And welcome to Meet The Authors October! This was originally supposed to start last week, but due to familial commitments, I didn't find the time to post and so here we are! I have an AMAZING Line-Up of authors for you with some brilliant giveaways, interviews and guest posts that I hope you love!
First up we have the super kind debut author Heather Kaczynski, author of Dare Mighty Things that comes out tomorrow from Harper Teen. It's a Space YA novel and it sounds (and looks) amazing and I can't wait to read this book.
The amazing Heather Kaczynski has provided us with a Top Five List on the Best 2018 Space YA Books she's read. I've read a few of them and I am SO EXCITED for a few others. I hope you love this list (and the International Giveway down below) just as much as I do.
Hey friends!
Okay, so, at the very least, the past couple of years have had the saving grace of seeing a resurgence of amazing science fiction franchises: the return of both Star Wars and Star Trek, Amy Adams communicating with aliens, a new Mass Effect game (shut up, I love it), and a little show I recently fell in love with called Killjoys – and that’s not even mentioning the books! (Which, by the way, includes my own: DARE MIGHTY THINGS, coming out October 10, 2017!)
2018 looks like it’s going to continue this trend with some hot new YA books set in space, and I’m READY. Let’s see if I can write this without including too many Star Trek references.
Engage!
If you know me, this is not a surprise. Humans encountering an alien message? Those aliens are now EXTINCT? We go to their home planet and EXPLORE their RUINED SOCIETY? It sounds like all the coolest parts of the Alien movies that nobody ever talks about. There’s not a ton of realistic YA alien books out there (if you know of some, help a girl out!) so I’m psyched for this! Of course, I’m also waiting anxiously for Kaufman and Kristoff’s finale to THE ILLUMINAE FILES, OBSIDIO, but for this list I’m narrowing it down to new and first in a series.
This one is only slightly a cop-out , because Alexa is my critique partner, and when she mentioned to me that she wanted to write a “Jane Eyre in Space” book I basically grabbed her through the computer and shook her and said “YES, you will do this for me!” Jane Eyre is one of my favorite books, so, transposing the Gothic England setting for a remote and mysterious spaceship circling the moon, with a spunky & smart heroine and adding really cool ship A.I., and I’m all about it. And, since Alexa sold her book it’s been through edits I haven’t seen yet, which means I get to read it all anew when it comes out – and I can’t wait.
Described as The Breakfast Club meets Firefly, this has all the potential for a hilarious and heartwrenching read that I’m hoping will have elements of my new fave show, Killjoys. Everybody loves underdogs, and five teens who consider themselves failures who now have to save the world? They’re already halfway to making me love them.
Okay, I have to admit that the extent of my knowledge of Anastasia stars and ends with the animated movie. However! When the blurb mentions scoundrels, outlaws, androids, found families, and spaceships, and this sounds like the kind of rollicking space adventure I crave.
So this one is already out in Lauren’s native U.K., but at least we only have a few more months to wait for it stateside! (Except I, ahem, might already have an early copy that I’m going to reward myself with when I meet my next deadline.) Not only is the cover all shiny and TO DIE FOR, but Lauren is very much a supporting of girls in STEM, which is also a passion of mine. Her main character, Romy, is the last surviving member of a spaceship travelling to another planet, and has had to survive on her own. I know this is going to be a great adventure with a smart heroine, and it even seems like it might have a twist ending – which, as you may discover in about a week, is also a favorite trope of mine.
There you have it! More spacey scifi coming to you in 2018. And if you can’t wait that long – which, ha, can’t blame you – don’t forget to check out DARE MIGHTY THINGS coming to you on October 10th! (Its sequel will also be coming out in September of 2018!) Scifi nerds, this is gonna be our year. Let’s show publishers we want plenty more where that came from.
To keep up with even more upcoming YA books in space, there’s a handy Goodreads list: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/111676.2018_YA_in_SPACE_
Author: Heather Kaczynski
Publication Date: October 10th 2017
Publisher: Harper Teen
Part of a Series?: Yes, Book 1/2 of an unitiles Duology
Buy Links: Amazon US || The Book Depository || Wordery || Kobo || Books A Million || Chapters Indigo || Google Books
Blurb Description: THE RULES ARE SIMPLE: You must be gifted. You must be younger than twenty-five. You must be willing to accept the dangers that you will face if you win.
Seventeen-year-old Cassandra Gupta’s entire life has been leading up to this—the opportunity to travel to space. But to secure a spot on this classified mission, she must first compete against the best and brightest people on the planet. People who are as determined as she to win a place on a journey to the farthest reaches of the universe.
Cassie is ready for the toll that the competition will take; the rigorous mental and physical tests designed to push her to the brink of her endurance. But nothing could have prepared her for the bonds she would form with the very people she hopes to beat. Or that with each passing day it would be more and more difficult to ignore the feeling that the true objective of the mission is being kept from her.
As the days until the launch tick down and the stakes rise higher than ever before, only one thing is clear to Cassie: she’ll never back down . . . even if it costs her everything.
Heather writes books for teenagers and other people who like books about teenagers. They’re usually about teenagers saving the world, because she really believes they can.
Heather never got to go to Space Camp, so she had to settle for writing about it. After graduating cum laude with a degree in biology, she returned to her first love of books, and now works in a library near NASA. She lives with her husband and their daughter outside Huntsville, Alabama. She’s not nearly brave enough to go into space, but she did twirl a fire baton in high school.
She’s represented by Kristin Nelson of Nelson Literary Agency.
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