THE BODY ELECTRIC: What if your boyfriend is related to...Zeus?

This month, Istoria Books is proud to release Allie Duzett's debut young adult novel, The Body Electric. In addition to being Allie's debut, The Body Electric is also a first for Istoria--its first young adult novel. It will be followed by Allie's sequel in this series, Surge Protector, this fall. Istoria has made a commitment to offering fun, exciting and "clean" YAs--that is, books that are uplifting and free of swearing, sex or substance abuse. (Read more about this here.)

Istoria talked with Allie recently about YAs, writing and more. Here's the interview:

You're an enthusiastic fan of YA fiction. What is it about YA that attracts you? Why do you think more adults are reading YA? 
Allie: I like clean fiction is really what it comes down to. I'll read lots of things and like them--but I really hate having to skim over curse words and sex scenes and drug references. I don't curse in real life, and I feel like I have high moral standards for both my life and my entertainment, so I tend to gravitate towards fiction that reflects that. I think I'm not the only adult who's sick of immorality and vulgarity soaking through fiction, and I wonder if that's one reason more adults are turning to YA.

How long have you been writing -- did you start writing fiction at a young age? Tell us about that. 
Allie: I started writing stories when I was four, and I still have the first story I ever wrote with my own hands in my scrapbook. I even illustrated it. It was about magical trees and a wicked witch. I got my first short story published when I was eight or nine, in the local newspaper; they had a horror story contest and I got first place (which is actually more like second place because the real winner was called something like 'The Grand Winner' or something). I published my first poem in a national magazine when I was twelve. So I guess I've just been writing and loving it since I was very little.

What were your favorite books as a teen? Today?  
Allie: I've always loved Meg Cabot. She was my favorite writer when I was a teen and she's still one of my favorites today. In particular, her Princess Diaries series was one of my favorites. I was blessed enough to be living in Austria when the series was just coming out in America--I got into the series in America when they were only selling the first three books there, and then was able to pick up the next four books of the series while visiting the UK, before they even hit American shelves. Score! 

Today I still like her stuff, as well as things like the Matched series by Ally Condie, and the Gallagher Girls books by Ally Carter, and everything by Brandon Sanderson. Sanderson is just incredible. His Mistborn series blew my mind.

The Body Electric deals with ancient Greek mythology. Were you a fan of those stories in school? If so, tell us a little about why you like those tales.  
Allie: I always enjoyed mythology. I just love characters that are larger than life, and I find it so interesting what the Greek pantheon did with their immortality. For the most part, their power and immortality didn't make them wiser--it just gave them more time and ability to be petty. As characters, I think the Greek and Roman gods are just fascinating to read and write about.

Besides YA, what other kinds of fiction attracts you? What elements in a story attract you?  
Allie: I like fiction that is funny, smart, exciting. I bet everyone feels that way, though. I love everything by Brandon Sanderson because his writing is so exciting and so smart. The 'Sanderson Avalanches' at the ends of his books are just incredible. I like tight plotting and strong (but clean!) romance, suspense and intrigue.

Conversely, what will have you closing a book before you're finished and not going back to it?  
Allie: I once bought a book overseas at an English bookstore in Vienna. It looked exciting--the cover had a guy in a cloak on it and stuff. It was about witches. I'm Christian, but I don't mind reading 'witchy' stuff as long as it's like Harry Potter and not like... you know, occult. I didn't think Harry Potter promoted occultism or Satanism or anything. Well, this book did. And it opened with a sex scene. I ended up getting maybe 15 pages in, and I didn't want to own it anymore. I was horrified that my family had spent money on it and I didn't want anyone else to ever read the book that made me feel so dead  inside. I was maybe thirteen years old.

I've given up on a few other books, mostly for the same reasons as that one, but never so viscerally! Now I'm a lot more careful about what I choose to read, so I don't end up having to give up so much. When I put things down now, it's usually because I'm bored.

