Before
I welcome Jake Johnsrud (pronounced John-shrewd) to my blog, I’d like to say a
few words. It’s a coincidence that I happened to choose the week that included
Independence Day to feature myself on my blog. But, considering the state our
country’s in, it’s quite appropriate that the week of my blog happens to be the
week of our national birthday celebration.
I
wrote Rock Bound over ten years ago,
when we had a man residing in the White House who was not elected by the
American people, was elected by the Electoral College amidst a flurry of
confusion created by “iffy” votes that were probably tampered with in a key
state where his brother just happened to be the Governor. The person in the
White House was perceived as weak and ineffectual until a terrorist attack
plunged us into war. And even then, there was speculation about his ties to the
siblings of the man behind the attack. Furthermore, this man seemed to care
nothing for women’s rights or climate change. I feared the worst—that this man
would manage to set aside the Twenty-Second Amendment of our Constitution and
set himself up as a dictator.
Little
did I know an even worse evil would come along such a short time later and
plunge our country into a chaos hate crimes, rampant bigotry, and homegrown
terrorist attacks. A man of whose election legitimacy again, is contested, and
who doesn’t seem to think the Constitution means much or applies to him or his
decisions. I don’t just fear for the future; I no longer feel safe.
In
May, a passenger on an Amtrak train shot the conductor. He had no problem
getting aboard the train with a gun. Two weeks later when I used Amtrak to get
to my granddaughter’s high school graduation, I expected to find metal
detectors at the entrances to Chicago’s Union Station—one of the busiest
stations in the country, and the station from which the train with the gunman had
originated two weeks earlier. There were
none. There were security guards walking
around, and one dog we had to walk past as we boarded our train. But there were a lot of people in the
building. Not only were there people who
looked like travelers carrying luggage, but the food court was full of people
having lunch who appeared to work in the area.
Any of those briefcases, suitcases, backpacks, tote bags, or purses
could have contained a device that could have done plenty of damage to the
station’s infrastructure and the people in the area. I don’t know about anyone
else, but I did not feel safe or protected by any means.
So,
thanks for listening to my rant. And now, I’d like you to meet Jake Johnsrud,
of Moon Colony Alpha.
RW: What’s your story? Why would someone come
up with a story about you?
JJ: I suppose it’s because
I’m a first-waver here at Moon Base Alpha. I’m not special in anyway. I’m not handsome—I have a lantern jaw and my
ears are too big. I grew up in Castle Rock,
Wisconsin. It’s a tiny village outside
of Fennimore, nestled in the hills. We
were in that part of Wisconsin where the Mississippi veers west, so we were
about thirty-five miles north of Dubuque, Iowa. But I worked in marketing in
Chicago—until Freezeland ditched the Constitution. I HAD to go to the rally.
So,
I get to DC and this beautiful girl is there with her husband and I’m thinking
what a lucky guy he is, when suddenly she’s on the ground, holding his head in
her lap and there’s a smoking hole in it from a laser gun. People are panicking
and trying to run so I throw myself on top of her. We both get arrested and I figure I’ll never
see her again. Now I’m on the Moon and
she’s here. She still loves him, but
maybe if I give her time… She wants to
keep it on a just-friends level for now so that’s how it is.
RW: Where
do you live?
JJ: I’m
a miner at Moon Base Alpha. I sleep in a compartment with four other guys in
the Barracks Dome, eat and relax in the Rec Room in the Main Dome, and work
inside Mt. Aragaeus. Once we get enough
space carved out, we can ditch the domes and move inside the caves we create.
RW: What are some of your good traits?
JJ: I’m a hard worker and I have a good
sense of humor.
RW: What are some of your bad qualities?
JJ: Even though polyamory is allowed now, I
could see that Paul and Annie were a mono couple, yet I fell in love with Annie
the first time I laid eyes on her.
RW: One of the most important of the day:
What's it like to kiss your heroine?
JJ: I’ve never kissed Annie or signed up
for her conjugal cube or anything like that.
She’s still grieving for Paul.
I’m hoping the day’ll come…
RW: Bubble baths or steamy showers? Ocean or mountains? Puppies or
kittens? Chocolate or caramel?
JJ: Hot steamy showers or bubble baths?—We don’t have enough
water up here to take full showers. And bubble baths are something we can only
dream about.
Oceans or mountains?—I
can look up at the Earth and see the oceans. I remember glancing out of the bus
window on Lake Shore Drive on my way to work and looking at Lake Michigan. We
have rounded mountains up here, but with no atmosphere, there’s no snow, so
they’re kind of boring. But all I can do is remember the oceans, and the
feeling of water…
Puppies or kittens?—Like
Annie, I love pretty much all animals.
One of the sailors who works on the nuclear power plant smuggled a cat
up here, and he didn’t know she was pregnant, so we have kittens, and they’re
cute. But we have to watch out for them in the pressure locks. We don’t want them getting spaced
accidentally.
Chocolate or Caramel?—We
don’t grow any of that stuff here yet. But if we did, I could think of some
interesting things to do with chocolate sauce once Annie gets over Paul.
RW: If money were not an object, where would you most like to
live?
JJ: I’d want to live wherever Annie was. If money were no
object, I know she’d find a way to go home and look for her son.
RW: Party life or quiet
dinner for two?
JJ: There’s no privacy up here at all. We eat our rations at
trestle tables, and we sleep five people to a room. Even the Conjugal Cubes’re practically
in the middle of the Main Dome. Everyone can see you going into them and coming
out. Not that I’ve ever spent time in a
cube with Annie (or anyone else, either.)
RW: Those
are all the questions I have for you. Thank you for speaking to me.
JJ: Yeah.
Glad to do it. And if you can
find Annie’s baby and let her know he’s alive, that’d help a lot. Oh—and don’t let Freezeland catch you. Annie’s right. You’ll be lucky to land here cause he’s got
an itchy trigger finger.
Meet Rochelle Weber
Rochelle Weber holds a BA in Writing from Columbia College in Chicago.
Her sci-fi romance novels Rock Bound
and Rock Crazy as well as her
contemporary romance, The Thin Person
Inside are available in both e-book and print at MuseItUp Publishing, Inc.
and Amazon.With over twenty years of experience, Ms. Weber currently edits on a
freelance basis and publishes the Marketing for Romance Writers Newsletter,
winner of the 2013 & 2015 Preditors & Editors Readers’ Polls for Best
Writers’ Resource.
Battling bi-polar
disorder she quips, “You haven’t lived until you’ve been the only woman on the
locked ward at the VA.” She lost over a hundred pounds and kept it off three
years. She has two married daughters, 7 assorted grandkids, and one great
granddaughter, and lives in Round Lake Beach, Illinois with Acey, a cat who
walks all over her.
ROCK BOUND
The Plot
The future
is a dangerous place for dreamers and idealists.
When a
dictator takes over the United States, Annie Peterson attends a protest in
Washington, DC, with Paul, her husband and soul mate. US troops fire into the
crowd killing Paul. Jake Johnsrud, a virtual stranger, risks his life to save
Annie’s. They are among the survivors who are sentenced to slavery on the Moon
for their “crimes.”
Jake is
forced to mine, while Annie is sentenced as a doxy to "service" the
men. Jake fights increasing feelings of anger and jealousy as Annie struggles
to perform her job, while she resists her increasing attraction to him. Along
with their fellow inmates, they fight to survive on the lunar "rock"
that is their prison.
An Excerpt:
Massacre at the Mall
Noon, July 4, 2051
Washington, DC
The
protesters pushed against each other, trying to hold their signs up high above
the crowd. The smell of sweat hung in the muggy July air, as Paul, Annie, and
Crystal struggled to find a place to spread their blankets near the Lincoln
Memorial. The passion of the crowd’s chant rang across the Mall.
