Lila Mizzi
Welcome to
HEAVEn Station
Exiled from teaching, Professor Ezekiel Cooper joins his sister on a new research project aboard a multinational space station. He’s more of a jungle specialist than a marine biologist, but how hard can it be to geneer some alien plankton to be edible for a nearby human settlement?Quite hard is the answer, especially when budget cuts, cramped lab space, and his attraction to his co-lead Ju Min get in the way. And that’s without taking into account a sometimes boiling moon surface.Things get–literally–steamy in this scifi academia romance novel.
About the Author
Born and raised in France, Lila Mizzi has lived in the United States for over a decade and writes almost exclusively in English.Her genres of predilection are science fiction, fantasy, and romance. They often end up combined in her writing as she loves a good weird, unclassifiable book.An event planner by trade, she also runs a couple book clubs and is a serial crafter with a current obsession for quilting. She lives in the Bay Area with her physicist husband and a sister duo of mischievous cats, Juniper and Nutmeg.
Short Stories
Matin Plaisir
A sleep-deprived student is haunted by a nostalgic add in this illustrated short story in English originally published in bilingual magazine Le Petit Pâté Illustré in October 2013.
Insomnia
A night worker at a hospital encounters a strange individual sitting at the bedside of one of his favorite patients in this illustrated short story in English originally published in bilingual magazine Le Petit Pâté Illustré in July 2013.
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Background image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, T. Megeath, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb); Acknowledgement: M. H. Özsaraç
Full Query Letter
Dear Agent,A losing David against an influential Goliath, Professor Ezekiel Cooper is exiled to a new research project onboard a multinational space station. His ticket to getting his career back on track: creating a brand new food chain out of toxic plankton on the nearby inhospitable ocean moon. Easier said than done as he is assigned the tiniest of lab spaces and a cold co-lead with whom sparks (the wrong kind!) immediately fly.Doctor and veteran Ju Min is still recovering from a high-stakes, stressful mining settlement venture. The last thing she needs is for foul-mouthed Ezekiel Cooper to crash land on her supposedly low-stakes project. His messy habits and expensive equipment requests, combined with rumored budget cuts, threaten to shatter her hard-won peace.He keeps changing his mind about which critter to breed.
She has to get creative in saving research money.
And they have only one year to show results.All the while, they must conduct the actual science, spending long hours together in the close quarters of their small lab. As they get to know each other, something more than sulfuric plankton grows—an attraction hotter than the moon’s steaming surface. But as time and funding run short, they’ll have to decide if opposites are capable of more than just attracting, and if this romance is only a distraction from their dreams.PLENTY OF FISH is a scifi romance novel with a dash of academia, complete at 62,000 words. It combines the STEM vibes of an Ali Hazelwood book with the space exploration and cultural themes of a Becky Chambers adventure. It is a standalone novel with series potential.I am an event planner at Stanford University by day, and an avid reader and crafter by night. Originally from France, I have lived in the United States of America for over a decade. I live in the sunny Bay Area with my physicist husband and my adorable but mischievous furballs, sister cats Nutmeg and Juniper.Thank you for your consideration,
Lila Mizzi
Lila Mizzi
Other Projects
Virtual Scifi Bookclub
Readers of the Galaxy is a scifi bookclub with a focus on diverse voices. We meet the second Sunday of the month virtually and have been going strong for over three years.
Recipes
A dilettante baker, Lila maintains a bilingual French and English recipe website called Baguette & Brioche. Expect about a dozen new recipes a year.
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