Meet Toni Sweeney
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 often set in the
South under her pseudonym Icy Snow Blackstone. She is also publicity manager
for Class Act Books (US) and also Double Dragon Publishing (Canada), and
reviews books for TwoLips Reviews and is also on the review staff of the New
York Journal of Books. She recently had her 27th book published and has six
more scheduled for release in 2013.
Miranda’s Adventures in Interplanetary Babysitting
Once upon a time, my pseudonym Icy Snow Blackstone had this
idea for a story about a babysitter who discovers her employer is an
alien. It wasn’t to be one of those
horror stories, however, but sometimes funny, often dramatic, always a love
story.
It started off like this:
NANNY
WANTED. MUST HAVE ABILITY TO FACE
ADVENTURE, EXCITEMENT, DANGER.
In The Rose and the Dragon, when
Miranda Wilson answers just such an advertisement, she doesn’t realize what
she’s walking into. It could’ve been the
plot of a Gothic novel, with a handsome widower, three orphaned children, and
herself as the innocent governess.
The Rose and the Dragon
There are odd undercurrents in the Andrus household,
however, and Miranda notices those even before she meets her boss’ younger
brother, a knock-out hunk by the name of Kitten. Before she can say, “That’s a
pretty weird name for a grown man,” Miranda
Wilson, Nanny, finds herself Miranda
Wilson, Alien Abductee, as she’s whisked to the planet Gataeus where
Dominic Andrus is the head of the planet’s largest crime family and Kit is his
chief hitman.
Now, she’s in the middle of an interplanetary war started by
Xander Taluti—a deadly nutcase who’s off his meds and more than one pound short
of a load—with her three charges as the prize.
Xanderf’s sworn to kill Kit and every other Andrus in sight.
What’s an Earthwoman to do?
What Miranda does is help end the war while risking her own
life and becoming even more deeply in love with Kit. When he asks her to stay
with him and not return to Earth, she agrees. His apology for not being able to
marry her, because of this bothersome law his galaxy has about staying isolated
from the solar system…that doesn’t matter. He wants her, she wants him, big Happily Ever After…
…but not for long.
I could’ve left it there, but as usual—you know me—I kept
wondering what would happen when some of the things Dominic and his brother had
hinted about were put into motion. There were just too many things left unsaid.
I had to explain everything.
Didn’t I?
Okay, back to the drawing board—or rather the keyboard—for
Book 2, wherein All is Revealed.
In Dragon in Chains, Miranda has
settled into the Andrus household, Kit committing himself as much as he can by
announcing in front of his family he now considers Miranda his wife in
everything but name. He even gives her the right to discipline his brood of
eight children, a big step for a man who loves his kids as much as Kit does.
Nephew Niki is about to marry Ardala for whom he’s lusted in
private despair for several years. With
the death of his lunatic twin Xander, Zane Taluti has taken leadership of the
Taluti Syndicate and he and Dominic are currently trying to ease their families
into a law-abiding and less criminal way of life as painlessly as possible.
Dragon in Chains
It would appear All is
well…
Not.
The Happily Ever After
ends rather abruptly and dramatically, as, on Niki’s wedding night, Dom’s old
nemesis Federation Police Lieutenant Cyran Synubis invades the Andrus housebold,
arresting Kit, Dom, and Niki. Miranda is taken into protective custody. Dom’s
and Kit’s children are separated and placed in foster homes.
The Andrus Dragon is in chains, locked behind bars, and his
Rose finds herself
chief witness for the prosecution in a judicial system where
asking for a lawyer is an admission of guilt and the thin line between truth
and lies could very well condemn the man she loves.
Only a miracle will save Kit, but who’s to say the Dragon
doesn’t still have a secret or three up the sleeve of his prison uniform? Come
to think of it, Kit does look a little smug as he sits in the prisoner’s dock…
Dragon in Chains will be available from Class Act Books on
August 15.
You can find out more about Toni and her books at:
