Tracy St. John

'Alien Caged' is the eighth (!) book in the Clans of Kalquor series. Those who have read the series know the Earth/Kalquor War has ended ... at least it has in a formal sense. There are still those who refuse to stop fighting, which is where we are when the book opens. A renegade Earther battlecruiser has captured the crew of a Kalquorian destroyer. The captain and his two male clanmates are trying to figure a way to escape, and they think the lovely Earther crewwoman Elisa might be the key to their freedom.

The characters in this installment are a little different from previous books in that they are older ... middle-aged, mature, settled into their lives. I myself am 46 years old, and a large number of my readers are not the twenty-somethings that appear so frequently in erotica. I really felt it was time for us to have a heroine with some laugh lines and crow's feet. We are still vital, beautiful, and sensuous women despite what media would have us believe. 'Alien Caged' celebrates that and the men who appreciate us.

I grew up on the coast of North Carolina in small town. I was surrounded by the fishing and tobacco-growing industries...in short, there was very little to do, especially in the pre-Internet and video gaming age. We had two channels on our television. There was nothing to do but play and read, for the most part. Playing for me, my younger brother, and our friends meant using your imagination. A stick could be your rifle, sword, magic wand, a snake ... whatever it needed to be. We played 'pretend' constantly, becoming characters and making up scenarios and adventures as we went. We were coming up with stories all the time! I think of that as my earliest writing lessons.