Book Spotlight: Homeworld for the Holidays by Cassandra Chandler

December 6, 2019 - book spotlight

BOOK DESCRIPTION

He wanted to spend Christmas with the girl of his dreams—but never dreamt they’d spend it in space!

Buddy didn’t mean to stow away on an alien warship. He just wanted to surprise Nika with a holiday dinner she’d never forget. But now, he’s stuck aboard the Reckoning with his dog, of all things, headed to a star system far from Earth and the Christmas dinner where he planned to introduce Nika to his family.

Nika has enough on her plate building colonies, dome worlds, and space stations in the Sol system—all without Earth’s governments detecting their presence. With a war going on throughout the galaxy, it’s up to her to create sanctuaries for sentients who have lost their homeworlds. When she’s called aboard the Reckoning to track down odd system errors—and pulled from a holiday dinner with Buddy—she knows something’s gone very wrong. It goes from bad to worse when she finds Buddy and his dog on board.

Now, they have to work together to figure out how to fix the ship for good, keep Buddy and his dog hidden, and forge an alliance with a planet full of super strong warriors with impulse control issues. For a galaxy at war, can a chef, his dog, and a little holiday four-part-harmony pave the way to peace?

READ AN EXCERPT

He turned around in a circle, his brain having trouble processing everything he was seeing in the harsh, bright lights. Everything except Nika.

She was standing in front of a large window, staring at… at…

Buddy walked up next to her, his heart pounding in his chest.

Earth. He was staring down at Earth. From the moon—or right next to it, anyway. He could see a curve of the bright white surface in the left corner of the window.

I’m in outer space.

His planet was so much more beautiful than he expected. The blue of the oceans practically glowed against the dark backdrop of space, white clouds swirling over water and land in amazing patterns.

“Whoa, that’s really something,” he said.

Nika turned toward him. She stared for a moment, then her eyes widened, her mouth dropping open.

“Buddy?” she gasped.

He nodded, eyes stuck on the window.

“So, um…” He swallowed hard. “I’m guessing you don’t actually work on cars.”

She grabbed his elbow and pulled him over to the truck and out of sight of the main area.

“What are you doing here?” she said.

“I wanted to surprise you. I brought dinner.” He held up the basket and opened the top flap.

Instead of seeing the dishes he’d hastily put in the basket, all he saw was orange fluff.

Orange fluff that stretched and turned his head toward them, blinking sleepily.

“You brought your dog?” Nika paused after each word, incredulous.

“Not on purpose,” Buddy said. “He must have climbed in there when he smelled the food.”

“Buddy,” Nika said, her grip on his elbow tightening. “You can’t be here.”

He nodded, looking around again. “Yeah. Yeah, I get that.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

USA Today Bestselling author Cassandra Chandler uses her vivid imagination to make the world more interesting, spawning the ideas she turns into her whimsical Science Fiction romcoms and darkly evocative Paranormal and Urban Fantasy Romances. Fast-paced and funny, lighthearted or dark, her stories will introduce you to characters you want to be friends with and worlds where you’d like to build a vacation home.