I love evolutionary biology. It is the science most prevalent in my stories. I’m fascinated by how beings and creatures change and adapt to survive and thrive in different climates and terrains.
Why do ducks have webbed feet and chickens don’t? (Ducks have evolved for water. Their webbed feet help them swim.) Why do people living in hotter climates have darker skin than people living in cooler climates? (Melanin protects humans from harmful ultraviolet radiation.)
These questions interest me. Greatly.
Fjord Horse
I first became intrigued by evolutionary biology when I was a child. I didn’t know that was what it was called. I didn’t even know I was actively pursuing a science.
I LOVED horses (or hay burners, as my farming Granddad would call them – grins) and studied them thoroughly, taking out books from the library, learning every little detail about them.
When my family got our first computer (a Commodore 64), I crafted a program to input all of my horse facts. This database listed the different horse breeds with every detail I could find about them—their average heights, their common colorings, their origins, etc.
I noted, for example, how all thoroughbreds could trace their origins to three stallions, how they’d derived some of their characteristics from these stallions and some from the English mares.
Breeding is human-assisted evolutionary biology. Horses are selected to breed based on certain characteristics. In a thoroughbred’s case, the primary characteristic is speed.
Why horses have hooves also interested me. I completed a separate project, tracing the evolution of paws to hooves and the advantages hooves give horses in their terrain.
Paint Horse
I invested every spare moment I had into this research. When a teacher offered extra credit to students entering the science fair, I didn’t want to divert my efforts so I entered my database and the associated research projects.
I encountered a tiny snippet of the bias evolutionary biologists today endure. The judges didn’t know what to do with my project. One (male) judge told me pompously that it wasn’t ‘real’ science. There wasn’t an experiment he could touch or see. All I had done was gather information and test theories.
The science fair judges considered disqualifying me but, in the end, they relented, relaying that the massive amounts of programming I’d completed for the database deserved SOME recognition. I earned my extra credit and returned happily to my work on the database. (grins) I knew what I was trying to accomplish and who I was trying to accomplish it for—myself.
I didn’t realize that many years later, my fascination with evolutionary biology would lead to me writing hot and sexy romances featuring cyborgs and aliens.
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Doc’s Orders
She wants both sides of her cyborg—the medic AND the beast.
A fully functional cyborg is balanced. His machine half and his organic half work together to produce the perfect warrior.
Doc isn’t fully functional.
The G Model operates at the two extremes. When his machine is in complete control, he’s the logic-driven medic, saving lifespans. Once his organics take charge, he becomes the savage beast…and beings die.
Both sides of Doc want to be the first to claim his female.
Allinen is one of the few beings in her small settlement who wasn’t born with a fated mate. Determined to belong somewhere, she has crafted a plan to leave the planet.
That plan doesn’t involve a huge stormy-eyed male who alternates between cool seduction and out-of-control ravishment. Doc isn’t her fated mate. Allinen knows that. But his dual nature and forbidden embraces tempt her to forget forever and indulge in more immediate delights.
Neither side of Doc views their relationship as being temporary. Her conflicted cyborg is prepared to battle her family, her planet and death itself to keep her.
Buy Now:
Amazon US:
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Kobo:
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