“Restore
the Constitution! Restore free elections!”
The
Mall was so crowded they could barely breathe. Paul went in search of drinks
and was gone over an hour. The first speaker mounted the podium.
“Can
you believe they’re charging five credits a bottle for water and seven for
pop?” he asked, as he handed the women their drinks.
“Now
don’t you wish we’d brought the cooler from the car?” Annie asked.
“I
know, and you’ll never let me live it down,” Paul lamented. His warm, brown
eyes smiled at her.
“Well,
if water’s five credits, how much’ll a sandwich be?” Crystal asked.
“I
already checked. Burgers’re fifteen credits and fries’re another five,” Paul
replied, as he settled on the blanket between the two women.
“It’s
a seller’s market. They’ll charge all the traffic will bear,” said a man
sitting on the grass next to them.
“I’m
Jake Johnsrud.” The man’s bright blue eyes twinkled momentarily when his gaze
met Annie’s.
Annie
smiled at him. “This is my husband, Paul, our friend Crystal Petrie, and I’m
Annie Peterson. Why don’t you join us on our blanket?”
“Thanks,”
he said.
“Nice
to meet you, Jake,” Annie replied. “Scrunch over there, Honey.” She patted the
blanket next to her as she moved closer to Paul in the middle to make room for
the tall, raw-boned man.
“Well,
the price of pop isn’t our only worry,” Paul said. “There are troops
surrounding the Mall. I think we can pretty much count on being arrested.”
“Then
we’ll all be arrested together, just like my great-grandparents in Chicago.”
Annie linked her arm through Paul’s and sang slightly off key, “If you’ve been
to jail for justice, let me shake your hand.”
Folk
songs by the group Peter, Paul, and Mary had been staples in the Swanson
household when she was growing up. Her great-grandmother had sung her to sleep
with “Puff the Magic Dragon” and had sung along in the car as she listened to
the group’s re-mastered files. And now, a century later, the music had been
rediscovered. By the end of the day, it would be banned.
They
stood up to listen to the speakers.
Annie
followed Crystal’s gaze to the soldiers. She didn’t believe what she saw, and
tried to process the sight of them raising their weapons. Crystal dropped her
sign and yelled, “The bastards’re firing on us!”
Paul’s
head lolled forward, the charred hole still smoking, and Annie fell to the
ground trying to cradle him. She sobbed, crying “No! No! No!” Crystal’s arms
were around her, as she sat on the ground, clutching her dead husband. People
were trying to run but there was nowhere to go. Annie felt Jake fall atop her
and Crystal. Oh, my God! He’s dead, too!
“Stay
still,” he said. “We’re liable to get trampled.”
Annie
felt the weight lift all too soon, as Jake was roughly pulled to his feet by a
soldier, who separated him from the women. They handcuffed Annie with a plastic
tie-up, and dragged her away from Paul’s body toward an Army truck.
“Nooooooooooo!”
she screamed. “Paul!”
They
threw her in back of the truck, and Crystal landed next to her. She scooted
closer to Annie.
“Cry
it out, Sweetie,” Crystal said. Annie leaned her head on the other woman’s
shoulder and sobbed.
Contact Me At:
Website: http://rochelleweber.com
Author Blog: http://rochelleweber.blogspot.com
Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/Rochelle.Weber.Author?ref=hl
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/RochelleWeber
Amazon Author Page: http://amazon.com/author/rochelleweber
Book Links:
Create Space Buy Link: https://www.createspace.com/3559316
Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/rbriwamazon
You’ll notice we always include the
publisher’s buy link. That’s because authors usually receive 40-50% of the net
proceeds from the publisher. Editors and cover artists usually receive about
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vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive
their cuts from what is left. So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com
and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40-$2.99. If you buy
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Download the file from the
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Thanks for visiting.
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