THE NEXT BOOK!! (Yes, some info for you on my upcoming project)

Wait. This has nothing to do with Going Under? Should I even read the rest of this post?

 

Please. Please read it.

I’ve been keeping pretty hush-hush on my current writing project because I wasn’t sure when I was supposed to talk about it. It’s one of those things where you have to figure out how long to ride the promotional wave of your current book before mentioning another. (Until I realized that promotion for your current book never stops.) I figured that now that I’m safely out of the Top 100 in the Kindle store, it’s time to discuss what I have planned for you next.

True to S. Walden form, I am currently writing yet another New Adult book that deals with high school social issues. It’s an interesting hybrid of standard-NA-love-story meets the controversy that this completely inappropriate author likes to write. So unlike Going Under, which many people mistakenly thought was a romance novel (no, it is primarily about guilt, revenge, and forgiveness), I am actually currently writing for you a romance novel. And just because I want to, I’m going to throw up some language that’s still in the working stage but will give you a better understanding of this unconventional love story.

 

Title

Good

 

Series

Yes! It’s the Too Good series. My first one. But don’t worry. As I’ve mentioned before, I do a lot of market research, so I’m aware that readers are fed up with cliffhangers and the like. I will not end Book 1 with a relationship cliffhanger.

 

Heroine and Hero

Cadence Miller: 17-year-old high school senior

(she turns 18 in the book, good grief)

Mark Connelly: 28-year-old high school calculus teacher

 

Book Description:

  

Cadence Miller is a good girl. She just happens to make one terrible mistake her junior year in high school which costs her ten months in juvenile detention. Now a senior, she’s lost everything: her best friend, the trust of her parents, driving privileges, Internet access. And most importantly, anonymity. Everyone knows about her mistake, and the kids at school like to remind her with hate notes in her locker, pranks, name-calling—the works.

But there is one bright spot in the hell that’s become her life: Mark Connelly, her very cute, very off-limits 28-year-old calculus teacher. She falls hard for him—a ridiculous schoolgirl crush headed nowhere. She can’t help it. He’s the only good thing at Crestview High. She doesn’t expect him to reciprocate her feelings. How inappropriate, right? But he does. And he shows her.

And that’s when her life goes from bad to good.

(This is a New Adult fiction book that contains explicit sexual situations and some language.)

 

 

Yeah, so I realize I’m taking a chance with this one (as I do with all my books, it seems). I know many of the student/teacher relationship books out there involve professors and college students to make them a little more accepting. Yeah. I really don’t do “accepting.” Plus, the story spoke to me. It wanted to be written. Cadence needed to be written. Not only am I taking a chance with the stark age difference between heroine and hero, but I’m also taking a chance infusing spirituality in this book. It’s not enough that Cadence would embark on a completely inappropriate relationship with her teacher, but I wanted to make sure she was a Christian as well. So there you go. Start ruffling those feathers. She’s a Christian. She’s involved with a 28-year-old while she’s still a minor. She’s impressionable but not disgustingly naïve. It’s very much a love story that explores personal values, societal expectations, and the meaning of true love.

 

I do have to share this because I thought it was funny. My agent asked me, “Summer, now they don’t do it until she turns eighteen, right?”

“Well, I looked up the age of consent in Georgia. It’s sixteen,” I replied.

Brief pause.

“Summer, they don’t do it until she’s eighteen, right?”

“Oh, Marisa. Don’t you want to wait and find out?”

Not revealing the cover yet. Expected publication date for Good is Fall 2013, but I'm working to change that. I think it'll be earlier. You can add the book to your "To Read" shelf on goodreads. Go here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17801215-good

And that's that. Tell me what you think? Am I completely out of my mind?