The Body Electric is exciting, fun and...sweet. It doesn't contain cursing or alcohol or drug abuse. Was this a conscious decision on your part -- not to include these things -- or did it flow from the story?  
Allie: I'm an active Latter-day Saint, so my actual life doesn't contain those things. I think when you come from a 'clean' mindset, your brain just operates on that level. My stories tend not to involve that kind of stuff because it just doesn't occur to me, I think. And if it did occur to me, I'm sure I don't know enough about those things to write them properly! Ha!

Do you envision yourself moving beyond YA and writing other kinds of stories in the future? If so, can you share a little of those goals/ideas?  
Allie: I once wrote a political thriller featuring adult characters and literary-style prose. I like the idea of that book, but it would take some major rewriting to pull off. I think overall, though, political thriller aside, it will be easier for me in my life as a clean writer to stick with YA fiction. If I ever start writing books more geared toward adults, it would probably be stuff only Deseret Book would ever carry--Mormon-style romance novels and whatever. 

Do you have a favorite writing time of day? With a young child, how do you fit in time to write? 
Allie: I like to write all day. I just keep my laptop open all day long, and write when I have a minute. My baby is very happy playing by himself--he has a barnyard full of plastic animals and a basketball hoop and lots of little basketballs--so I can usually write for at least an hour or two a day while he plays or naps. My boy is obsessed (obsessed) with StoryBots on YouTube, so often I'll pull up StoryBots on one side of my laptop screen and my novel on the other side, and I'll write with him on my lap. My baby can recognize about 10 letters already. He has a total crush on the letter L. So I think this system is improving literacy for the both of us.

Allie Duzett

Any advice for aspiring authors? 
Allie: Write! I've been amazed at how many aspiring writers I know who don't actually sit down and write. You just have to do it. Just keep going until you finish something and then do it all over again.

About The Body Electric by Allie Duzett
Available at major etailers in digital and print formats
At Amazon here.

Lena Clark, a small-town teenager, falls for a stranger with a mysterious past—and a frightening present. Before she knows it, she is a target, wrapped up in his quest to escape the wrath of a jealous queen from a world Lena never believed existed…

Lena Clark’s high school world comes crashing apart when she discovers that the most popular jock in school—her boyfriend!—has been cheating on her. In the aftermath of the drama, she meets Zach Zuson, a newcomer so her small Colorado town. It’s clear that he’s different: it’s in the way he talks, and the way he moves, and the way he looks at her as if he’s hiding something. And then, it’s in the way he single-handedly strangles a full-grown mountain lion to death right before her eyes. Next thing you know, an ancient monster is attacking them. Suddenly, life for Lena is a lot more complicated than she ever imagined it could be.

When Zach decides to put an end to the attempts on his life for once and for all, Lena gets dragged along, eventually ending up alone at the party of the century. Little does she know that this party is attended by bloodthirsty killers, or that a jealous queen has made Lena a target, too. Now Lena must find the strength to survive.

About Allie Duzett:

The Body Electric is Allie Duzett's debut novel. She is a graduate of Brigham Young University's environmental science program, where she basically studied dirt. She lives with her husband and baby in Maryland, and has a passion for YA fiction. Read more about her and her super interesting life at allieduzett.blogspot.com.

No sex, no swearing, no drugs, no alcohol: Istoria Books YA line

by Libby Sternberg

During the Christmas holiday, I received a charming card from a family we know. On it, the twelve-year-old daughter had written her own message to me: "I love your books! When I'm not reading them, I'm thinking about them!"

She was referring to my first two published novels--the Edgar-nominated teen mystery Uncovering Sadie's Secrets, and its sequel, Finding the Forger. There's a third book in the series, Recovering Dad, that I will dispatch to her this week.

Not only did her comments warm my heart, they affirmed for me a commitment I, as an author, made to myself when I first wrote "young adult" fiction. That is, I would write the kind of YA books that I enjoyed reading as a preteen, books that didn't shock or startle or depress but instead invited the reader into a world worth visiting. In this world were people who set good examples, tried their best, loved their families, and didn't try too hard to be part of the cool crowd.

