Claws & Effect by @paulinebjones is a Spring Break Bookapalooza pick #scifiromance #spaceopera
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    • Apr 21, 2022
    • 4 min read

Claws & Effect by @paulinebjones is a Spring Break Bookapalooza pick #scifiromance #spaceopera



Title:

Claws & Effect: The Otherworldly Pets of Project Enterprise


Author:

Pauline Baird Jones


Genre:

Romantic scifi, space opera, action adventure, science fiction romance


Book Blurb:


Love Space opera? Romance? Adventure? Out of this world pets? Grab Claws & Effect today!


What’s in the collection?


In Time Trap, Sergeant Briggs’s world collides with the very unusual Madison and her pet parrot. With a Time Service Interdiction Force on their heels, can the three craft a plan that will save a base full of geniuses and technology and get them the happy ending they deserve?


Operation Ark’s Caro, her caticorn, and Kraye are tasked with returning some unusual aliens to their home planets. Together they must face a dangerous journey, a lethal enemy with a score to settle, their unexpected desire, and an uncertain future if they make it out alive.


Cyborg’s Revenge asks the question, can the shy guy and the lovesick gal defeat their greatest enemy and find a happy ending? Only the chatty Snake knows for sure.


General’s Holiday brings us a lady with a crazy story and a frog for a side-kick. And then there is the general who has been waiting for his Picard moment for a long time. Be careful what you ask for! But…if he can survive he might just get to kiss the lady.


And in the bonus short story, “The Real Dragon,” Emma Standish didn’t think her day could get any worse. Her dad is marrying his boss, her dragon suddenly came back talking and typing, and it’s her fault the Earth, or at least ten square miles of Texas, is going to be destroyed.


Dive into four Project Enterprise stories and one quirky Earth-based romp! All five originally appeared in the ®Pets in Space anthologies.


Excerpt:


They dropped through the time tunnel in a dark rush, the landing a jolt that shook Madison all the way from her toes to the top of her head. Good thing she knew how to stick a landing. She didn’t move and thought she wasn’t breathing until her nostrils filled with the pungent scent of cleaning supplies and the dust their arrival had stirred up. With her knees still bent from the landing, she wiggled her nose, trying to head off an errant sneeze.


The fear of getting shot helped. This was their most vulnerable moment. It took a few seconds for all the molecules to settle, during which they were an easy target.


When no one shot them, she eased her weapon free and flicked it to stun. She wasn’t supposed to kill people for fear of messing up the timeline. But they could kill her. So not fair.


After another moment of assessing silence, she pulled out her handy little scans-for-almost-everything device with her other hand, and flicked it on. The scanner had a fancier name but even its initials were too long to remember. With her weapon extended, she lifted the scanner up next to it and studied the faintly glowing screen, looking for something she might have to shoot, well, stun. No other life signs, at least in the immediate vicinity. She adjusted the settings with her thumb, scanning wider. No one but them so far.


Of course, the opposition could be wearing a fancy heat-blocking suit, too. But for now the intel that had sent them here looked to be decent. She didn’t let herself get optimistic. There was still a lot that could go wrong.


Sir Rupert’s claws dug into her shoulder, as he poked his beak up out of his specially designed-for-him backpack. He wasn’t good at whispering, so he used his claws to ask for an update. She felt the soft brush of feathers against her neck and lifted her index finger, her signal for “just a minute.”


She changed the settings again, this time scanning for threats inside this room. Found nothing, which would be one of the reasons she’d chosen to arrive here.


Even the tightest security types didn’t think about teching up the janitor’s closet. Not that they really needed to double down in this room when this outpost was thick with beyond-the-latest in protection and detection technology—if their intel was right.


There should be—yup, there they were. The master security feed wires ran into, and out of, a box in the corner of this room. This would be the other reason she’d chosen to arrive here. One really didn’t want to land in a motion-sensor-rich zone to take out, say, the motion sensors.


She navigated around a bucket, then a mop. Man, you’d think people would come up with a better way to clean in the future.


Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):












If money were no object, where would you go for a Spring Break vacation and why?


I would like to take one of those rides into the upper atmosphere, so I would know what it feels like to launch and what it looks like from space.


Why is your featured book a must-read this spring?


There is no question that pets have provided a lot of comfort for readers as they’ve navigated the pandemic and other challenges the last two years. That is why I am sure to my toes that, if we were to travel in space with the intent to colonize (not just visit), there would have to be pets. Humans need their pets. And what could be more fun than to read about the possibilities of pets in space?


Giveaway –


One lucky reader will win a $75 Amazon US or Canada gift card



Open internationally. You must have a valid Amazon US or Amazon CA account to win.


Runs April 1 – 30


Drawing will be held on May 2.



Author Biography:


Award-winning, USA Today Bestselling author, Pauline never liked reality, so she writes books. She likes to wander among the genres, rampaging like Godzilla, because she does love peril mixed in her romance.


Social Media Links:


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

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paulinebjones/

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