Hailed as “the future of romance,” Dorchester’s new line of novels shows definite anime roots in the covers and the flavor of the world lying between the covers. I have to admit, its covers caught my attention first, as did the names of the women writing the books.

Liz Maverick is a recent writer but is already becoming an old hand at fashioning cutting-edge romance speculative fiction. She has a habit of combining science fiction elements, military background, and romance in her works. As a result, a lot of readers have started picking up her books.

Maverick designed the six-book series Crimson City about a potential future where werewolves, vampires, and humans have to learn how to get along. The books reached critical and popular acclaim. She wrote two books in the series, Crimson City and Crimson Rogue.

Her first book in the Shomi line comes out this week as the July release. It’s called Wired

Seconds aren’t like pennies. They can’t be saved in a jar and spent later. Fate seeps through cracks and shifts like fog. Pluck a second out of time or slip an extra one in, the consequences will change your life forever. Is the man you love really the man you think you know, or is there a version of your life in which he’s your enemy? If you didn’t know who or what you were before, would you take a chance on becoming that person again?
L. Roxanne Zaborovsky is about to discover fate is comprised of an infinite number of wires, filaments that can be manipulated, and that she’s not the one at the controls. From the roguishly charming Mason Merrick — a shadow from her increasingly tenebrous past — to the dangerously seductive Leonardo Kaysar, she’s barely holding on. This isn’t a game, and the pennies are rolling all over the floor. Roxy just has to figure out which are the ones worth picking up.

Marianne Mancusi is Maverick’s first partner-in-crime. She’s written A Connecticut Fashionista In King Arthur’s Court, Ska8er Boy, and other romance novels. Her contribution to Shomi is Moongazer.

An enthralling combination of The Matrix and Snow Crash with a bit of Blade Runner thrown into the mix, Moongazer immediately draws the reader into one woman's terrifying struggle to understand her identity--is she Skye Brown, a successful game designer living in Manhattan or is she really Mariah Quinn, a woman haunted by the post-apocalyptic dreamland she escapes to every night? But what is reality? And who can she trust to find out the truth?