Many years ago, I was intrigued by a TV show called Beauty and the Beast. In homage, I wrote my own spin on that story: The Adventures of Sinbad. My Beast isn’t simply a man who by some quirk of birth looks like a lion. He is a lion, a native of Felida where the inhabitants evolved from a feline species instead of simians. Sinbad’s Last Voyage was published in 2007, with Sinbad’s Wife, the story of his courtship and winning of his Beauty, Andrea Talltrees, published the following year.
My Beast is Sinbad sh’en Singh was a smuggler, a man wanted on twelve worlds of the United Federation, with more than a million Credit bounty on his head. That was all right with Sin. He had because he intended to thumb his nose at the TUF for as long as he could, and then he met a little Terran named Andrea Talltrees and got shot right out of orbit…in flames.
His Beauty is Andi, a feisty little woman, raised by the Navajos after her father is killed in the Terro-Felidan War and her mother dies of a broken heart. When her husband is accused of being a spy in yet another war and is arrested, she doesn’t just sit around. She goes to the one person her godfather suggests might help…a certain Felidan smuggler who hates Terran women almost as much as he hates the Federation…
…And that’s the way they met, Andi and Sin seeking her husband and trying desperately not to fall in love with each other. It all ends mostly happily. Andi’s husband Tran turns out to be really a spy and he already has a wife, so Andi’s free to marry Sin, even though he does have only a few months to live. He manages to last past the wedding ceremony, only to collapse into a coma, during which time Andi is threatened once more by an escaped Tran and placed in jeopardy by a lecherous doctor who refuses to save her new husband’s life unless she becomes his mistress. Still, once again, Sin survives, rescuing his beloved, is pardoned by the Federation, and this time, takes Andi to his home planet, along with their assorted offspring—his, hers, and theirs—to live happily after, or at least until Volume 3.
In the third book in the series, Sinbad’s Pride, more problems arise. Re-established as his grandfather’s Pride Heir, Sin has found a way to begin smuggling again, and this time, he’s involving the entire planet in his operation. To Andi’s dismay, everyone goes along with his scheme when he explains that because of a loophole in the Treaty made with the UTF after the war, the Felidan clans can’t be prosecuted. More problems, this time of a marital nature, erupt when participating Pride leaders want an affiliation through marriage, and Sin’s grandfather accepts the offered females in his grandson’s name. Perhaps Sin has finally outsmarted himself, for now he finds himself with not one but two—count ’em, two—concubines, and a wife who’s none too happy with the fact.
Into the mix is thrown Kas sh’en Singh, Sin’s physician cousin, suddenly released from being his grandfather’s heir by Sin’s reappearance and now free to live his own life, and live it he does…traveling to Terra to represent his cousin before the Brotherhood of Dismas in an attempt to get back Sin’s territories, and living it up with Saydee, the socializer from the Asteroid Cantina. That Saydee used to be Sin’s old girlfriend or that the smuggler who received the territories is going to give them a fight before relinquishing them is only a minor problem--or so they think.
In the meantime, Sinbad's son Adam and Andi's son Cash are growing up, becoming men and facing choices leading to happiness for one and disaster for the other, and Sin has to be there for both of them while guiding Felida through its tentative steps in becoming a first class planet again. Through it all, he attempts to assure Andi that no matter how many concubines he has, she’s the only female who owns his heart, or will put up with him.
Sinbad’s Pride was released by Double Dragon Publication last weekend. It’s available as an e-book and in print. It's also available from amazon.com.
As always, Toni, I'm astonished at your imagination.
Tell me: is it necessary to read books one and two before going on to book three, or does book three work as a standalone?
I love the trailer. And what Barbara said. Where do you come out with your ideas?
You do great trailers Toni and your website is fantastic now with all the changes you made!
Barbara, it helps to start at the beginning because events in other books are referred to but I think each one will make sense even if none of the others have been read first.
Yep, Toni has quite an imagination. She's becoming a trailer expert, too. Who knew?
Toni, your imagination and hard work amaze me! Do you ever rest? It's always fun to see what you've come up with next... Good luck with all of it!
I remember that show, Toni. Beauty and the Beast was one of my favorites. Wow--your creativity astounds me.