SFR Pitch Tournament HEAT #1

FOR VOTERS
There are eight SFR pitches in this Tournament heat (below).

Vote for up to three titles in the poll above with pitches that best capture your interest and compel you to read the story. The two pitches with the most votes will advance to the final round. In case of a tie, both will advance.

Find a story you just have to read? Sales links are included (if available) below each pitch.

The authors would love to hear your thoughts. Comment below with feedback on what elements in the pitches hooked you and you'll be entered in a drawing for an Amazon e-Gift Certificate.

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B Cubed Book One: Born
By Jenna McCormick
Post-Apocalyptic erotic romance

Born: Natural born humans are precious few and dwell in darkness.
Bred: Genetically engineered slaves who are the protectors of the Born.
Borg: The cybernetically enhanced enclave that split from the Born humans.

B Cubed

These three factions are all that remains of the human race after the world stopped turning. Scavenging in the darkness for what little is left, the war between them rages on though few know why. It begins with a child’s prophesy and can only end when they unite.

Or die.

From the moment he spies her silhouette cast by the bonfire, Cormack understands what it is to yearn for something he will never possess. Breds are made to provide for the natural born humans, dig their homes deep beneath the surface of the earth and to protect them from the ever-present cyborg threat. A Bred who reaches beyond his station will be recycled immediately, yet Cormack cannot get her visage out of his mind. Until he unearths a box, buried long before the earth stopped spinning.

Task Mistress Allora has no wish to brutalize the Bred worker she finds hoarding treasure, but as a servant of the colony that raised her from infancy, she is duty bound to report anything unusual to the Overlord, even if it costs the blue-eyed man his life. Yet something about the way Cormack watches her forces Allora to reevaluate her understanding of right and wrong. For this genetically engineered soldier is her only protection against the cyborgs who seek what they have discovered, a journal written by the prophetess Cassandra and a way to end the warring between the factions forever.

B Cubed Book One: Born By Jenna McCormick Now Available on:
Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook and ARe PDF

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Barron’s Last Stand
By JC Cassels
Space Opera, Sci-fi Romance

Somebody is out to get Bo Barron.

Commanding General of the Black Wing and Chief of Barron Clan, Bo was convicted of a terrorist attack years ago that sent her into exile. Bo will do anything to clear her name so she can return home and take her rightful place as the Chief of Barron Clan.

When an assassination attempt leaves the First Sector Overlord badly injured and comatose, all the evidence points to Bo. Just one problem. She was busy engineering a prison break three sectors away at the time, just ask her estranged husband. He stowed away aboard her ship.

Blade Devon’s clearance as an Inner Circle Agent goes all the way to the Overlord himself. The only blot on his record is the fact that he secretly married Bo, a convicted traitor. With every bounty hunter and law enforcement agency in the Commonwealth hunting for Bo, the only way he can protect her is to keep her close. That means convincing her to work with him to find whoever is responsible for the attack. That won’t be easy. She hates him.

The deeper they dig, the more dangerous it gets – for both of them. As they uncover a plot that stretches back decades and reaches into the highest levels of the Sovran Council the best they can hope for is to stay alive and out of prison.

One way or another, Bo is going home, if for no other reason than to make BARRON’S LAST STAND.

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Biters
By Sarah Shade
YA Dystopian Romance

Seventeen-year old Riley Powell just wants to be one of the boys. But in post-apocalyptic America, she is valued solely for the thing she hates most about herself – her femininity.

Fleeing the dictates of a newly-formed society where girls are deemed endangered and stripped of their rights, Riley sets out to make it on her own in a land filled with necrotic, cannibalistic mutants called Biters. There she discovers love can be more painful than man-eating monsters and toxic rain combined.

Now, a madman is bent on destroying mankind and seeks to use Riley to create a race of human-Biter hybrids. To stop him, Riley must find a way to work with the boy who gave her reason to love being a girl – before he broke her heart with deception and betrayal.

Can Riley accept her own worth before she loses everything else worth loving?

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Even Villains Fall in Love
By Liana Brooks
Superhero/Biopunk Romance

If you believe the rumors you know that Doctor Charm, the wickedly sexy supervillain, retired in shame seven years ago after his last fight with the superheroZephyr Girl. The fact that the charming Evan Smith - father of four and husband of the too-beautiful-to-be-real Tabitha - bears a resemblance to the defeated Doctor is pure coincidence. And, please, ignore the minions.

