Pauline Baird Jones shares a bit about Book 6 of Project Enterprise

Life has a way of bringing where you fear to go in your writing. I wrote a book called The Key, a book I believed was an action-adventure romance that just happened to be set in space. It was never meant to be “science” though it was fiction. Haha

Then readers started calling it “science fiction romance” and “romantic space opera” and it kind of freaked me out.

My science has been pretty much fiction since high school.

But, for the most part, readers loved it and asked for more.

So I wrote another one and the next thing I knew I was writing a “series.”

I didn’t think I did series either.

It felt like I wrote with one foot on a banana peel and the other on the ice.

So, after five books, I sighed with regret (and maybe some relief) and moved on.

But readers kept asking me for more Project Enterprise.

I tried some other stuff (An Uneasy Future which was loosely connected to Project Enterprise), but readers kept asking for more Project Enterprise.

So, last year, I added “new Project Enterprise book” to my production schedule.

And so much Life Happened that last year I wrote ONE story for the Pets in Space anthology and nothing else.

I staggered out of the smoke and debris field that was 2016 and looked at my production schedule.

“New Project Enterprise book” was still there, along with almost everything else I’d planned to work on last year.

I honestly wasn’t sure I could write a short story, let alone a whole novel but I decided that diving back into my Project Enterprise universe might help me get the words flowing again.

My feet were back on the banana peel and the ice, but I skated forward (oddly enough we had a winter with epic snow fall, so the imagery worked on every level). There were days when I thought it wasn’t going to happen when I was sure I’d never write anything again.

And then slowly, so slowly, the story began to happen.

Words appeared on the page. Pages began to pile up.

When I had a completed rough draft, well, it felt like an alien had landed on my computer. I wasn’t sure it was ME. That’d I’d written a book my readers would recognize.

Thankfully I have a great beta reader who assured me that I was in there. So I let it rest while I turned my attention to my story for Embrace the Romance: Pets in Space 2. This story came easier as if an emotional logjam had been dismantled.

When I went back to Found Girl, I was able to edit it and uncover more of me.

I will be forever changed by the events of 2016 and that will become part of my writing, part of my writer’s voice. But my sense of adventure and my sense of humor are back.

I hope that readers will dive in and find something familiar, even if this book does take the expedition on new challenges. And yes, the series will loop around and connect with my other books. Just give me time.

There are more books on my production schedule. :-)

Here’s a snippet from Found Girl:

No space ship was going to drop out of the sky and scoop her up—

Her thoughts skidded to a halt as one of the bright distant stars did seem to be dropping out of the sky. She stared. Took a step toward it, then another. With each step, it seemed to come closer, grow brighter. 

“It is not, it can not be for me,” she murmured. She was just a farm laborer. A small cog in a large, indifferent wheel.

It continued to approach—it had to be a ship, not a star because its brightness dimmed as if its pilot knew it was using forbidden air space. It was something conjured from her hope, she told herself, but the hum of it felt real. It vibrated through the soles of her work boots, increasing in intensity until it rushed past her, almost knocking her off her feet as its backwash hit. She staggered from the force of it, then spun to keep it in view.

She thought she saw a black bowl-shape drop below the tree line. She tensed for impact, but none came.

She did not consciously decide to follow. Her feet moved, slow at first, then fast, and faster still, as hope broke free from restraints, propelling her through the darkest shadows. It did not matter that she could not see in the nearly moonless dark. She knew every rise, every dip, every plant and tree of this trap she’d been born to.

By the time she reached the fallow field where the ship hovered—silent and dark a few feet above the ground—she gasped for breath. She was a farmer, not a runner. Bent, her hands resting on her knees, she studied the quiescent object, barely visible in the mix of shadow and faint starlight.

It was a starship.

* * *

About Found Girl: Project Enterprise 6

She likes being lost…

He needs to be found…

Arian Teraz would be perfectly happy if she never returned to her cheerless, hopeless world. Her life changes when her ship is damaged. Rescued by a handsome alien from a distant galaxy, Arian longs to find a place with him and his people.

Hotshot USAF pilot, Captain Jackson “Coop” Cooper knew the risks of boldly going somewhere before he signed up for the Project Enterprise expedition. When an anomaly sends his ship into a mysterious, no-exit sanctuary about to be invaded by a deadly adversary, he is forced to trust the unusual woman who might be his only ticket out.

With an invasion threatening the sanctuary and enemies emerging from Arian’s past, Arian and Coop must combine forces to seize an uncertain future together. Can they save each other as they battle the forces trying to rip them apart, or will the secret Arian’s ship carries – along with those seeking to exploit her – separate them forever?

Grab your copy of Found Girl today and dive into the sixth installment in the award-winning Project Enterprise series – your transport to action, adventure, and romance in space.

You can buy Found Girl: Project Enterprise 6 in digital and print at:

Amazon   iBooks   Nook   Kobo  GooglePlay

Pauline never liked reality, so she writes books. She likes to wander among the genres, rampaging like Godzilla, because she does love peril mixed in her romance. You can find her on the internet:

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