Introducing Raul - guest post by Misa Buckley

Please welcome Misa Buckley to the blog, author of romantic speculative fiction, who is introducing her sexy shape-shifting alien star from her new release - PARADIGM SHIFT.

 

In PARADIGM SHIFT, my love interest is an alien that can shift his appearance to fit in, rather like a chameleon changing its colour. I wanted him to have this ability instead of having a technological disguise, because a shape shifter isn’t a common trope in science fiction.

However when my heroine first meets Raul, he looks human… ish.

I slowed and stopped for a set of red lights. I used that pause to turn to him. Under the orange streetlights, he looked like any other human male: broad shoulders and the lean frame of an athlete. It was his golden skin, like a very deep tan, and the amber eyes that gave his otherworldly origins away.

Not only does he look human, but he looks pretty damn hot. No wonder Megan’s interested! Now I have to admit that Raul’s human form might have had a certain influence – one that anyone who follows me on Twitter will be very aware of. Even the amber eyes… well, a certain System Lord did have eyes that glowed!

Ba'al from Stargate - taken from Wikipedia

But aside from those little nods, Raul isn’t based on anyone. I think he’s more the sort of alien I’d want to meet. Hey, I’m all for fifth contact and encouraging intergalactic relations! Which leads me, in a roundabout way, to his alien form.

As every other writer of sci fi, I was faced with a choice: make Raul truly alien, or cheat and have him humanoid. Given that the story was sci fi romance, and that I wanted a scene between him and Megan, I went for the latter option.

He gave a slow blink, then loosed the belt and shucked the gown off his shoulders. As it pooled around his feet, his whole body blurred, like a TV losing its signal. Then he came back into focus.

I didn’t scream. There was no need to as he was beautiful. His head lost its hair, even the eyebrows, but the eyes and lips stayed the same. His nose was flatter, the nostrils wide and flaring, and his ears sank into the larger skull. But what entranced me was the patination of his golden skin: a crosshatch of brown lines began on the sides of his neck and ran down both arms to the wrists. His chest bore another patch, which then divided to circle his navel. The lines were darker over his thighs, then faded mid-shin. It gave the effect of scales and made my fingers itch to investigate their texture.

I honestly don’t know where Raul’ alien form came from. Some dark recess of my mind, though I think the patination on his skin was influenced by Jadzia Dax of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. All I knew was that I wanted some of his human traits to be reflected in his natural one (or should that be vice versa?) as biologically some things were likely to be universal. I also wanted him to appear attractive, as it IS sci fi romance ;-)

Jadzia Dax - taken from Wikipedia

So that’s Raul, human and Ascellan.

PARADIGM SHIFT

 

Observatory tour guide Megan Shaw has always had stars in her eyes, so when she all but runs down the otherworldly Raul, she barely blinks. It doesn’t hurt that Raul is hot – whether in his human form or his natural one – and that there’s an immediate mutual attraction.

But Raul is on the run from his alien overlords and soon Megan finds herself fighting against a foothold situation with nothing more than a couple of cattle prods and Muse for soundtrack.

However Earth is not the only planet at risk and with his species desperate to escape generations of oppression, will Raul’s loyalties shift as easily as his physical appearance?

PURCHASE INFORMATION

Paperback: Amazon US | Lulu (UK)
Kindle: US | UK

BLOG TOUR

May 1 – Guest Blog & Giveaway @ Close Encounters with the Night Kind

May 2 – Guest Blog, Review & Giveaway @ For the Love of Reading

May 3 – Interview @ Tory Michaels

May 4 – Review @ Sexxy Blogger

May 8 – Book Spotlight @ Cocktails & Books

May 9 – Interview @ Books-n-Kisses

May 10 – Guest Blog @ Readers Edens

May 11 – Guest Blog @ Jacob’s Beloved Books

May 14 – Character Interview @ Picked by Poison

Misa Buckley grew up watching Doctor Who and Star Trek and reading fantasies from Anne McCaffrey and David Eddings. So when she started writing NaNoWriMo in 2007, it was sci fi that she wrote. She found writing a much-needed haven from the crazy of raising five children and a Land Rover-obsessed husband.
It took her a few years to take the step from writing to submitting, but her first published novella, IRONHAVEN, was published in July 2011 by Decadent Publishing. Now contracted with Champagne Books as well as self-publishing, she can be found on Twitter (@MisaBuckley) or at her website (www.misabuckley.com)