Coming of Age Novel with a Dark Side

COMING OF AGE

A popular form of fiction are coming of age stories; oftentimes due to the similarities we all seem to share when growing up.  Some readers look for things they can relate to when reading about someone else’s upbringing.  But there are also readers who like getting a glimpse into someone’s life that was completely different from their own.  Typically, coming of age books focus more on the journey and the path of the main character as well as their successes and failures along the way.  But sometimes certain events in a character’s life will manage to overshadow their overall journey.  When this happens, you end up with a novel like Skipping Childhood:  A Novel (From Abused Foster Child to Adolescent Serial Killer).

A Dark Side

Skipping Childhood is an urban novel that can be classified into a number of different genres.  The book definitely qualifies as a coming of age story because it spans from the main character’s birth (Deandra Baxter), up until she becomes an adult.  But this particular coming of age story has a serious dark side.  Events begin to unfold with more and more momentum.  Once Deandra resorts to murder as a solution to handling her problems, the suspense starts to mount.  This element to the book makes the title worthy of qualifying in Amazon’s Kindle Store:  Mystery, Thriller & Suspense category.

Hopefully, these two categories won’t somehow end up canceling each other out.  The two categories may seem like an odd partnership, depending on what a person wants to read.  The same can be said about the topic of sexual and physical child abuse.  Such subject matter might be more expected in a coming of age story, but perhaps not so much with a thrilling suspense story.  Yet, despite not necessarily being what readers might typically expect, Skipping Childhood:  A Novel has:

• All the ups and downs of a coming of age story
• All the tears and pain of an abuse story
• And all the excitement and anxiety of a suspense story

Pick up a copy today, and see for yourself what a surprisingly enjoyable blend this book is.

Showing Support and Solidarity for Fellow Authors

SOLIDARITY

The Skipping Childhood Ramblings blog was created specifically as a platform to discuss various elements of my new urban suspense novel.  In order to help me follow through with providing consistent posts, I told myself two things before I started out.  The first thing I did was accept the fact that I’m lousy when it comes to trying to operate a “daily” blog so I told myself this will not be a daily blog.  I even mentioned in an earlier post how this has actually helped me to write more, not less.  You can read about this by clicking the:  “ACCEPTANCE” category link in the column.

The other thing I decided to do in order to focus more on the content and continuity of my blogging was to stop worrying about links.  Of course, my objective is to provide links to the novel’s “Amazon product page” at every opportunity that I can, but I hadn’t planned on linking other products.  Initially, the various books that you see on this blog did not contain links, merely the images and titles. 

Support and Solidarity

In the past, I’ve found that concentrating too much on trying to monetize your blog can interfere with actually providing content.  I don’t want that to be the case with this blog, so my thoughts were to omit links.  But then I thought about the whole ideal of providing support and offering solidarity for authors who dare to write about these difficult subjects.  Whether you are a fiction writer or a non-fiction writer; it is hard addressing difficult topics about children, especially like:
child abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, things no one wants to talk about.  I believe that to the extent we can help our fellow authors, we should; especially when their content, and products are so relevant to what we write ourselves.

So I started an Amazon Affiliate account, specifically to help get other authors promoted, book purchases, and possibly some reviews.  If you would like to help support other authors who are finding creative ways to heal and close old wounds, be sure to take advantage of the book links you find on this page.  Solidarity is important so show it whenever and where ever you can.

DON'T MISS THIS:

Have you got a chance to check out the new book trailer for "Skipping Childhood:  A Novel" yet?  You can click the link in this paragraph and view it on YouTube or simply click the main "BOOK TRAILER" link at the top of the page.  That way you can watch it right here on the blog, then continue reading when you're done.  ENJOY!

Skipping Childhood Novel – A Focus on Urban Drama and Child Abuse

 URBAN DRAMA

African American novels are on the rise these days, both in Kindle and print formats.  As a black female author trying to break into this particular market (among others), I’m happy to see so many talented writers.  But with growing numbers of authors writing about urban drama, the competition is that much steeper to gain visibility for your book’s title.  That is one reason why I chose to reclassify the category of my book and drill down to a better subcategory for the title: 

Skipping Childhood:  A Novel (From Abused Foster Child to 

Adolescent Serial Killer)

This is truly a novel that is thrilling and has moments of suspense.  It is also clearly African American fiction that depicts urban family life.  But rather than concentrate on just those elements, when categorizing this book, I’ve made sure to highlight the child abuse and dysfunctional family relationship element.  It was only after I actually read the book myself from beginning to end that I was able to realize an important fact.  The focus of the book is not on the serial killer aspect dealing with the multiple murders, the focus is on the main character’s struggle in dealing with abuse, neglect and abandonment in her life.

