My upcoming release features an election. Even more startling, there are eerie similarities to what is happening in my sci-fi dystopian novel and what is happening today…despite the fact that the original released almost a decade ago.
There’s a wall that separates cities, there are debates about the economic crisis and the impacts it has on various classes, and there are people fighting for rights they’ve been denied for too long.
There is pain and talk and laughter, but most of all, there is hope. And all of these emotions come down to a single moment at the end of November—our election month and the very month the entire Bad Bloods books take place in.
Bad Bloods in 35 words or less: 17-year-old Serena is the only bad blood to escape execution. Now symbolized for an election, she must prove her people are human despite hindering abilities before everyone is killed and a city is destroyed.
Writing a YA novel where a single election affects the lives (or the deaths) of a group of young people has been important to me since the first day I started writing it. As many people know, Bad Bloods was originally published in 2007 when I was only 16, and despite the dark nature of the story, I was only 11 when I began planning it. Why would I start writing political YA when I was so young? Because political decisions affect the young, and the young have little to no say about it. To me, I choose to focus on children, because children are the most affected, least able to change it, and hold the hope for our future. And sadly, a world where children are discriminated against, held back, and/or killed is not only found in science fiction. It’s found in our very real world, all around us.
Despite the similarities in Bad Bloods and in today’s upcoming election, my hope is that readers will still read Bad Bloods as Bad Bloods, and not as a social-political commentary on the current state. Strange, I know, but I didn’t write this book with Trump and Hillary and the current state of the world in mind. I wrote this book to show the pain of genocide, of discrimination against the innocent, and of what can happen to our youth when we don’t keep our future in mind.
Such a topic shouldn’t be limited to one year, one election, or one event.
It should be discussed until it is changed, and it should be changed until we don’t have to debate these issues anymore.
Maybe, one day, that will happen, and 11-year-old girls won’t feel the need to write books about politics in order to understand how a world could be more interested in having debates than by helping the real lives affected by it.
Maybe, one day, 11-year-old girls will only write fairy tales, but I’m proud that I wrote about politics at a young age.
We should remind ourselves that kids are powerful. Kids can like politics. Kids can read about politics. Kids can understand politics. Kids can debate.
Let them speak,
~SAT
Bad Bloods releases on MONDAY!
What are readers already saying?
“Wow…I mean this as a compliment, November Snow ripped out my heart, then stepped on it…Then laughed at my dead heart on the ground. End the end, Bad Bloods: November Snow is an amazing read that I recommend to everyone.” – The Book Forums
“Filled with suspense, action, and unexpected twists, Bad Bloods is one of my favorite duologues this year. I strongly recommend this book to anyone. My heart broke in the end, but I loved every minute of this book.” – OMG Books and More Books
“This book is addicting and very fast paced. I highly recommend this amazing story.” – Black Words-White Pages
Special thanks goes out to these three bloggers for sending in reviews yesterday.
Thanks to reviews, I’ve been approved to write a sequel, too! So more Bad Bloods books are on the way.
Thank you for your support!
Pre-Order Bad Bloods
November Rain, Part One, releases July 18, 2016
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Smashwords, Goodreads
November Snow, Part Two, releases July 25, 2016
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Smashwords, Goodreads
Shannon A. Thompson 
Reblogged this on Don Massenzio's Blog.
Interesting. I wonder if the nastiness of this specific election makes this a bit harder. At the very least, we become more conscious of any similarities. I put out a post-apocalyptic dystopia book in February, which took place 10 years after the United States was cut off by the rest of the world. Walls along the borders played a big role in the collapse, but I actually came up with the world in 2014. I wrote this book last year just before the election madness kicked off. So, it’s very surreal to see things that I wrote as fiction appearing in conversations as real possibilities. Kind of hard to tackle that and find the connections.
Do you find yourself even a little more nervous about such a release during an election year than if it was any other time?
It has been really interesting! I have had some great political conversations with readers, but it is a bit surreal considering I didn’t have that reaction in 2007 during the original publication. I definitely think today’s political atmosphere will affect the overall feel of the book, but I’m looking forward to next week’s release! I think I was more nervous the first time around, because it was my first book that was ever published, but in regards to content, yes, definitely nervous! But I was already approved to write a sequel thanks to reviews, so I’m working on the sequel (Well, book 3) right now, so that’s keeping my preoccupied. 🙂
~SAT
Congrats on the sequel. I’m curious to hear how the book is received once it goes live. Sure it’ll do very well. 🙂
Me, too! So far, so good. Keeping those fingers crossed. 😀
~SAT