The Australian Ladies of Sci-Fi Romance: Donna Maree Hanson

[This week, The Galaxy Express is profiling a number of Australian sci-fi romance authors. I'm pleased to welcome aboard Ros Baxter, Amanda Bridgeman, S.E. Gilchrist, Donna Maree Hanson, Anna Hackett, Shona Husk, Nicole Murphy, and Yolanda Sfetsos.

Each informational post will focus on one of the authors and will feature a cover and blurb. Social media links will be at your fingertips so you can learn more about these lovely ladies and their work. Enjoy!]

RAYESSA AND THE SPACE PIRATES (Young Adult) by Donna Maree Hanson

Sixteen-year-old Rae Stroder lives in a hollow asteroid, a defunct refuelling station, with a brain-damaged adult, Gris, to keep her company. Low on supplies, they’ve been eking out an existence for years. Everything changes when Alwin Anton, ultra-clean, smart and handsome AllEarth Corp company auditor, arrives to find disarray. Full of suspicion, he interrogates Rae, threatening her with prosecution for theft. He uncovers the fact that she is not Rae Stroder at all, when space pirates attack.

During the attack, Rae is taken prisoner and Alwin Anton escapes in his space ship. The pirate women prepare Rae for sale on the infamous Centauri slave markets. It's all going badly, when she is purchased by a mysterious Ridallian.

Meanwhile, the space pirates are out to kill Alwin Anton because he holds the secret to Rae’s true identity. It’s a race against time to unravel the intrigue of Rae’s past to secure her future.

About the author

Donna Maree Hanson works for the Australian Government and lives in Canberra, Australia. She’s been writing speculative fiction for fifteen years and has twenty short stories published in various small press anthologies and ezines. In 2013, her first longer-length work was published, Rayessa and the Space Pirates, a young-adult space opera romance. In 2014, her first paranormal romance novel, under a pseudonym, was published with Escape Publishing, and also a dark fantasy series, called Dragon Wine (Shatterwing and Skywatcher) published by Momentum Books, Pan MacMillan’s Australian digital imprint. Harper Collin’s Impulse digital imprint also published a sexy paranormal romance called, The Sorcerer’s Spell, in August 2014.

Donna has been the Chair of two Australian National Science Fiction Conventions, inaugural president of the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild and a prior treasurer of the ACT Writers Centre. In 2006, she won a Varuna Longlines fellowship for one of her novels in progress. She completed a Masters of Creative Writing at the University of Canberra in 2013 and was awarded an A. Bertram Chandler Award in 2015 for her contribution to Australian science fiction.

Web site: http://donnamareehanson.wordpress.com

Dragon Wine Series: Shatterwing and Skywatcher