Author Spotlight: YA Writer Megan Crewe

In this Author Spotlight series, I’m talking about other writers you might not be familiar with, or you may have heard of but not read. The aim is to give you enough information to decide whether you might enjoy their work.

Today’s featured author is Megan Crewe. She’s a Canadian YA author who writes in a variety of speculative fiction subgenres, including (so far) a virus survival novel and a paranormal novel. If those descriptions make you think of heart-pounding thrillers with breakneck pacing, you’d be wrong — her stories are quieter, more character-oriented, but they build to page-turning finales. More after the jump…

The Way We Fall. Crewe’s most recent novel is a story about an island community beset by a deadly virus and cut off from the mainland. Kaelyn, the main character, struggles to make sense of right and wrong as supplies run short, society begins to unravel, and the people around her make choices that affect all the islanders who are left. (Warning: between the essentially present-day setting and the all-too-believable progression of the virus, this book may make you paranoid.) The Way We Fall has been published in ten foreign editions (so far!) and is the first in a planned trilogy.

Give Up the Ghost. This paranormal story follows a lonely, bitter girl who has figured out how to bring the top members of the high school social order down a few rungs: she learns their secrets by talking to ghosts. When a fellow student discovers her ability, he asks her to contact his dead mother. Slowly she realizes that there might be more to life than digging up dirt and hanging out with dead people — but she has to be willing to be vulnerable again. Give Up the Ghost has been published in three languages.

YA is a booming area these days, and there’s a lot of good work being done in it. I’m looking forward to the sequels to The Way We Fall and am eager to see what Crewe publishes next.

Do you read YA? Who is your favourite YA author?

If you liked this post, you might like Author Spotlight: China Miéville.