Focus: Toni V. Sweeney and Respite

A Brief Stop between Life and Death. . .

Aric kan Ingan’s return to Arcanis means certain death but it’s the only hope he has of regaining the right to life with his beloved Susan. Is it any wonder he’s taking a detour from extinction and accompanying friend Miles to Terra?

Apart from the usual culture clashes, free-wheeling Terran women, and ozone alerts there shouldn’t be any problems. It’s simply a last chance for him to learn about Earth before his ordeal begins.

When Aric meets Miles’ foster mother ,however, his fidelity to Susan will be greatly tested, for Jenny Graves is not only an attractive older woman …she’s a love-starved one.

A few words from our guest author on Respite:

This novel, Respite, is exactly that, a short interval between my hero’s decision to perform a single desperate act that will allow him to marry the woman he loves and his arrival on the planet where he set events in motion that may or may not work out as he hopes.

Aric kan Ingan was accused of a crime he didn’t commit and given a choice between death and exile. Placed in the position of admitting to an even worse crime to clear himself (that of having an affair with his sovereign’s wife), or remaining silent and accepting his fate, he chooses the latter.

After ten years of wandering, he takes a job as a security guard at a Terran mining colony and there he meets the two people who will be so much a part of his life: Miles Sheffield, his mistress’ younger brother, and Susan Moran, the colony’s doctor. Aric falls in love and now all he wants is to have his citizenship restored so he can marry Susan and have that fabled ‘happily ever after.’

Unfortunately, if Aric marries, his sentence will be passed to his wife and children, so there’s only one thing he can do.

Returning to his home and petitioning the Arcanian courts to pardon him is a risk. The judges may let his previous sentence stand and if that happens, he’ll die within moments of the verdict.

In an attempt to blot out thoughts of his coming death, Aric accompanies Miles to Earth before he makes that confrontation on Arcanis.

The Earth of Aric’s time is a very different place from the one we in the 21^st century know. Africa is now uninhabited. The entire continent is a game preserve, made into a federation-protected park. Only native Africans and a few government employees legally live there. There are ozone alerts, during which no aircraft or other flying vehicles are allowed in the air while electronics orbiting the planet work to replenish the thinning layer. Coffee and cigarettes are illegal but still enjoyed by those with “sources” who can obtain the proscribed products. The company Aric and Miles work for is one of the most powerful conglomerates on the planet, second only to the United Terran Federation itself.

Aric is dazzled and fascinated by all he sees but if he hopes to forget for a while what’s waiting for him, he sorely mistaken, however, for the free-wheeling Earthwomen continually remind him of his fidelity to Susan…until he meets Jenny Graves, that is. The wife of Miles’ guardian, Jenny is an older woman neglected by her husband and intrigued by the handsome alien her foster son brings into her home. She’s going to be more than a test for Aric, underscoring exactly the kind of person he’s become during his exile, and straining his promises to Susan to their limits.

Here’s an excerpt from Respite:

“I thought I heard a crash. Did you fall?”

She ignored his obvious discomfort and that angered him even more, that she could be so unconscious of the awkwardness she’d barged in on. She simply came inside, shutting the bedroom door quietly behind her.

“Yes, I did.” Aric’s answer was rueful as he attempted to enunciate carefully. “I’m afraid I’m a little drunk.”

It was evidence exactly how drunk he was that he admitted it.

“I figured as much,” she said mildly as if she really wasn’t surprised. She walked over to the bed. “Did Miles come back with you?”

“No, he…”

I can’t tell her Miles went off with two women he picked up in a bar. Can I?

“He was…detained.”

“I see. Found himself a girl, didn’t he?”

Aric didn’t answer, didn’t correct her.

Not a girl, Jenny. Girls, plural.

“Boys will be boys, I suppose.” She sighed. “Sometimes I wish Miles had been a girl. I think he might’ve been easier to raise…”

Aric didn’t reply to that, either. He was busy trying to arrange the sheet across his hips without being obvious about it. He fumbled with the sheet, bent his knees and sat up, twisting to plump the pillows behind him.

