With Reader Calls and Muse and Whips

With Reader Calls and Muse and Whips: That’s How The Series Grows

By Brenna Lyons

I never set out to write series books. My first series was written by accident. I’m not kidding. I started writing what I thought was one book. When I passed 150,000 words, I stopped to take stock of it, thinking I had another serial in the works. No... It turned out I had three separate time lines and plot arcs, which meant it was a series.

But even before that, I ran into the issue of reader calls for more from a world. My first book was a two-book serial novel. At the end, two of my test readers insisted I’d set it up for a sequel and wanted to know what happened next. I disagreed. I had tied up every thread and left no space for a sequel. Nine years later, I’m eating my words. Until six months ago, I would have stated categorically that the readers were wrong about that book.

It wasn’t the first time I had to eat my words. When my third book came out, the readers said the same thing. “You set us up for the sequel. When are you giving it to us?” What? No I... Yes, I had. That time, I saw it, and four books later, I was writing the sequel to it.

By the time I got to my first planned series, the readers were more specific. “When do we get this character’s book? Oh, and that character, too?” I would like to say I didn’t see the books coming, but somewhere in the back of my subconscious, I had woven the threads in to the early books that allowed the rest to unfold. Bad muse!

I mean...good, smart, wonderful muse. You can put the whip down now. I’m writing.

It took that long for the muse to start hitting me directly with ideas. Now, shutting them off is difficult. When I wrote the first Xxan book, Close Enough to Human, I let myself believe it was a stand-alone until second draft. At that point, I realized I’d already set the stage for book two, Mating Season (which is a prequel to Close Enough to Human). Halfway through writing Mating Season, I realized I’d set up the threads for five more stories, two prequels and three that come after CETH.

This is how a series grows. At first, it may take readers pointing out what you’d unknowingly set up to continue the world. After that, the muse picks up the whip and does it for them.

Here's a peek at the first four of seven planned works in the series...

Close Enough To Human- It's the culmination of a lifetime of training. Miri Johns is about to meet humans for the first time, as a negotiator for the Xxan who created her. What she doesn't know is that she's part decoy to hide an attack and part cannon fodder. Worse, when it all blows up, she finds herself captured by the humans, an illegal cross-bred experiment used as a weapon against them. The best she can hope for is that they'll kill her without torturing her too badly first. Since she's under a sentence of death on Xxan, whatever the humans do can't possibly be worse.

Aleeks Daahn is a natural-born cross-bred, raised on Earth, and the team leader of an elite military unit. He doesn't question that Mirienne Johns wasn't complicit in the plot against the human council; beyond that, nothing makes sense about her. Why wasn't she claimed by her Xxanian father? Why does the sight of a Dominant male send her into a panic attack? How did she choose the Grea Elders she killed?

There's more Xxan in these two than their peculiar skin and eyes. Cross-bred Xxan-Humans have fierce mating instincts, and with Miri at the height of fertility, Aleeks may not be able to control the Xxan need to Dominate and claim his young prisoner. Nor does he want to control it.

Cover art by Christine Griffin
HEA-yes, VIOLENCE-moderate, LANGUAGE-moderate, SEX-highly erotic- Dom, anal sex

To purchase CLOSE ENOUGH TO HUMAN from Loose-Id in e-book...

Mating Season- Zondra Daahn has hit her quickening with both feet and no warning. She's on the prowl for a male to sate her, unable to wait for a Xxan mix male to be sent to her, and Evan Duncan is just the overbearing, alpha male she needs. There are a few little problems, of course. In human years, she's not quite seventeen, she's the fleet Admiral's goddaughter, and the powerful Zhigaaah (sex pheromones) at her quickening may permanently tie Evan to her. Worse, being human means he can't bind her as a Xxan male would and give her children...or can he?

HEA-yes, VIOLENCE-high, LANGUAGE-moderate, SEX-highly erotic

Quickening- Sylvana Duncan seems to have escaped all the signs of being Xxan, save a precious few: allergies to certain medications, an intense reaction to biting cold...and a quickening. It's later than they usually come and without the Zhigaaah that might bind a human male accidentally. Neither does she want to be bound accidentally by a Xxanian male. She's just human enough that it's possible, after all. So, it's going to be a human man to sate her drives. Better yet, make it two dominant males with nice hard cocks. Jarrod and Joe are just what the doctor ordered, brothers with a taste for sharing their women. But Syl may be the one woman they can't forget, Zhigaaah or no.

HEA-yes, VIOLENCE-mild, LANGUAGE-moderate, SEX-highly erotic

Daahn Captured- Once upon a time, at the height of the Xxan-Human conflict, there was a Grea Elder with no equal on the battle field. When a lucky young commander for the human forces captures him, Daahn is considered dead to his own. He's being held by barbarians, lorded over by the cocky Matthew MacNair. It takes years for Daahn to come to terms with the fact that the humans have redeeming qualities, besides the battle sense of one lone man. It takes a moment for one fertile human woman to catch his attention and seal all their fates.

HEA-yes, VIOLENCE-high, LANGUAGE-moderate, SEX-highly erotic