Notice, by the way, that I mention "YA books that I enjoyed reading as a preteen."  Many preteens read YA, while teens themselves have moved on to adult fiction. So, when I write YA, I assume my audience is more likely to be nine- to twelve-year-olds than it is older readers.

In my YA mysteries, the characters don't swear. They don't use drugs or alcohol. They don't have sex or talk about it. And I know--this doesn't reflect reality for all teens. But for a good number of kids, it does; or, at least, it's the life they aspire to. Their parents scold them if they swear. They're expected to abide by their family's rules. They're expected to try to be good, even if they sometimes fail. They're not trying so hard to be cool that they'll fall into trouble easily.

Many teen novels don't follow this pattern. Many YA novelists believe their books would betray the worlds they want to create and a sense of verisimilitude if the characters don't confront coarse situations and use coarse language. Some of these authors, I learned from participating in a YA writers email group years ago, take a perverse pride in being provocative, as if shocking parents of teen readers with dark tales is the goal, rather than telling a good story or even offering a good lesson.

The Wall Street Journal's children's book reviewer shared some thoughts on the dark state of YA fiction in a June 2011 article that generated controversy. Meghan Cox Gurdon wrote in that article:

How dark is contemporary fiction for teens? Darker than when you were a child, my dear: So dark that kidnapping and pederasty and incest and brutal beatings are now just part of the run of things in novels directed, broadly speaking, at children from the ages of 12 to 18.

Pathologies that went undescribed in print 40 years ago, that were still only sparingly outlined a generation ago, are now spelled out in stomach-clenching detail. Profanity that would get a song or movie branded with a parental warning is, in young-adult novels, so commonplace that most reviewers do not even remark upon it.

If books show us the world, teen fiction can be like a hall of fun-house mirrors, constantly reflecting back hideously distorted portrayals of what life is. There are of course exceptions, but a careless young reader—or one who seeks out depravity—will find himself surrounded by images not of joy or beauty but of damage, brutality and losses of the most horrendous kinds.

Don't get me wrong--I don't begrudge YA authors success if they happen to tell grittier tales than mine. And I'm not suggesting that YA fiction should be censored or have the real world whitewashed within its pages. (Neither was Gurdon in her article.)  But I do think there's a place--an important place--for YA fiction that does not focus on what's wrong in a teen's world, for stories that make readers feel good about themselves and perhaps even affirm the good choices they are making.

These are the kinds of YAs Istoria Books is looking for.

That kind of "clean" YA fiction doesn't have to be boring. In fact, this spring Istoria Books is proud to release a sweet and fun YA, The Body Electric by Allie Duzett, that doesn't include a single curse or reference to sex or substance abuse. It's a rollicking journey to the "end of the world," an exploration of young love and ancient curses. It's the exact opposite of boring. But it doesn't have a single element in it that would make a parent cringe.

Editing Allie Duzett's debut novel reinforced my belief in this kind of YA fiction. It's the epitome of our mission: we publish "good stories, well told."  Good stories--where you want to keep turning the pages to see what happens. Well told--where you want to keep hearing that author tell the story to you (instead of jumping ahead to the finish). And while our adult fiction does handle adult themes, sometimes explicitly and realistically, our young adult fiction will be a place of refuge for the preteen and teen reader who wants stories where they feel comfortable with the characters and don't mind inviting them into their own lives.

In The Body Electric, an eighteen-year-old Colorado girl meets and falls for an odd new fellow in town. He seems to possess heroic strength, is a gentleman of the old school, dresses as if he stepped off the pages of a menswear ad spread, is cheerful, honest and...has a family of grudge-bearing maniacs. As Lena learns more about Zach, she finds more to admire...and also fear. She learns just as much about herself in the process, about what values she holds dear, about what is most important in life.

I hope young readers will enjoy The Body Electric as much as all of us at Istoria have. Watch these blog pages for an interview with Allie Duzett in the weeks before its spring release!
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Libby Sternberg is an award-winning novelist. She is editor-in-chief of Istoria Books. If you have a young adult novel you'd like to submit to her, send a query to IstoriaBks@gmail.com

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