Wherein I answer common questions and clear up common misconceptions about The Rise of Renegade X

Is this a series or what? How many books will there be?

Yep, it’s a series. An ongoing one, which means I don’t actually have a definitive number of books I plan to write. But I can tell you that book 3 definitely won’t be the last.

How did you come up with the idea for this book?

I was in the car listening to My Chemical Romance, and in the first song on The Black Parade, there’s this part where they’re emo-screaming “Save me!” and I’d heard it a bunch of times, but that time something just clicked, and I started thinking about how everyone has something they need to be saved from, at some point or another, even if they don’t look like it from the outside. (The fact that I hate driving but was having to do it at that moment probably helped with this.) I started thinking about how I wanted to write about a bad guy who really got this concept and who had to save people, despite being a villain.

I went home and started writing and the idea quickly morphed into a book about a supervillain teen whose life gets turned upside down when he discovers his long lost dad is a superhero and that he has to go stay with him.

This book looks like a comic book. Is it a comic book?

It’s actually not! While I’m thrilled that I could pretend to be a graphic novelist and maybe get away with it for five minutes, The Rise of Renegade X is full of words. (Over 80,000 of them!)

I don’t like superheroes–will I like this book?

Hey, the main character is a villain and doesn’t like superheroes either, so you will probably relate! But in all seriousness, so far I’ve heard from both superhero lovers and haters alike who really enjoyed this book (the hero haters were just, you know, surprised about it).

This book looks kind of childish. It’s for younger kids, right?

Nope. The book is rated 14+ and is chock full of sexual references and math jokes. Mainly I wrote this book to amuse my 20-something friends and to have a good time doing it, so while it’s appropriate for teens and I would still hand it to someone under the 14+ age range, it’s definitely not aimed at young children. There’s really nothing graphic and there’s no swearing, but there is underage drinking and a little bit of violence, so how you rate it depends on your sensibilities.

I teach 7th grade. Is this book appropriate for my class?

Maybe! Like I said above, it’s rated 14+, but it really depends on what you consider to be okay or not. The best way to find out is to read the book, but you can start with the sample chapter. If it gets your inappropriate senses tingling, then the rest of the book will too.

This book is only for boys, isn’t it?

Nope! I really hope boys will like this book, but I happen to be a girl and therefore can’t help but write books I think other girls will like, even if the main character is a boy.