We’re so pleased to have author Anna Butler joining us today on the tour for her latest release, Day of Wrath, book five in the Taking Shield series. Anna is here to chat about the women in her -verse, and there’s also a giveaway so be sure to check out those details below.

Welcome, Anna!

Women in the Shield Universe

One of the most liberating elements of writing what’s essentially genre science fiction with a m/m love story woven through it—I always add the caveat that it’s not a romance, but by heck it most certainly is a love story!—is that I can write women whose raison d’être isn’t the love interest, the eye candy or the witless heroine who needs a strong man to rescue her from peril. The women are there because they’re characters with agency in their own right, not just wanly reflecting that of the man in their lives. Honest, I really can’t tell you how liberating that is!

The advantage of creating a future world (Taking Shield is 10,000 years into the future) is that I can create the society to go along with it, and show one that is no longer the misogynistic and sexist world we live in here and now. One where women live, work and fight alongside men and no one bats the proverbial eyelid because that’s just the way things are. The Taking Shield series is, I am proud to say, fairly peppered with intelligent women who are bloody good at what they do. Similarly there are women in positions of power all over the place.

The President is a woman. Beatrice isn’t exactly a nice person—she’s a politician to her toe nails with all the insincerity and self-serving selfishness we’ve come to expect from the political classes—but she’s a damn good at it. No one hates her being President because they don’t think that’s a woman’s place. That’s not an issue. They may not like what she does, but it’s not because she has a womb. They don’t like her politics.

Of the three military services—Fleet, Infantry and Shield—two are headed by women. Women are warriors and pilots on the Gyrfalcon. In Day of Wrath, a woman takes command of the ship; and other dreadnoughts, the Corvus for example, are commanded by women. And no one blinks at it. Colonel Quist may seem at first to be the living embodiment of rigid adherence to the rules—indeed, Flynn comments at one point that her blood had been replaced with a chemical solution into which the (military) regulations had been dissolved, the better to bathe and solidify her internal organs—but I hope as the books progress a more rounded and nuanced character emerges. Not one that’s aping male characteristics, but one that brings a unique mental and emotional discipline to the job she has to do. And much of that is echoed with Rosie and Cruz, both crucially important friends to Bennet and Flynn respectively, but who are capable, proficient warriors in their own right and who, what’s more, are shown to be so in the development of the story.

If I have any regret about the Shield series, it’s that the focus on two male leads mean that the women—with the exception of Beatrice—are rarely centre stage and their actions don’t actually drive the plot along. Beatrice’s do, and I do feel some remorse about making her an unlikeable character. But then, a few of the men are equally objectionable, so I suppose I can say that I have equal opportunity regrets here.

But still, I’m proud that the women of the Taking Shield universe are competent, intelligent and (I hope) 3-D humans who don’t have to prove they’re as ‘good’ as a man by being tougher and saltier and more aggressive than Rambo on speed. They aren’t men with tits. Their gender is immaterial to who they are and what they do.

No helpless princesses here, thank the gods.

About the Book

Buy Links: Amazon US | Amazon UK | KOBO | Smashwords
Length: 106,470 words
Taking Shield Series:
Gyrfalcon (Book #1) Amazon US | Amazon UK
Heart Scarab (Book #2) Amazon US | Amazon UK
Makepeace (Book #3) Amazon US | Amazon UK
The Chains of Their Sins (Book #4) Amazon US | Amazon UK
Blurb: In less than a week, Bennet will finally return to the Shield Regiment, leaving behind the Gyrfalcon, his father, his friends… and Flynn. Promotion to Shield Major and being given command of a battle group despite the political fallout from Makepeace the year before is everything he thought he wanted. Everything he’s worked towards for the last three years. Except for leaving Flynn. He really doesn’t want to leave Flynn.

There’s time for one last flight together. A routine mission. Nothing too taxing, just savouring every moment with the best wingman, the best friend, he’s ever had. That’s the plan.

Bennet should know better than to trust to routine because what waits for them out there will change their lives forever.

About the Author

Anna Butler was a communications specialist for many years, working in various UK government departments on everything from marketing employment schemes to organizing conferences for 10,000 civil servants to running an internal TV service. These days, though, she is writing full time. She recently moved out of the ethnic and cultural melting pot of East London to the rather slower environs of a quiet village tucked deep in the Nottinghamshire countryside, where she lives with her husband and the Deputy Editor, aka Molly the cockerpoo.

Website and Blog || Facebook || The Butler’s Pantry (Facebook Group || Pinterest || Twitter || Sign up for Anna’s quarterly newsletter

The Giveaway

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Follow the Tour

June 28 – Gay Book Reviews, June 30 – Bayou Book Junkie, July 2 – MM Good Book Reviews, July 9 – Love Bytes, July 11 – Queer SciFi, July 13 – Two Chicks Obsessed, July 16 – The Novel Approach, July 18 – Making It Happen