As he did that, Jenny said, “I don’t know how you can stand having that window open.” She shivered. “You certainly must be warm-blooded.” She brushed one hand against the other arm, the movement slow and sensuous. “Brrr. It’s cold to me and I’m wearing a nightgown. How can you stand it against bare skin?”

Her gaze flicked from Aric’s chest to the window and back.

What the hell am I supposed to say to that? Once more, Aric kept judiciously quiet.

To his surprise, she sat on the edge of the bed, so close her hip touched his. Aric struggled to wriggle away and the sheet, held down by Jenny’s weight, slid from his waist to a point past his navel. Not bothering to be subtle, he caught at it and jerked it upward again.

“You’re definitely going to need that blanket tonight.” Jenny was still oblivious to the embarrassment she was causing.

Or was she?

Aric was now certain her actions were deliberate. She might even be enjoying his discomfort.

She leaned toward him, placing a hand on his bare shoulder. Before he could recover, Aric shivered, visibly and obviously, from the warmth of her touch.

“You skin… it’s like ice. You’re going to catch cold.”

The hand slid downward, brushing the coppery mass of curls on his chest.

“Or perhaps not.” She made a sound suspiciously like a coquettish giggle.

Taking a deep breath, Aric decided he had to do something. He was just drunk enough to let his loneliness, his previous thoughts, and his still eager cock guide him in what he was going to do, even if it wasn’t what he should do. He’d already admitted Jenny was an attractive woman…and obviously a willing one…while he…

I’m damned deprived and hungry. He shook off that last struggling bit of moral reserve. Oh, what the hell!

“I imagine there’s a way you can make certain I don’t get cold.”

“Of course. I’ll activate the heating system. Each room has its own thermostat.”

Jenny half-rose.

Placing his hand over hers, Aric pulled her back onto the bed.

“That’s not the kind of heat I want.”

“What do you mean?” She looked startled, whether by his touch or his statement, he couldn’t tell.

She attempted to pull her hand from his but he pressed it against his chest so her fingers splayed over one breast. She moved her hand slightly, realized her fingertips brushed against his nipple, and stopped.

Aric drew in a sudden deep breath.

“I think you know.”

He didn’t raise his voice, keeping it barely above a whisper. That level of sound spoke of intimacy, sending another kind of chill skittering along his skin. He slid his hand down Jenny’s, loosening his hold on her fingers, touching her wrist and feeling an equal reaction.

“Isn’t that why you came in here?”

“Aric…” She whispered his name. It echoed through the room before being blown away by the breeze trickling through the window.

To purchase Respite (Book 3 of the kan Ingan Archives, Part 2 of the Arcanian Chronicles), go to:

Respite is available in paperback from the publisher’s website: http://www.classactbooks.com/cat-romance/respite-8842018-04-14-05-17-51-detail

and in e-Book and Kindle from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Respite-Part-Arcanian-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B07C6M8WDL/

About Our Guest:

Toni V. Sweeney has lived 30 years in the South, a score in the Middle West, and a decade on the Pacific Coast and now she’s trying for her second 30 on the Great Plains.

Since the publication of her first novel in 1989, Toni divides her time between writing SF/Fantasy under her own name and romances under her pseudonym Icy Snow Blackstone. In March, 2013, she became publicity manager for Class Act Books (US). She is also on the review staff of the New York Journal of Books and the Paranormal Romance Guild. In 2016, she was named a Professional Reader by netgalley.com.

She is an Amazon reviewer, is in the 1% of reviewers for Goodreads, and in 2015 and 2016 was voted one of the Top 10 authors of those years by Preditors & Editors Readers Poll. In 2013, the Paranormal Romance Guild’s Reviewer’s Choice voted The kan Ingan Archives (Part Two of the Arcanian Chronicles) a Special Mention, and the following year, named the individual novels The Man from Cymene, and Space Studs, from the same series two of the Top 8 SF/fantasy novels of 2014.

As of 2018, Toni currently has 55 novels in print, including 3 series, and 3 trilogies.

To find out more about Toni, go to:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tvsweeney

Amazon Author’s Page: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002BLQBB8

Twitter: @ToniVSweeney