Five reasons why Carnelian is different than other YA/NA books

Posted by B. McMichael on Sep 5th, 2014 in notes | 0 comments

Here are five reasons that make Carnelian just a little different than what you might be used to in a YA/NA romance.

The Goddess – The only supernatural in the book is the goddess that facilitates time travel. Other than that, they are normal humans with normal abilities. No angels, vampire, werewolves, or otherworldly creatures. Just a simple story of a girl that finds out time is a bit more fluid of a concept than she thought.

No insta-love. Seth Sangre is hot- underwear model hot- but that doesn’t mean Mari is going to go out with him when he asks. Cute guys have it way too easy-especially in NA and YA novels. In Carnelian, Seth has to work to get Mari to go out with him.

Time travel– Most NA is contemporary- which in most purposes this book is too (for ¾’s of the book) but there is also a time travel aspect. So you get a contemporary story with a little bit of fantasy time travel thrown in. I have found there is definitely room to add to the time travel genre.

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Strong female and male characters in the novel. I have read too many books in the past year where the male or the female leads are damaged in some sort of way and need to be fixed. In Carnelian, neither Mari nor Seth are damaged. They are normal characters living normal (or semi-normal) lives that are meant to meet and hopefully fall in love.

Mixing real historical people into a fantasy novel. Many of the characters in the past (and even some events planned in the future books) are real people and real events. Did they really travel through time and meet the love of their life in the future? Of course not, but they were real people. I have done a bit of research behind the characters and find it is fun to put a bit more into a book than you normally get in a NA novel.