Many of us at Here Be Magic are also long-time fans of Sci-Fi and have written SF books (usually with at least a sprinkle of romance). If you are, too, please join us for a week of dishing about Sci-Fi!
I never know quite how to describe my SF series. YA SF? Dystopia? Neither quite fit. If you read the first chapter of Violet Eyes, you might not even realize it was science fiction. Angel appears at first to be a mostly-normal if rather outrageous high school student, though it soon becomes clear that Angel has many secrets.
You might also notice that the novel is set in 1987. And yet Violet Eyes' direct sequel Silver Eyes is set in 2098 --and no, there's no time travel. Angel is seventeen in both books. So how did I pull that off?
To explain that I first need to tell you why Violet Eyes is set in 1987 instead of present day. You see, I wrote the first draft of the book in 1987 when I was a teenager. The book moldered in a drawer for a long time, but I never forgot it. I always loved the character of Angel--she's smart, athletic and reckless--but the thought of rewriting the book a decade later daunted me. I'd have to update all that teen slang and pop culture references. Was there any way I could justify setting the story in 1987, I wondered? And then the perfect solution hit me, an idea that galvanized the whole book and spawned the sequels. I already knew that Angel and her nemesis/love interest Mike were genetically-enhanced: what if the scientists watching them had placed them in an artificial setting, a Historical Immersion Project, where everybody else were people on vacation, paying to experience a recreation of the past?
Jackpot. (And all due to my laziness.)
Simon & Schuster published Violet Eyes and its sequel Silver Eyes in 2001. They are still available in ebook and sell well enough that I've recently published book three in the series, Angel Eyes. Book four, Golden Eyes, will be released January 2016.
Add Violet Eyes to your Goodreads list.
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