A Guest Blog by My Friend, Author Katalina Leon.
I asked my friend, Katalina Leon, to write a guest blog.
I was hoping she’d describe in detail the loss of her bathing suit bottom while para sailing but…no such luck! She surprised me by sending this blog about my book, Captured.
I just finished reading a very usual and wonderful book “Captured” by Julia Rachel Barrett. Julia is not only a blog-mate of mine and a friend is she is also a hardcore Science Fiction fan and that’s makes her a bit unique in a field of romance authors who often look elsewhere for inspiration. I’m a big Sci-fi fan also. Julia and I have a lot of common ground, and shared influences in our lives and that’s why I was so excited to read “Captured” her first of what I’m convinced will be many wonderful Sci-fi novels.
I loved “Captured” because it works on so many levels. Make no mistake about it this book is a very tender romance with a strong sexual attraction and lots of emotional interaction between the human woman Mari and her Attun-ra captor and ultimately her savior—Ekkatt. Both characters are vividly written and we easily understand how they come to feel what they feel for each other.
What’s exceptional is Ms. Barrett’s clever balancing act. All the classic elements of great Sci-fi are here, world-building, controversy, social commentary, visionary elements of a changed society and most of all a working philosophy. After all Science Fiction’s great strength is that it allows us to step outside our culture—even our humanness in order to get a clearer view of it. That definitely happens in Captured. I had lots to think about long after the book was finished and that’s what good Sci-fi does. Captured beautifully deals with a dozen very difficult and certainly controversial social issues and handles the subjects maturely. This same plot, which prophetically appeared to Julia in its completion during a dream last summer, could have gone terribly astray in the wrong hands but it didn’t here. This book works as a romance, it’s erotic and it fulfills its mission as complex entertainment that has many layers to discover and ponder long after you’re done reading it.
I’m happy to announce Julia Rachel Barrett has lots more Sci-fi on the way with the “Daughters of Persephone” series, which is coming next month. I’m really looking forward to reading more.
XXOO Katalina Leon
Katalina Leon is the author of Owned by Rome and Beautiful Stranger. You can find her here: http://www.katalinaleon.com/ She’s amazing!
I have to give a shout out to author Stacey Espino who surprised me with an interview yesterday - I’m over at her site talking about science fiction and my upcoming release, Daughters of Persephone: http://staceyespino.blogspot.com/
