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“The heist tale is all about wealth redistribution. Where was the caper with the women of color who win for all the right reasons and get away with it? Clearly, I would have to write it.”
The quote above is from Aya de León in a 2014 Bitch Media article with Andrea Tsurumi, Two Latina Authors Plot a Feminist Takeover of Chick-Lit. It’s a reasonably good summation of why I picked up Aya de León’s debut novel, Uptown Thief, and have since proceeded to seize each new launch. Years later, I’m nonetheless all the time excited for the brand new journey she’ll take me on.
So far, she’s created 9 books that assist fill in gaps the place publishing is severely missing, with the novels being enjoyable, sensible, social problem themed, and entertaining. She’s an creator whose upcoming e book bulletins all the time make me excited and in addition one of many authors I get bummed out about as a result of not sufficient individuals learn about her books. But they positively ought to, particularly since she has one thing for followers of sequence and standalones, grownup and youngsters, and he or she blends genres in her grownup books, giving readers who love crime fiction and the romance style a two-for-one deal.
Like many authors, Aya de León’s bio speaks to the various hats she wears/has worn, together with buying editor for a local weather justice fiction imprint (Fighting Chance Books), instructing inventive writing at UC Berkeley, penning a serialized YA novel on Orion, and in line with the Orion web page bio, she’s at the moment engaged on the pilot for an upcoming adaptation for her Justice Hustlers sequence. I’m already making all of the popcorn!
Below I’ll stroll you thru three completely different locations to begin together with her work, and possibly, like me, you’ll find yourself studying your method by way of her catalog after which should excitedly look ahead to the following launch.
Uptown Thief (Justice Hustlers #1)
Are you a fan of the movie Hustlers? Do you would like there have been extra sex-positive novels? Have you ever thought Robin Hood within the type of a gaggle of intercourse employees stealing from horrible males (CEOs) to fund a girls’s clinic can be superior? If you stated sure to any of the above, then that is the e book for you — and spoiler: it’s superior!
In Aya de León’s debut novel, she mixes genres to offer readers a heist crime novel that marries a romance novel which tackles actual social points whereas additionally simply being enjoyable and kick-ass!
Another plus of this sequence is that, like romance sequence usually do, every e book focuses on a unique MC, letting you choose one — or all! — whose plot seems like a match to your present studying temper. The sequence accommodates The Boss, The Accidental Mistress, and Side Chick Nation.
Undercover Latina (The Factory #1)
If you learn center grade novels and/or work in any capability that places center grade titles in youngsters’s arms, right here’s a terrific one full of motion, household, friendship, fandom, thriller, spies, first crushes, and an exploration of what it means to be Latina.
At 14 Andréa Hernández-Baldoquín finds out her dad and mom are a part of a world group of spies, and so they want her to affix in on a mission: go undercover at a highschool in California to befriend the estranged son of a white nationalist. Problem? Along with the hazard of being a spy, Andréa must drop the accent in her title and cross as not Latina, whereas becoming into a brand new faculty, and navigating a crush. ¡Ay, Dios mío!
Bonus: If you take heed to audiobooks, Victoria Villarreal does a terrific narration!
A Spy within the Struggle
For followers of standalone novels who need an undercover crime novel that marries a romance novel with spice, you must begin right here.
Yolanda Vance turns into a pariah within the authorized subject after she arms over proof in a raid of the agency she works at. So she goes to work for the FBI as a lawyer, besides that’s not why the FBI employed her. She’s occurring an undercover task as an alternative as a result of she’s a younger Black girl they suppose can relate to teenagers to infiltrate a teen activist group the FBI has labeled as extremist. Not solely will she be pressured to confront lots of her long-held beliefs — together with being anti-love — she’ll additionally discover out the earlier informant, despatched by the FBI, was murdered…
You also can decide up her 2022 standalone with a concentrate on environmental points, That Dangerous Energy, and her 2021 standalone coming-of-age with romance set within the music business, Queen of Urban Prophecy.
I hope you might have as a lot enjoyable as I’ve studying your method by way of Aya de León’s novels. And in case you’re on the lookout for different authors’ Reading Pathways, I’ve obtained you lined.
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