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Dear Hero
By Alyssa Roat & Hope Bolinger
YA Romance, Superheroes, Chat Fiction, Romcom
Paperback & eBook, 432 Pages
October 29, 2024 by Torchflame Books
Summary
There's an app for everything--even meeting a new nemesis.
Up-and-coming teen superhero Cortex is on top of the world—at least, until his villain dumps him. If he’s going to save his reputation, he needs a new villain to fight, and fast. Meanwhile, the villainous Vortex has once again gotten a little overeager and taken out a hero prematurely. Will any young hero be able to keep up with her? Maybe she should work on finding a steady relationship with an enemy she won’t kill in the first round.
Enter Meta-Match, a nemesis pairing site for heroes and villains. The two match right away, and after throwing punches at each other behind coffee shops, practicing their fight choreography, and hiring henchmen to do their bidding (mostly just getting them coffee), they realize they have a lot more in common than names that annoyingly rhyme. After all, they're still rising through the ranks in their respective circles, and their reputations need good press.
But not everything in the superhero world is as it seems. Can a hero really trust a villain to do the right thing? And can a villain trust a hero not to screw them over? As darkness from the past threatens them both, they may need each other for the fight to come—one with much higher stakes than their choreographed meet-ups on weekends.
Told entirely through texts, transcriptions, and direct messages, this darkly humorous chat fiction rom-com goes behind the scenes of the superworld.
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Author Interview with Alyssa Roat
Where do you get inspiration for your stories?
Inspiration for stories comes from everywhere, usually the most unexpected of places. Years ago, Hope and I created parody Twitter accounts for a supervillain and a superhero. We thought it would be funny to explore what a supervillain/hero might post if they had social media. As the lore for our parody characters grew, we thought it might be even funnier to write an entire book about them. And thus, Dear Hero was born.
Dear Hero is chat fiction. What does that mean?
Chat fiction includes books that are told in a chat format—in this case, it means Dear Hero is told entirely through texts, DMs, and transcriptions. It’s a modern form of the epistolary novel.
We wrote Dear Hero in this format to make it a quick, snappy, and accessible read. It’s great for reluctant teen readers, busy moms, or anyone who wants a quick and fun read full of humor.
Your book is set in Indiana and Arizona. What made you choose those places?
Hope and I went to college together in Indiana, and I grew up in Tucson, Arizona. A long-distance relationship for our hero and villain made sense for the chat fiction format, and so we picked two states that we knew well but also don’t get as much love in fiction as we think they should! We also had our protagonists travel to other fun places we’ve been like Garden of the Gods in Colorado, and even Las Vegas, because what’s more silly and over the top than a showdown in Vegas?
If you could be one character in your book, who would you be?
I would want to be our villain protagonist Vortex, or as she prefers to be called, V. She has pet sharks, a love for plushies, and she has top tier fighting skills as well as superpowers.
Give us one fun fact about you.
I don’t have pet sharks (sad) but I do have four black cats and an aquarium that houses a variety of freshwater friends such as frogs.
About the Authors
Alyssa Roat lives in the cornfields of Indiana, but she hopes to soon discover a portal to a fantasy world where she will run a bookshop for magical creatures. For now, she is an award-winning multi-published author and has worked in a wide variety of roles within the publishing industry as an editor, agent, writer, and publicist. She and her partner have four black cats who allegedly have never been fed in their lives and occasionally help her write by walking across the keyboard. Her name is a pun, which means you can learn more about her at www.alyssawrote.com or on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook as @alyssawrote.
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