Love Galaxy Sierra Branham 9781804998144

Are you ready to find the greatest love in the galaxy? A Bachelor-style dating show goes intergalactic in this genre-blending sci-fi romance novel!

Success - and a ticket out of X72, the garbage heap of the Expan Empire - keeps slipping out of Temmi's grasp. An absent dad, a backstabbing ex, and the toxic atmosphere of her home planet have conspired to stick her in a dead-end job, with her brother and mother dependent on her financial support.

Success is Spie's worst nightmare. She's the heir to the Expan Empire, or at least she was, until an adolescence rife with PR nightmares finally elevated her introverted twin brother, Nicky. She'll be free to live as she pleases after just one last act of imperial duty and propaganda: co-star in Love Galaxy, the reality dating show where 24 hopefuls from across the galaxy will compete for the prince and princess' affections - and to win the dynasty's favour for their home planets.

When Nicky and Spie's promo tour interrupts Temmi's trash route - a job she simply *cannot* lose - she unloads on them in a rant that goes viral. Demure and anxious Nicky is captivated by Temmi's foul mouth and utter lack of diplomacy, and in an uncharacteristic act of self-indulgence, he casts Temmi as the contestant for X72.

Spie is initially thrilled that her buzz-kill brother has someone he's excited about on the show, but soon finds it increasingly difficult to suppress her growing feelings for Temmi. Meanwhile, Temmi's own emotions are a tangle of rage, lust, fear, and grudging respect for the woman she discovers behind Spie's carefully constructed, devil-may-care mask. But when contestants start turning up dead, and conspiracies begin to swirl around anti-imperial motivations of several contestants, Temmi among them, so much more than feelings is at stake.

In fact, very few of the participants of Love Galaxy have come on the show to find romance . . .

Sierra Branham was the recipient of a first-place award in the 2023 Utah Original Writing Competition, and a mentee in the 2023 WriteTeam Mentorship Program. She has a short story published in The Dread Machine and another in Small Wonders Magazine. She's a queer, practicing mental health therapist and in her free time you'll find her cuddling her cats (and sometimes her children), juggling knives, or battling existential crises.
Love Galaxy is her first novel.