Everything is perfect in the Smith household until Tabitha announces her returnto work as a superhero. Evan was hoping to keep her distracted until after herigged the 2012 presidential election, but – genius that he is – Evan has a backup plan. In his basement lab Evan has a machine whose sole purpose is keeping Tabitha hungry for him.

But children and labs don’t mix. The machine is broken, and Tabitha storms out, claiming she no longer knows him. World domination takes a back seat to meeting his daughters’ demands to get Mommy back right now. This time his genius isn’t going to be enough – he’s going to need both his evil alter-ego and the blooming super abilities of his children to save his wife. But even his most charming self might not be enough to save their marriage.

Coming in April 2012 from Breathless Press
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Forbidden Destiny (Book Two of the Forbidden Series)
By Kaye Manro
Science Fiction Romance/Space Opera

Can their love survive light years across the stars and centuries old archaic law? For Forbidden Lovers, T’Kon and Maya the adventure continues…

It should not have happened.

Something so inconceivable it sends his inherent perceptions spiraling. To make matters worse T’Kon now faces the Asconage Council of Elders, including G’Nore his father. They strip him of his flight privileges. After all, he broke the Realm of Planets formidable rule of no interspecies mating. How could he not? Maya enamors him with a passion so deep it mislays his sense of reasoning. T’Kon contemplates a perilous time travel journey into the past. The problem is a temporal leap will cause him to lose Maya forever…

What the hell can Maya do now? T’Kon warned that hitching a ride on his hyper-space jumping ship would send ripples throughout his Galaxy. His people, the Asconageans disapprove of their relationship and now hold her in confinement away from her alien lover. The thing is T’Kon stirs unimaginable sensual heat inside her, constantly. How could she have stayed behind? Yet Maya must find a way to escape this scorching unbearable planet. What will they do when they discover the secret she harbors?

Maybe none of this should ever have happened…

Forbidden Destiny/Red Rose Publishing
Release date: May 2012

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Ghost Planet
By Sharon Lynn Fisher

Psychologist Elizabeth Cole is about to discover three facts that will change her forever: She died en route to her new job. She’s been reincarnated as an alien. She’s bound to a man who believes she’s his enemy.

Working to unlock the secrets of her existence, she inadvertently seduces the man -- and becomes a pawn in the struggle for control of the planet.

Coming from TOR in December 2012

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Keir
By Pippa Jay
Science fiction romance/time-travel

Cursed. Outcast. Dying. Is Keir beyond redemption?

For Keirlan de Corizi—the legendary 'Blue Demon' of Adalucien—born to a world where his discolored skin marked him as an oddity and condemned him to life asa pariah, death seems the only escape. But salvation comes to him in an unexpected guise: Tarquin Secker, a young woman who can travel the stars with a wave of her hand, though she hides secrets of her own.

Quin has spent an eternity searching through space and time, with a strange band of companions at her back: Surei, the irascible avian medic; haemovore siblings Taler and Sky; and Mercury, the unfathomable synthetic humanoid without a voice. Defying Surei’s counsel, Quin risks her apparent immortality to save Keir and offers him sanctuary and a new life on her home world, Lyagnius. When tragedy unleashes Keir’s dormant alien powers, will she risk it all again to stand by him?

Releases from Lyrical Press Inc on May 7, 2012

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Tribes

By Carmen Webster Buxton
Far Future

Hob knew one thing when he saw the skimmer land: He wasn't going back to Agra to be a slave again. He was willing to kill the stranger to get her skimmer, but just his luck, Jahnsi was a Han-Lin who had finished her tribal service, and an unarmed runaway was no danger to her. But she was a danger to Hob. For the first time since he was small, someone treated him with kindness and respect, and Hob found the new feelings her actions invoked were more hazardous than any weapon. Finally, he cared more about someone else than he cared about himself. He knew he should leave Jahnsi and head north but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Meanwhile, back in Agra there were two people hunting for a runaway slave.

Tribes is Available on:
Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Apple iBooks, Smashwords, Sony, Kobo, and Diesel ebookstores.


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END OF HEAT #1