Nike Chillemi: What on earth is Christian New Adult Fiction?

By Nike Chillemi

New Adult fiction has emerged as its own category or sub-genre under the Young Adult genre. College students, grads, and twenty-somethings in their new jobs would like to read fiction featuring characters like themselves. Until recently there hasn't been many novels delving into the issues this age group faces as they try to navigate in the adult world.

It's been said that New Adult is basically YA with obscenity and sex thrown in and it's certainly a relatively high number of these books are just that. However, that is not what Christian New Adult is all about. In its finest form, Christian New Adult depicts main characters with complex issues who are on a personal journey into adulthood. At its best New Adult depicts characters solving difficult personal conflicts while stretching into new and possibly uncomfortable possibilities as they approach adulthood.  

Blurb:

College freshman Ivy Chalmers moved in with her aunt and uncle in Arroyo, Texas. She needed to get away from her alcoholic and weed smoking mother.  Ivy longed for a different life than the revolving-door-men in her mom's life. Making a one-eighty, she vowed not to make a serious dating commitment unless she knew it would be that really 'special relationship '.

Corey Jones had been the man in his house since age twelve, when his alcoholic dad abandoned him and his mom. Once in a while, his dad showed up trying to extort money from them using threats. Then his blue-haired, self-centered cousin Ava came to live with them and the way she treats his mom enrages him.

Ivy is thrilled when she meets an upper classman from a neighboring college and thinks he might be 'that guy.' When she is horribly betrayed, her world is thrown upside-down, and she plunges into a depression.  In a steady and kind of clumsy way, Corey is there for her during her worst moments. But his family is plagued with alcoholism, the life she had with her mom, the life she ran away from. What's wrong with her that she attracts the wrong guys? As if that weren't bad enough, there's an arsonist terrorizing their tiny village.

Purchase Link on Kindle https://www.amazon.com/That-Special-One-Contemporary-Romantic-ebook/dp/B075QQZ9VB/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1506596416&sr=1-1&keywords=That+Special+One%2C+chillemi

Nike Chillemi bio:

Like so many writers, Nike Chillemi started at a very young age. Her first major work was a Crayola, fully illustrated book she penned as a little girl (colored might be more accurate) about her then off-the-chart love of horses. Today, you might call her a crime fictionista with a humorous side. Her passion is crime fiction. She likes her bad guys really bad and her good guys smarter and better.

Nike is the founding board member of the Grace Awards and its Chair, a reader's choice awards for excellence in Christian fiction. She has been a judge in the 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2016 Carol Awards in the suspense, mystery, and romantic suspense categories; and an Inspy Awards 2010 judge in the Suspense/Thriller/Mystery category. Her four novel Sanctuary Point series (out of print), set in the mid-1940s has finaled, won an award, and garnered critical acclaim. The first novel in the Veronica "Ronnie" Ingels/Dawson Hughes series HARMRUL INTENT won in the Grace Awards 2014 Mystery/Romantic Suspense/Thriller/Historical Suspense category. She has written book reviews for The Christian Pulse online magazine. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) and John 3:16 Marketing Network.  http://nikechillemi.wordpress.com/

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