New Adult – it’s everywhere. A genre that has suddenly made itself known in a big way, FictionDB defines the age level for the genre as 18 – 25. Suddenly we are seeing books that were formerly self-published touted by major romance publishers. Is it a result of the Fifty Shades of Grey craze? After all, Fifty is categorized as New Adult as well as General Fiction. That was my immediate thought but reading more about the New Adult phenomenon convinced me it has gained its footing on its own merits of angst and young adults emerging from challenging family situations. But I’m sure that is only part of the mystery that surrounds its immense popularity.
Today, AudioGals is participating in a Blog Tour featuring Jessica Sorensen’s The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden and The Redemption of Callie and Kayden – both New Adult titles. We’re talking with Jessica Bromberg, Publicity Manager of Hachette’s imprint Forever about this surge in New Adult popularity.
The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden was released in audio format yesterday and its sequel, The Redemption of Callie and Kayden, was released in print format at the same time. It will be 2014 before we see the sequel in audio so I quickly read it in print. Although the first is a cliffhanger, the second does deliver the type of ending romance listeners expect.
AudioGals is giving away one audiobook copy of The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden through Audible. You will find the details of the giveaway at the bottom of the page along with the entry form. No comments are necessary to enter although we do enjoy hearing from you in our discussion area.
The Sound Sample from Hachette Audio
The Gals and New Adult
We haven’t reviewed more than a few New Adult audios but I imagine you will see more as it’s a genre that usually fits the requirements for romance and it has us rather intrigued. Recently, Brenda was totally caught up in Jamie MacGuire’s Beautiful Disaster and Walking Disaster and Melinda favorably reviewed Alice Clayton’s Wallbanger*. I’ll be reviewing The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden next week but I’ll say now that it’s an above average story that completely captured my attention. I enjoyed the relationship between these two college students, both who are emotionally damaged (a little too much for my preferences but that’s characteristic of New Adult). Narrator Leslie Bellair is young and sounds it but not too young as is often the case. For those of you wanting to try a New Adult audio for the first time, it’s a good place to start.
Talking with Jessica Bromberg, Publicity Manager, Forever Romance
Jessica, we are seeing such an increase in New Adult titles in both print and audio. Can you define New Adult for us?
As New Adult has only recently been brought to the forefront in traditional publishing over the last year or so, this is a very exciting new genre for us to publish! New adult is essentially the bridge between “young adult” and more traditional contemporary romance. It includes the heightened emotional story lines and fairly young characters of “young adult” novels (although usually the characters are around 18-25, with the male character slightly older than the female protagonist) and often take place during or just after the college years. But with the older heroes/heroines comes the newfound freedom, and responsibility of contemporary romance. The characters are often found in very intense or dark situations that can be explored in a bigger way as they approach new levels of maturity (and venturing into the contemporary romance side of the bridge).
That’s my long answer- as there isn’t a “short definition” just yet! That’s the beauty of the genre to me is that authors have a lot of freedom to make this genre their own and really explore the emotional side of their characters.
I don’t have any sort of sales figures based on genres but it seems as though the growth in New Adult is tremendous. Is this the case?
Yes, we are certainly seeing an increase in popularity and growth as far as both new titles and authors exploring the genre as well as the ever-increasing reader-base across both indie and traditional publishing.
What do you think started this trend in New Adult sales? Did Fifty Shades of Grey have an influence? I see that it categorized as New Adult at FictionDB.
New adult seemingly came out of nowhere with a big bang. We do see many authors that have previously written either YA or contemporary romance now falling in love with NA and often still write under one of the other genres (Such as Jessica Sorensen! She used to write paranormal YA and now loves contemporary New Adult).
Do you see New Adult as a sub-genre of romance? Or is its own Genre with both romance and non-romance titles?
We have recently started to refer to it as a sub-genre much like paranormal romance, or contemporary romance. Each type of novel takes a special craft and special author to bring those characters to life- and new adult is no different!
As we are featuring Jessica Sorensen’s The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden and The Redemption of Callie and Kayden today, can you tell our listeners about these two books?
Directly from Jessica Sorensen: “The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden is about two people who seem like they’re complete opposites, but have a lot of similarities. Callie is quiet and kind of the school nerd, while Kayden’s the popular football player, but they’re both hiding secrets about their past and themselves.They meet by coincidence one night when Callie kind of saves Kayden and Kayden sort of notices Callie for the first time. They slowly get to know each other and find out that they have a lot more in common than they originally thought.”
Redemption picks up right where coincidence leaves off…
Thanks Jessica for joining us today!
The Giveaway Details
Enter for your chance to win an Audible copy of The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden. It’s simple – just enter by midnight (CST) Sunday, August 11th. You will find the easy entry form below. You may only enter once. We’ll contact you the morning of the 12th so watch your emails as we must have acknowledgement of your win within 24 hours. If we don’t hear from you, we’ll select another winner. Bloggers and reviewers, we welcome your entry. The giveaway is limited to availability of this Audible title in your geographical area.
Giveaway closed.
Continuing the Blog Tour
To continue following Jessica Sorensen’s Blog Tour, visit Addicted 2 Heroines tomorrow.
* Melinda pointed out that Wallbanger isn’t actually classified as New Adult. FictionDB states that the age is New Adult (age 18-25) but the classification is Romance.
Lea Hensley
To further understand the New Adult genre, check out this article from Bookish.
Yeah, i dont want to rain on the wonderful New Adult parade, but Wallbanger is really a light comedy romance. Its practically chick lit. I wouldn’t want to mislead anyone into thinking it encompassed the more serious subjects and “heightened emotional story line” of New Adult. No intense or dark situations in Wallbanger!
Yes, I was researching things just a little too fast when writing this article. Saw the age range of New Adult (18-25) on FictionDB and just went with it. Sorry if I mislead anyone!