With that being said, there was no way to get around not finding a “family” related category to list “Skipping Childhood” in.  Since I’ve modified the book description on Amazon, I decided to post the new description below.  In addition to Fiction > Thriller > Suspense, the book will also be listed as shown here.

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Young South side Chicago mother Diane Baxter will never win any good parenting awards.  Her mother-daughter relationship with her only child Deandra is as dysfunctional as a family can get. 

Diane is an addict and alcoholic, and verbally and physically abusive to Deandra.  In this dark urban drama, Deandra will not stay victim to the sexual predator who befriended her mother.  She takes matters into her own hands, and the result is murder. 

The suspense begins to mount as one killing leads to another and Deandra tries desperately to survive life in foster care.

How will she cope with Diane’s abandonment and not knowing if her mother is dead or alive?  Can a borderline sociopath ever have true happiness?  Or will one final killing mean the death of her only chance for true love?

This is more than just a dark tale of murder for revenge.  This bad seed is the product of child abuse and her story is one of survival.

Not All Urban Families

Of course, Skipping Childhood:  A Novel wasn’t written to try and imply that all urban families are screwed up and dysfunctional.  But while I wouldn’t exactly go that far, I’d be lying if I said I knew of one family that wasn’t screwed up.  I grew up around a lot of families who were equally as dysfunctional as mine.  But somehow, in the midst of chaos, you manage to find a little bit of calm.  Urban families are no different from other families in this regard.  When it comes to child neglect and abuse, no family is immune to the devastation it can cause.  I happen to write about this issue as it relates to urban families because that’s the kind of family life that I personally know.

To learn more about Diane and Deandra Baxter and their rocky mother-daughter relationship, pick up a copy of “Skipping Childhood:  A Novel”

The Little Girl Who Kills - Deandra Baxter (Character Insight)

PAIN & SUFFERING

It’s a funny thing about pain and suffering.  Not funny ha ha (of course), but funny as in peculiar and hard to figure out.  All of us go through our lives experiencing some kind of pain and suffering along the way.  In an ideal world, this is not something that children should have to experience.  Pain and suffering is supposed to be the result of adult problems and situations right?  Unfortunately, everyday more and more children have to struggle with adult-like situations in their lives and they are simply unprepared to handle them.

Hiding Pain and Suffering

It’s no secret that we all hide our pain and suffering in different ways.  This is true no matter what age you are.  That’s why so many people end up with bad and uncontrollable habits like:  over eating, excessive drinking, drug abuse, sexual addiction and a host of other negative things.  These things are oftentimes a manifestation of our internal pain and suffering.

Of course, a healthy release of pain and suffering would be to talk to someone and share what exactly we are going through, and how we feel about what we are going through.  But in reality, this is not often the case, especially when dealing with kids.

It’s not hard to imagine the pain and suffering that someone feels when they are constantly being sexually or physically harassed or abused.  In recent years, our society has seen a number of shootings, school killings, and other forms of adolescent violence for this very reason.  Does that mean that children, adolescents and teens who have problems with adults or others their age should resort to killing?  Certainly not!

How Predators Prevail

The murderous Deandra Baxter character in “Skipping Childhood:  A Novel” is purely fictional and quite frankly, it’s hard to really imagine such a child in real life.  On the one hand, her timid and fearful attitude toward her would-be abusers is typical and true to life.  Sad to say, in real life, many (if not most) children who are being sexually harassed or abused by an adult are not prone to tell anyone.  Our character Deandra even acknowledges this point in the following book excerpt:

She knew he probably assumed if he could just catch her alone, he could have his way with her and she would never say anything to anyone.  That was how predators like him got away with their crimes.  Deandra hated herself for reacting exactly like the monsters knew she would.  Mr. Walker was right; she probably would never tell, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t make him sorry for what he was trying to do.

Since this kind of fearful reluctance is typical of abuse victims, it might make you wonder how 12-year-old Deandra mustered up the courage to take matters into her own hands.  To learn the answer – you have to read the book. (smile)

 Skipping Childhood:  A Novel  (From Abused Foster Child to Adolescent Serial Killer)