Southern Alberta author pens sequel in young adult fiction series
By Stan Ashbee on July 3, 2021.
W”Haunted by memories of those left behind, Lexil and Finn are forced to venture back into the Wastelands,” — Jenna Greene, author.This, a synopsis of southern Alberta author Jenna Greene’s latest novel, “Renew.” Released just last week, the Young Adult fantasy dystopian continuation is book two of “The Reborn Marks” series, from Foundations Book Publishing. Greene is a teacher in Lomond, through the Horizon School Division and lives in Lethbridge.
Greene’s novel “Reborn” won the 2019 Moonbeam Children’s Book award. She is also the co-host of “Quill and Ink: A Podcast for Booklovers,” which is part of the Authors On The Air Network.
According to Greene, “Renew” is the sequel to “Reborn,” which came out in 2019. “This book takes place just a couple of weeks after the first book leaves off. The adventure continues with new problems and all sorts of new dilemmas.”
Currently, the new release is available on Amazon, Kindle and “all the regular places,” Greene notes. The book is available in E-book format and as a hard copy.
Greene explained the process of writing the new book wasn’t very complicated and/or drawn out time-wise, this go around. “Usually, books take me a long time to write. But, this whole series has kind of written itself in many ways. The process to edit, re-edit, format and marketing — that took a long time. But it only took four or five months to write it. It was fairly quick.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Greene said she ended up writing a lot. “The third book in this ‘Reborn Marks’ series, I wrote that. And I’m almost done the first draft of a brand-new book in a brand-new series.”
Now that the world seems to be opening up a little bit more and a sense of normalcy is on the horizon, Greene points out she will continue to present online events, but would like to hopefully organize a book signing, in support of the latest release.
“In a store or something,” Greene joked. “Hopefully, I’ll get to meet some readers soon.”
As for the podcast, Greene said she co-hosts the popular program. “We interview authors from around the world.” The podcast is available on YouTube, Spotify and other audio streaming platforms.
For more information about the author visit jennagreene.ca or Greene’s social media platforms.
Noted Greene, the YA label is both an age category and a genre. “It’s so popular because you can do things with YA you can’t do with adult books. And it’s just as popular with adults, as it is with that actual YA audience.”
“That’s what makes it so successful — adults, younger kids and their actual target audience all just love these types of stories. Where you can explore the ‘what ifs’ of the world,” Greene adds.
As a writer, Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games” series was a really big influence on Greene. “My all-time favourite books are ‘1984’ and ‘Pride and Prejudice.'”
With just wrapping up the school year and marketing a book, Greene said she isn’t reading anything new at the moment. “I’ve got a whole stack of books on my nightstand and I can’t wait to read them.” 2
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