Interview with Jessie Mihalik – Author of POLARIS RISING

Last month I read and LOVED Jessie Mihalik’s science fiction romance, Polaris Rising (you can read my review here), the first book in her Consortium Rebellion series, and I’m thrilled to have her visit the blog today! Please give a warm welcome to Jessie!

Welcome to the blog, Jessie! Please tell us a little bit about yourself and how you went from software engineer to published author!

Hi, and thank you so much for having me! I currently write romantic science fiction full-time, but as you said, I started my career as a software engineer. If you asked most people, they would say software engineering is a very left-brain type of work: logic and formulas and rigid calculations. And while they would be right, writing software also requires a great deal of creativity to come up with new solutions and work around limitations.

I’ve always been creative and I’ve always loved to read. I wrote fanfiction way back in the day, so writing novels was kind of a natural progression. My first (still trunked) novel was an urban fantasy, but it taught me a lot about structure, plot, and relationship-building. It also drew the attention of my agent, so when I told her I was working on a science fiction romance, she immediately demanded the first three chapters—chapters I hadn’t finished! I quickly wrote them and now, a couple of years later, here we are!

Polaris Rising is your debut novel, which was released in early February from Harper Voyager. What’s you hook or elevator pitch to get readers interested in checking out your book?

The hook:

A badass space princess and an outlaw soldier become unlikely allies in an epic, sexy space opera adventure.

A slightly longer pitch:

When space princess Ada von Hasenberg is captured and thrown into a cell with outlaw soldier Marcus Loch, she fears she won’t escape in time to prevent the mercenaries from returning her to Earth—and her imminent arranged marriage. But when their ship is attacked by a battle cruiser from rival House Rockhurst, Ada knows she has bigger problems. She offers Loch a fortune to help her escape, but can she really trust the man known as the Devil of Fornax Zero?

Polaris Rising is being marketed as “Science fiction Romance,” a genre that I personally feel deserves a lot more attention. I loved the romantic elements of the story, but I was so impressed that this is much, much more than simply a romance. How did you make the decision to combine romance, space opera and lots of futuristic tech into one story?

Romance spans so many genres—thriller, paranormal, and science fiction are just a few. I love reading romance, so I always knew that I wanted Polaris Rising to include romantic elements, but it wasn’t until I started writing that I knew it would be all-in romance. I love grounding the cool science fiction tech with the totally human experience of a growing relationship between two people who desperately need each other but refuse to admit it.

The main character in Polaris Rising is Ada, a woman from a wealthy family who can definitely hold her own. Not only can she pilot a spaceship, but she’s equally comfortable with different weapons and is computer savvy enough to change her identity when necessary. Oh, and let’s not forget that she also appreciates a well-muscled male physique! What was your inspiration behind Ada’s character?

Ada was inspired by all of the characters who came before her—Kate Daniels from Ilona Andrews, Mercy Thompson from Patricia Briggs, and Dresdemona “Dred” Devos by Ann Aguirre, just to name a few. Ada’s background gave me a lot of room to play with her various skills, and I had fun with it. I wanted her to be able to kick ass on her own, but also to know when to ask for help.

The sequel to Polaris Rising, Aurora Blazing, is scheduled to be published this October. Are there more novels planned in the series, or is this set to be a duology?

The Consortium Rebellion is currently a trilogy. The third book is tentatively scheduled for the middle of next year. After that, we’ll see what happens, but I have more stories I would like to tell in this universe.

I noticed that you also have a self-published novella called The Queen’s Gambit, and it’s listed as the first in a series. Can you tell us about that project?

The Queen’s Gambit started out as a free serial I posted every week on my blog in an effort to attract readers in the long wait between when Polaris Rising was announced and when it actually came out. People are often surprised that a nearly two-year wait is pretty standard between contract and publication. I wanted to make the most of that time.

TQG, as I generally call it, is romantic science fiction. It’s set in a completely separate universe from Polaris Rising and features a rogue queen trying desperately to save her people from starvation. She rescues a rival emperor from his enemies with the intent to ransom him back to his own people, and things spiral out of control from there.

I’m currently posting the sequel, The Queen’s Advantage, as a serial on my blog. It follows the same characters as TQG and continues to build the relationship between my hero and heroine.

What authors and books inspired you to become a writer? And also please tell us some of your favorite recent reads.

There are so many! I’ve always loved reading and can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a book nearby. Some of my earliest memories are going to the public library as a little girl and checking out stacks of books. And a lot of those books are classics that stuck with me, like Dune, The Drangonriders of Pern, pretty much all of Tolkien, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

I would say the person who most inspired me to be a writer is Ilona Andrews. Magic Bites is one of the first books I remember reading where the writing just instantly clicked and I thought, I want to do that. Ilona and Gordon (the writing duo behind the Ilona Andrews pseudonym) and I later became friends, but I loved their books long before I ever met them.

I read in all genres, with a heavy focus on the various romance genres. The latest historical romance I read was The Duke I Tempted by Scarlett Peckham and it was fabulous. A seemingly straight-laced duke meets a smart, self-aware heroine. For contemporary romance, I tore through A Duke by Default by Alyssa Cole. A self-proclaimed “hot mess” of a heroine who is looking to improve her life and a silver fox of a sword-making hero—hello!—make this one a delight to read. I also recently found The Emperor’s Edge by Lindsay Buroker. It’s not a romance, but it is like a high-fantasy Leverage: a clever heroine whips a rag-tag bunch of criminals into a team to save the Empire.

What’s next? Do you have anything in the works that you can share with us?

I am going to finish writing The Queen’s Advantage and write the still untitled third book in the Consortium Rebellion trilogy. And I’ll be at the Tucson Festival of Books on March 3, so if you’re in the area, come see me!

Thank you so much, Jessie! (and apologies for the late posting of this interview, as March 3rd has already passed!)

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JESSIE MIHALIK has a degree in Computer Science and a love of all things geeky. A software engineer by trade, Jessie now writes full-time from her home in Central Texas. When she’s not writing, she can be found playing co-op videogames with her husband, trying out new boardgames, hiking, or reading. Polaris Rising is her debut novel.

Find Jessie: Website | Twitter | Goodreads