YA Book Freerunner

In the last post I mentioned that I was at Felicia's house to work on some projects. While I was there, we were talking about my upcoming Young Adult book, Freerunner. It's issue based, and most Christian publishers were hesitant to publish it. After all, nice Christian stories shouldn't be about girls who are abused about their grandfathers, right? Ummm, wrong. The general market has loads of books for teen about all kind of issues. Why not add a faith base and some hope to the story?

In Freerunner, Kia doesn't come from a nice two parent Christian home. She has a single mom and an unknown dad. And no church background. Another combination most Christian publishers aren't looking for.

But here's the thing. Girls do get abused. Sometimes that abuser is let back into the house. It happens. You can shut your eyes to it, but ask any foster parent. Junk happens. It's not going to go away if we pretend it doesn't. 

Stories heal. So my goal is to write stories that teens will read that deal with real life issues but add a touch of hope. I don't really have an official mission statement, but if I did, it would basically be what I just said cleaned up a bit.

A small publisher, Elk Lake Publishing Inc is publishing my book, but they are small enough that I have to buy my copies and promote it myself. I can certainly use help with getting the books into the hands of teens who may need the story, librarians, counselors, foster parents and so on.

Here's a short synopsis of the story:

Night is Kia’s favorite time. It’s when she can be anonymous as she runs to outdistance the voices in her head and the ugly images that are never far away. The abuse Kia suffered at the hands of her grandfather when she was six has left invisible scars that have never healed. Only her best friend Thorn knows how damaged she feels.

When her Grandfather not only returns to town, but moves in with Kia and her mother, Kia’s world is shaken. Freerunning, a creative way of running that incorporates gymnastic and acrobatic stunts, helps Kia flee both memories and the unanswered questions she has. Questions about the father she’s never met.

When former reality television star Terrence Jones arrives at the school as the new head track coach, Kia decides to try out for the team. What can it hurt? And maybe being part of a team will help her feel more normal, although normal was stolen from her by her grandfather.

But making the track team only causes more turmoil. Why does the assistant coach, Cassandra Clark, dislike Terrence Jones so much, and even more troubling, why does Coach Clark dislike her so much?

When Terrence Jones starts a freerunning club at a local church and asks Kia to help, things seem to be looking up. Then Kia realizes her grandfather’s true intentions and knows she must face the past and act if she wants to save another child from the fate she suffered.

Back to Felcia and me. I was telling her that Larissa would be a great Kia and asked if I could take some photos of her. So Felicia, Larissa and I went to a park to see what we could do. Larissa is not a freerunner, but she gave it a go. Felicia took photos with her iPhone and me with my Nikon. And those are the photos you've seen on this post.

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