An Agent's Inbox #7

Dear Ms. Smith,

Grace has her life planned: get elected senior class president, get into Harvard on a scholarship, go to Yale Law School, and change the world. With the election right around the corner, she doesn't have time for any distractions, including the overeager new kid Colin, even if he is kind of cute (and also kind of a stalker).

After a mega-embarrassing mishap at a party, Grace discovers time travel is real. Colin is a time agent on vacation and her ticket to adventure--experiencing the fall of the Berlin Wall, spying on J.K. Rowling while she writes Harry Potter, meeting Jane Austen.

With a newfound penchant for fun and maybe-kinda-sorta feelings for Colin, Grace begins to imagine a new future for herself. But when she loses the race for senior class president, Colin finally tells her the truth. Not only was Grace not supposed to lose the election, but she's destined to become President of the United States. He came back in time to meet her, and now her future is in jeopardy.

But Colin's time agency will protect her timeline at any cost. Their methods are questionable at best (memory-altering drugs that make you a suggestible zombie, no thanks), and Grace must choose between the life she’s always planned and the one she never expected. But she’ll have to fight the time agency in order to have a choice at all.

FUTURESHOCK is a YA novel complete at 70,000 words. Pitched as Doctor Who meets Jack & Bobby, FUTURESHOCK is a standalone with series potential. It will appeal to fans of contemporary YA with a twist such as THE ART OF WISHING by Lindsay Ribar and TEAM HUMAN by Sarah Rees Brennan and Justine Larbalestier.

I graduated magna cum laude from Boston University with a degree in Magazine Journalism and currently work in international television marketing in Los Angeles. I am on the YA Literature staff for sci-fi/fantasy convention Dragon*Con and organized The Quill Track, a YA Literature programming series, for the 2012 Harry Potter conference Ascendio.

Best Regards,

A.D.

FUTURESHOCK

"They can take our freedom, but they can never take our French fries!"

If there had been a desk in front of me, I would have smacked my head against it. Repeatedly.

The auditorium erupted into cheers, a decidedly uncommon occurrence for Dresden High's student council candidacy announcements. Usually, students simply said what position they were running for and why people should vote for them, to weak applause or the occasional overzealous "Yeah!" from the stoner kids in the back.

Apparently, all it took was a twinkly-eyed quarterback running on a French fries platform to get people enthusiastically engaged in student government.

I had to use all my strength to unclench my jaw. My fists, however, I kept balled at my sides, so that I wouldn't try and wring anyone's neck. I wasn't usually this tense, but there was something about pretty-boy jocks reducing student government to a popularity contest that seriously irked me.

Said jock extraordinaire, Jake Carlson, gesticulated wildly at the crowd to keep cheering. Then he ended his brilliantly puerile campaign speech with, "So if you vote for me, everything will be awesome, and you can have all the French fries you want!"

Head. Desk.

Before I could engage in any more imaginary stress relief, the student council adviser, Ms. Jefferson, nodded at me to go up to the podium despite the fact that the crowd was still whooping, catcalling and clapping. Jake, for his part, was encouraging them by way of a dramatic reenactment of last week's game-winning catch.