Landry Park Blog Tour; Guest Post

Today on the blog, we have the blog tour for Landry Park. The Author Bethany Hagen was kind enough to do a Blog Post for me to feature today. If you haven't already checked out Landry Park, you can read the synopses below!

In a fragmented future United States ruled by the lavish gentry, seventeen-year-old Madeline Landry dreams of going to the university. Unfortunately, gentry decorum and her domineering father won't allow that. Madeline must marry, like a good Landry woman, and run the family estate. But her world is turned upside down when she discovers the devastating consequences her lifestyle is having on those less fortunate. As Madeline begins to question everything she has ever learned, she finds herself increasingly drawn to handsome, beguiling David Dana. Soon, rumors of war and rebellion start to spread, and Madeline finds herself and David at the center of it all. Ultimately, she must make a choice between duty - her family and the estate she loves dearly - and desire.

On Dystopian Subgenre

Young adult dystopian has become a wonderfully diverse subgenre, and what’s so amazing about the genre is that each author manages to find a different vision of what societal decline looks like.  Landry Park shares this common theme—a future where freedom and individual value have been radically altered from what they are at present, and where the protagonist is brought to a position of making a choice about their place within the dystopia.

Where Landry Park gets its own flavor is the world.  Landry Park takes place in a future America that’s been fractured by civil war and invasion, and where the ruling class have chosen to lead lives of leisure, patterned after how the wealthy have lived in the past.  So instead of sleek skyscrapers and hovercars, Landry Park is made up of foggy gardens and acres of silk and rows of brightly colored petit fours.   I did this not only for aesthetics, but because I think that all dystopias express an anxiety about the regression of society.  What better way to highlight this anxiety than to pinion the story with markers from the past?  Landed estates?  Primogeniture?  A permanent underclass?  I think the world of Landry Park dramatizes what we are afraid of returning to.

About Bethany:

Bethany Hagen was born and raised in Kansas City, meaning she can tolerate jazz for brief amounts of time and is offended by dry rub barbecue. She grew up reading Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, and all things King Arthur. When she's not working at the library or running around with her kids and husband, she's writing or thinking about writing. Landry Park is her debut book.