

I think about the ideas for a few weeks before starting chapter one. But, I’m always thinking and readjusting along the way.

Do you have a critique partner?

I have several! I tend to collect them! They are all so helpful to me. The one who’s been there through thick and thin is Cherie Reich. She’s the best, and I wouldn’t be here today without her. Everyone needs to go check out her horror story, which is a bestseller: Once Upon a December Nightmare. I’m proud to have been a critique partner for that story.

What time of day or night do you best at?

I write best when everything is quiet at night. The worst time is during the day right before I have to go teach flute lessons! I can’t concentrate on anything!

What has been the best piece of advice you have ever been given by an editor?

To draw out the conversations that mean the most and press into the harder issues.

What thoughts and emotions do you hope readers will take with them from one of your books?

I hope they have a positive feeling about the future.

Thank you for joining us today.

Thanks for having me! These were fantastic questions!

http://www.entangledpublishing.com/tundra-37

Prologue

The Seers

I’m losing her.

Abysme guides the vessel in silence, her blind eyes rolling as she senses our course, two hundred years away from Paradise 18. She’s scattered her thoughts among the stars, and her mind drifts farther from the sister I once knew. I fear the machine has engulfed her individuality. She’s forgotten the meaning of our goal, the oath we took three centuries ago. Most of all, she’s forgotten me, creating an emptiness inside me more profound than the desolation surrounding us.

If I had my arms, I’d reach out to comfort her and usher her back from the black abyss spread before us. As children, I kept her alive through the destruction, signing us up for the Expedition and winning two tickets off Old Earth before it succumbed to hell. But can I save her now?

I send impulses through my brainwaves and into the ship. Bysme, do you hear me?

Unlike her, I have one operating eye and can see the control chamber we hang from. Twisting my head, I search her features. Her skeletal face twitches. She writhes and the wires holding her in place stretch taut. I wonder what I’ve done to us, the shock of our disembodiment jolting me. Every input hole drilled into my skull snakes with activity. The ship surges through me, a vast intranet of information, names, status charts, and infinite trajectories. If I couldn’t feel the cold, regulated air on the remnants of my torso, I’d be lost in the machine too. I remind myself of our mission and the perseverance flows into my veins.

She doesn’t respond and the fear wells up from within me. Can I guide the ship alone? I realize I’ve left her at the helm for too long while I drifted into memories.

Status of Beta Prime? Bysme speaks in monotone computer speech as she turns to the corner of the main control deck where the orb glistens, tempting us with the mysteries hidden in the cosmic swirls within its core. Sometimes, I wish we’d blasted the ball off the hull after its tendrils attached to the outer frame instead of recovering it for study. We’ve guarded it for so long, Project Beta Prime has become part of us, yet we’re further than ever from unlocking its secrets. All I know is the insistence of my memories, like ghosts that refused to be ignored.

Unchanged. The weight of my voice in our mindspeak reflects my disappointment. Like everything else.

Bysme falls silent, and I scan the systems searching for answers that aren’t there.