Introducing LANDRY PARK

 Landry Park by Bethany Hagen
Dial, 2014
YA dystopia/sci-fi
374 pp














For those of you who don't know, I'm a member of a group called The Lucky 13s. We're authors who were lucky enough to have our debut kidlit novels published in 2013. It's a fantastic community of writers who share wisdom, tears, and occasionally taxicabs and barstools.

Only one other Lucky 13 lives in my hometown--Bethany Hagen, author of the brand-new YA sci-fi novel Landry Park. Bethany's pub date was nudged along in 2013 until finally it fell over into 2014. (Yeah, it happens. Quite a bit, in fact.) But she's still a Lucky 13 in my eyes, and last night I attended her fabulous launch party at the Johnson County Central Resource Library.

There Bethany answered a host of questions posed to her by one of the library staff, including a personality quiz (Which Disney Character Are You Most Like?) that revealed Bethany's main character to be most similar to Belle from Disney's Beauty & the Beast. We also learned that Bethany loves the Myers-Briggs Personality Test and that with her dreamy, intuitive nature, she's lucky to be married to someone who remembers to feed the children.

About the Book
Bethany says she was inspired to write Landry Park while working at the Johnson County Museum, where she saw exhibits from the Edwardian era juxtaposed with those from the nuclear age. Her vision of a future with the technology of the nuclear age meshed with the strictures of Downton Abbey society makes for a fascinating tale of romance and rebellion.

The Goodreads summary:

In a fragmented future United States ruled by the lavish gentry, seventeen-year-old Madeline Landry dreams of going to the university. Unfortunately, gentry decorum and her domineering father won't allow that. Madeline must marry, like a good Landry woman, and run the family estate. But her world is turned upside down when she discovers the devastating consequences her lifestyle is having on those less fortunate. As Madeline begins to question everything she has ever learned, she finds herself increasingly drawn to handsome, beguiling David Dana. Soon, rumors of war and rebellion start to spread, and Madeline finds herself and David at the center of it all. Ultimately, she must make a choice between duty--her family and the estate she loves dearly--and desire.

"An exciting YA debut with an intricately built dystopian world inhabited by a set of highly opposed characters which are complex and well-drawn."      --Challenging Reads blog

You can get your very own copy of Landry Park at chain and indie bookshops everywhere as well as these online outlets:

Amazon
Barnes & Noble

Connect with Bethany online at her website and on Twitter.