New adult romance exploded
on the scene a few years after St. Martins Press ran a contest that stated: “Since twenty-somethings are devouring YA, St. Martin’s Press is seeking
fiction similar to YA that can be published and marketed as adult—a sort of an “older
YA” or “new adult” fiction.” Readers clamored for novels that described the
college experience, first full-time jobs, and their first steamy adult romances
as people hit their twenties.
NA authors delved deeply into issues such as in Tammara Webber’s
powerful exploration of abuse in Easy,
but the novels were always set in college, the drama often occurring in dorms
and fraternity parties.
As the genre grows, authors are eager to expand into new subgenres
and settings outside of college walls and break out of narrow confines that
squeeze the genre into limited pigeonholes. Courtney Lewis, a librarian and blogger, otherwise known as the Sassy
Librarian reports on a recent NA panel she attended: “It was suggested that the genre might gain more legitimacy
when readers (and librarians and publishers) begin associating it with other
genres, broadening the scope of the label.” I heartily agree.
Gritty NA romance that deals
with more universal survival skills than the limited setting of the dorm scene
is popping up all over. One example is J.R. Redmerski’s The Edge of Never, where the setting is literally the highway.
Camryn decides to take a long road trip to reassess the life she’s lived thus
far. Another is Collide by Gail
McHugh, where Emily moves to NYC to be closer to her boyfriend, but ends up
working in an Italian restaurant and meeting a new love. A third example is
Nikki Turner’s Project Chick, the
saga of a young urban single mom.
In writing my first NA
romance, Model Position I stuck to
the well-oiled trope template and set it in college. Well, I did stray a
little; setting it in art school, where no one lived in dorms, but already had
their own edgy apartments in Manhattan’s East Village. Still, many of the
scenes were set in the drawing class.
But for the next in my NA
Art of Love series, Private Internship
I had a different idea for the setting. Artist Sienna’s bad-boy love interest is
a sculptor she interns for. He creates installations out of sugar. What better
setting than the factory building I’ve been I’ve been obsessed with for
decades: specifically the Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In
it, Caz Mason has tons and tons of sugar to play around with!
You see, I moved right
around the corner from that spooky factory before the neighborhood became a
hipster paradise. I recall strolling by it when it was still in business, ever
eager to see which cargo ship had docked on its East River port. They came from
Cuba, Brazil, even Thailand—a myriad of exotic, faraway places.
Here’s a summary of Private Internship:
Here’s a summary of Private Internship:
Sienna’s bestie, Harper warned her not to intern for famous bad boy
artist, Casper Mason. After all, he just fired Harper who helped Sienna get the
interview. But the moment Sienna sees Casper—or Caz—sweaty and practically
shirtless and swinging from chains while he works on his sculpture, she’s
hooked. He’s the richest, hottest artist in New York, and he lives in the
fabulous Williamsburg Sugar Factory. But he’s also an incorrigible game-player,
who seems to relish testing Sienna’s loyalty with a string of unsettling tests.
She knows she should get away fast. But by the time Sienna sneaks into
his locked storage room and begins to unearth his dark and terrifying secret,
she’s fallen way too hard for the handsome, charismatic Caz.
Little did I know that my setting
for this novel was going to be a constant fixture in the news last summer when
famous sculptress Kara Walker would set up her regal sugar sphinx mama in that
doomed place. As Walker explains through her sugar slave boys who, in the heat
of the summer, were literally melting—an arm dropping off here, a nose there,
the sugar trade was a very nasty business, fueled by oppressed slaves hauled in
from Africa to the Caribbean and elsewhere.
Coincidentally, in Private Internship I have Caz quoting
from Voltaire’s Candide, when a
horrified Candide comes across a slave boy who’s lost an arm and leg. The boy
explains: “When we work in the sugar mills and get a finger caught in the
machinery, they cut off the hand; but if we try to run away, they cut off a leg
… it is the price we pay for the sugar you eat in Europe.”
Caz is no fool; he’s aware of the
dark side of his spun-sugar art medium. Ironically, as he tears three sugar
packets and pours one after the other into his gourmet blend coffee, he says to
Sienna in all seriousness, “Sugar, it’s delicious yet deadly, sweet yet bitter
to the arteries. It’s no good for anyone.”
Still, out of Caz and Sienna’s power struggles, a
sweet romance just might emerge. And what better place to set it in than an
actual defunct sugar factory! So, choose your settings with care. Make sure you’re
as passionate about them as you are about your characters and the steamy
romance blossoming between them. Don’t get me wrong, a good college romance can
still be a fabulous read. But if you’re writing NA romance, be brave, and
consider writing beyond the confines of dorm life. If it’s an exciting time and
place to you, it will surely be exciting to your readers, as well.
Book & Author Details:
Private Internship by Kitsy
Clare
(An Art of Love novel)
Published by: Inkspell Publishing
Publication date: September 29th 2014
Genres: New Adult, Romance
(An Art of Love novel)
Published by: Inkspell Publishing
Publication date: September 29th 2014
Genres: New Adult, Romance
Synopsis:
Sometimes sugar isn’t so sweet and
secrets can be deadly . . . especially with matters of the heart.
Sienna’s
bestie, Harper warned her not to intern for famous bad boy artist, Casper
Mason. After all, he just fired Harper who helped Sienna get the interview. But
the moment Sienna sees Casper—or Caz—sweaty, practically shirtless and swinging
from chains as he works on his sculpture, she’s hooked. He’s the richest,
hottest artist in New York, and he lives in the fabulous Williamsburg Sugar
Factory. But he’s also an incorrigible game-player, who seems to relish testing
Sienna’s loyalty with a string of unsettling tests.
She
knows she should get away fast. But by the time Sienna sneaks into his locked
storage room and begins to unearth his dark and terrifying secret, she’s fallen
way too hard for the handsome, charismatic Caz.
Purchase:
Kitsy Clare hails from
Philadelphia and lives in New York. A romantic at heart, she loves to
write about the sexy intrigue of the city, and particularly of the
art world. She knows it well, having shown her paintings here before turning
to writing. Model Position, her new adult novella is about
artist Sienna and her friends. Living in a Bookworld says:
"Beautifully written! We get to learn things about art
& painting, which is refreshing. A colorful story from a promising
new adult author." The next in her Art of Love series, Private
Internship launches in September with Inkspell.
Kitsy loves to travel, draw, read romance, speculative fiction and teach writing workshops. She also writes YA as Catherine Stine. Her futuristic thriller, Ruby's Fire was a YA finalist in the Next Generation Indie book awards. Fireseed One, its companion novel, was a finalist in YA and Sci-Fi in the USA News International Book Awards, and an Indie Reader notable. Her YA horror, Dorianna, launches fall 2014 with Evernight Teen. She's a member of SFWA, RWA and SCBWI.
Kitsy loves to travel, draw, read romance, speculative fiction and teach writing workshops. She also writes YA as Catherine Stine. Her futuristic thriller, Ruby's Fire was a YA finalist in the Next Generation Indie book awards. Fireseed One, its companion novel, was a finalist in YA and Sci-Fi in the USA News International Book Awards, and an Indie Reader notable. Her YA horror, Dorianna, launches fall 2014 with Evernight Teen. She's a member of SFWA, RWA and SCBWI.
Author links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/crossoverwriter
Blog: http://catherinestine.blogspot.com/
Website: http://catherinestine.com
Website: http://catherinestine.com
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