Happy 8th blog anniversary to On Top Down Under Book Reviews. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss my upcoming books.

Four years ago I was teaching preschool and not writing at all. It was painful. Not the teaching, I love helping little minds discover the world. The lack of writing was painful. I’m a person who has always written. Poetry, short stories, fan fiction. There has always been a story in my head, like a song you just can’t get to stop playing, over and over and over again.

Then I got pregnant, and was able to stay home with the baby. The baby who didn’t sleep for more than an hour at a time. I found myself trapped in a rocking chair beneath a tiny dictator for most of my days and nights. What could I do? Movies gave off too much light and sound, books were unwieldy. 

So, I wrote. One-handed, while nursing, on my phone and tablet. Everyday for months. Until, quite to my surprise, I had written a book. And then a book series. And then a holiday novella. All because I finally had to sit down with myself and write out the stories in my head. 

I took a moment to listen to the characters and give them their own unique world to live in. I love my characters, and each story follows their lead. I simply go where they take me. Sometimes that’s across the universe in a small exploratory science vessel, and sometimes that’s just up the mountain my family used to visit in the winter. 

I like to give characters a huge, beautiful, sweeping backdrop such as the vastness of space, and then focus in on their emotional journey to love and self discovery. 

In my steampunk sci-fi Verge series, I created a set of twins who were raised in a repressive, restrictive environment and developed opposite reactions to it. They live very small lives surrounded by the endless possibilities of space travel. Ari and Theo are two sides of the same coin, and I set the coin spinning to see where it would land. In Restricted, the first book in the series, Ari tries his hardest to blend into his surroundings. This is all tossed to the wayside when his more outgoing twin Theo goes missing. Ari is forced to leave his academic comfort zone and take a leap into the terrifying unknown. His growth as a character drives the story as much as the mystery of his missing twin. In Captivated, the second book in the Verge series, Theo flings himself headlong into danger only to discover the security he has always longed for in the unlikeliest of places. Throughout the series, both characters reveal things they never knew about themselves, and grow stronger in the process.

My holiday novella, Burying the Hatchet, has a simpler setting, but the characters are just as complex. They share a deep, sometimes painful, complicated history together. It takes coming home to face his fears for Clayton to embrace his inner strength. He finally stops running from himself and what he wants. Jake had given up on happiness, throwing himself into his work on the farm. It isn’t until Clayton shows up with a suitcase full of grief and a chip on his shoulder that Jake starts to thaw and let his heart shine through. Forgiveness is a gift they can give each other just in time for Christmas.

Dr. Aristotle Campbell is a desperate man. His twin brother has been abducted, and Ari will do anything to find him. Forced out of the comfortable solitude of his laboratory, Ari must leave their home world of Britannia and search the farthest reaches of space for his other half. He hastily equips himself with a flawlessly tied cravat, a handful of clues, and his small science vessel. Now, all he needs is a pilot to get him across the Verge, a barrier separating the civilized world from ungoverned space.

Pilot Orin Stone is a desperate man. No ship, no pay, no prospects. He spends his days barely scraping by in the rough colonies lining the Verge interior. When he gets an offer from a frantic, upper-crust professor in need of a pilot, he has no choice but to take the job. He just can’t believe it when the professor turns out to be the most gorgeous man he’s ever seen and that his offer includes a ship of Orin’s own. If Orin can keep his heart (and other portions of his anatomy) from leaping every time sweet, innocent Dr. Campbell looks at him, this should be his easiest job yet.

Rugged Orin and aristocratic Ari work together to navigate the lawless areas of space beyond the Verge, soon discovering that they work well together in all areas. Their immediate and intense attraction to one another is an obstacle to their plans that neither saw coming. More than sparks will fly when they break through the force field and enter restricted space, all alone together for the perilous journey, leaving barriers to their growing attachment far behind.

In their search across the stars, can two desperate men find their home in one another?

RESTRICTED, book one of the Verge series, is now available for preorder from NineStar Press.

Author Bio:

A.C. Thomas left the glamorous world of teaching preschool for the even more glamorous world of staying home with her toddler. Between the diaper changes and tea parties, she escapes into fantastical worlds, reading every romance available and even writing a few herself.

She devours books of every flavor—science fiction, historical, fantasy—but always with a touch of romance because she believes there is nothing more fantastical than the transformative power of love.

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