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Welcome to Day 5 of the Battle of the Sexies! Please give a warm welcome Artist Arthur, author of the 2010 debut, Manifest!
"I was born the first and only girl with six and nine years separating me from my brothers, needless to say I was alone a lot. This gave me tons of time to enter into my own world, the world of books that is. One of my first novels was a young adult series that traced the lives of two teenagers in high school. From their trials and triumphs and some scenes I thought I could write better, my quest to write entertaining stories began.
An introvert to the very end, it took me a long time to feel comfortable enough to let others read my work. How long? Well, the first person to read a story I wrote was my husband. I’ve been writing professionally for about nine years now but it was my daughter who encouraged me to write a book for teens, just one of the reasons I love her so dearly.
I live in Maryland with my husband and three children. My life is fairly boring if you take out the opinionated teenagers, family drama, overflowing bookshelves and DVDs. Ok, no, don’t take those things out.
Artist loves to hear from readers and can be contacted at yabyartist @ yahoo . com"
Why don’t readers typically think of alpha males and YA in the same sentence?
When I think of alpha males, Val Kilmer in The Saint; Kevin Costner in the Bodyguard; and Denzel Washington in Mo’ Better Blues come to mind.
I’m instantly thinking of strong, handsome, courageous, confident and just a tad arrogant, men—none of those descriptors immediately resonate with a sixteen year old boy in high school. I don’t know why, I don’t make the rules.
Anywho, more and more, the YA genre introduces us to some boys with alpha genes dripping from their hormonal chins. Patch from Hush, Hush, Daniel from Fallen and Ash from The Iron King to name a few. All of these young men have exactly what it takes to be alpha—when they grow up. While reading these books their appeal to me wasn’t that of a strong alpha hero like say, in a Nora Roberts or Lora Leigh romance, yet, they tugged at your heart no matter what they did. Even when Patch was being mean and secretive, I was drawn to his very arrogant attitude and handsome face. Daniel was withdrawn and courageous and territorial and more than a little mean to Luce, but in the end, weren’t you rooting for him? Ash actually wanted to kill Meaghan and still, when he looked at her and she swooned, so did I.
It’s entirely possible that the reason they don’t get the title is because we might subconsciously hope they’ll grow out of these traits. I don’t think that’s likely and actually hope they stay exactly the same as they get older. There’s a certain draw to an alpha male, the intricate mixture of bad and good mixed with drop dead gorgeous looks that holds a lot of appeal with young readers—as with adults and their alphas as well.
Maybe we should just come up with another name for these young alphas. What do you think?
One lucky winner will receive a Manifest prize pack.
When fifteen-year-old Krystal Bentley moves to Lincoln, Connecticut, her mom's hometown, she assumes her biggest drama will be adjusting to the burbs after living in New York City.
But Lincoln is nothing like Krystal imagined. The weirdness begins when Ricky Watson starts confiding in her. He's cute, funny, a good listener—and everything she'd ever want—except that he was killed nearly a year ago. Krystal's ghost-whispering talents soon lead other "freaks" to her door—Sasha, a rich girl who can literally disappear, and Jake, who moves objects with his mind. All three share a distinctive birthmark in the shape of an M and, fittingly, call themselves the Mystyx. They set out to learn what really happened to Ricky, only to realize that they aren't the only ones with mysterious powers. But if Krystal succeeds in finding out the truth about Ricky's death, will she lose him for good?
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About the Author
I agree, we need to come up with a name for them for sure. I think the reason that the teens aren't considered alpha males are because they don't really know who they are yet, so they can't be as confident and arrogant as a grown alpha can be.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree that they aren't like the alpha males in more adult books - but we still love them anyways.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
ReplyDelete