AILENE’s genre explained: YA Queer Scifi Romance

Dear friend,

Today, I am going to talk about which genre AILENE fits into, but first I will briefly tell you something about its target audience. Of course, I hope everyone will read and love the book, but AILENE was initially written for young adults. At the beginning of the story, I was nineteen and my best friend, Lowell, was only fifteen. We were still teenagers and probably acted like it as well. [My boyfriend, who is currently sitting next to me, was laughing when I just wrote that sentence and said: “You were way too mature for your age, but Lowell definitely acted like an annoying little teen.” I must admit I got a little defensive, even though I knew he was just joking, because Lowell is my best friend and no one gets to criticise him but me. I didn’t get the chance to respond though, because someone knows exactly what to do to shut me up.]

To make sure I’m not going off on too much of a tangent again, I will keep it short: AILENE’s target audience is Young Adult. The genre is a little more complicated, but not very. Vehicles & Devices In my world, we have certain vehicles and devices that might seem strange to you. I have done a lot of research to find out what they are called in your world and how they differ from ours. I’ll do my best to explain them to you.

First off, we have airfloaters and airdrifters that fly from airhaven to airhaven to transport people or goods–much like aeroplanes, but probably a bit more advanced. We also have airscooters, aircruisers and aircarrés, which are basically floating scooters, buses and cars. To communicate, we have a little device called a communicator, which is probably a bit like a mobile phone, but also more advanced? (I’ve looked at photos and your phones look a bit primitive. I hope I’m not insulting anyone? Please, forgive me if I am.) We barely use paper anymore, so to take notes we use a notewad–it’s simply a screen you can write on. I believe you can do the same thing with iPads and such, but ours are really only for taking notes.

The point I’m trying to make is this: what is normal for me might seem futuristic to you. This is why one of the genres AILENE fits into is Science Fiction. Just don’t expect spaceships or anything like that. We’re just people living on a planet, not unlike yourself :) Queer Romance I think the other major genre is Romance. I will not elaborate too much on this one, but I am certain you will agree with me once you read it. There is one love story in particular I’m a great fan of ;)

I am not sure if you consider LGBTQ to be a genre–please let me know your opinion on this!–but I think it’s very important to mention it. At least one character in AILENE is gay and two are bisexual (me included). There are actually three other characters who identify as LGBTQ, but I’ll leave it to Jax to talk about them, because they are only briefly mentioned in this story and have a bigger role in Purpose.

In short: all mentioned genres combined make AILENE YA Queer Science Fiction Romance.

Are you excited yet?!

Next month, I will talk about our planet and some of its countries. For now, I would love to hear about your thoughts on the genre. Feel free to leave a comment and/or message me. Questions are always welcome too.

Until next time <3

Warmest wishes,

Hayden Navarro

Contact information: You can either leave a comment, click on the ‘let’s chat’ button, or send an email to bellsbooksandwritings@gmail.com (don’t forget to mention you are messaging me to avoid any confusion!)