I, Effing Feline, am the world’s most literary cat. I can read, write, type . . . and criticize. My claws have been known to tear through the words written by my pet human, Ed Hoornaert. It’s fun! Ed accuses me of megalomania, but that’s okay. I’m sure you’ll agree that megalomania is a cat’s prerogative.

I write a Sunday column for Ed. Now he’s asked me to write one on Wednesdays because he’s too lazy to do it. Starting now, each month I’ll be featuring a different book from Ed’s backlist. The first such book is Rescuing Prince Charming, which Ed had started choosing selections. It’s an SFR set in the near future.

Dusty and the alien guard have gotten  the bomb out of the ship. But how can they get rid of it in time?

Dusty lifted the latch and pulled. The door opened, blasting her with brisk November air smelling of ocean and evergreens. She stepped back to let him pass, and though it would’ve been safer to get as far away as possible, she followed him outside.

“Toss it over the—”

But their minds were in perfect sync; he was already charging toward the railing. He hurled the bomb over the side with the grace and power of a javelin thrower.

Huffing, Dusty grabbed the cold, metal railing and looked down. Three long steel posts reached forty yards down to the steep and rocky forest below. If the bomb landed near a post, the blast would bring down the terrace with her on it. But did she run? Nope.

She leaned over the railing and put an arm on the back of her amazing companion. Although she didn’t know his name, there was no one she’d rather stand shoulder-to-shoulder with, facing oblivion, panting in unison, poised on the knife’s edge separating death from life.

“Wow,” she panted, “you have a…a great arm.”

He said nothing, and she was too busy watching the bomb to notice his reaction. Stupid to just stand there, yet she watched the bomb fall as though in slow motion. The lid floated away, wafting back and forth like a cardboard leaf.

The box arched beyond the pylons and the forest toward the ocean. This being a fjord, the bottom dropped off as steeply as the mountainside, so the box should be well submerged when it went off. She never could’ve thrown it so far.

Be sure to visit the hooks by other fine writers in the Book Hooks blog hop.

Rescuing Prince Charming

Dusty Johnson, a self-styled ordinary, everyday woman, responds with extraordinary heroism when saboteurs try to bomb the prototype of Earth’s first starship. Although she yearns to return to anonymity, that moment of courage propels her ever deeper into dangers that tear the scabs off her dark secrets — and thrust her into the arms of the unattainable man of her dreams.

Reese Eaglesbrood, an alien prince, yearns to restore his tattered reputation by guiding the starship project to completion, but his fascination with the unassuming heroine threatens to undermine his fragile authority. Shunning Dusty is necessary, yet unthinkable — and when the saboteurs strike again, she is his only ally against Earth’s most elusive enemies.

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