Pure Trilogy, Book One
Available Now
ISBN-13: 978-1455503063
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Pages: 448
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We know you are here, our brothers and sisters . . . Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.
Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash . . .
There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss-maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it's his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her.
When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.
"... nearly impossible to stop reading ... PURE packs one hell of an apocalypse."
-- Daniel H. Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Robopocalypse.
IB Teen's Review of PURE:
The characters in this book are everything, small characters with huge footprints like El Capitan and the heartbreaking Helmund. Or main characters like Pressia who grip the reader tight and take them on a terrible journey in a frightening and stunning environment. This is a cannot miss book. You can't say you love the post-apocalyptic or dystopian genre and NOT read this book. I cannot wait for Fuse, I hate the almost year-long wait for it's release. I want to stay in their terrible world, I feel like the roller coaster stopped and I didn't want to get off. The synopsis on Fuse may be spoilery so proceed with extreme caution.
FUSE
Pure, Book Two
by Julianna Baggott
Coming 02/19/13
ISBN-13: 1455503087
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Pages: 416
Find it on Amazon, B&N, Goodreads
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This girl is proof that we can save you all. If you ignore our plea, we will kill our hostages one at a time.
To be a Pure is to be perfect, untouched by Detonations that scarred the earth, and sheltered inside the paradise that is the Dome. But Partridge escaped to the outside world, where Wretches struggle to survive amid smoke and ash. Now, at the command of Partridge's father, the Dome is unleashing nightmare after nightmare upon the Wretches in an effort to get him back.
At Partridge's side is a small band of those united against the Dome: Lyda, the warrior; Bradwell, the revolutionary; El Capitan, the guard; and Pressia, the young woman whose mysterious past ties her to Partridge in ways she never could have imagined. Long ago a plan was hatched that could mean the earth's ultimate doom. Now only Partridge and Pressia can set things right.
To save millions of innocent lives, Partridge must risk his own by returning to the Dome and facing his most terrifying challenge. And Pressia, armed only with a mysterious Black Box containing a set of cryptic clues, must travel to the very ends of the earth, to a place where no map can guide her. If they succeed, the world will be saved. But should they fail, humankind will pay a terrible price . . .
IB Teen Interviews Julianna Baggott:
JB: I told no one that I wanted to be a writer. It wasn’t the kind of thing you said aloud – not in my school. Too uppity. Too weird. I loved the playwright David Mamet, but surely didn’t mention it. I played field hockey and lacrosse. I wore sports as a disguise; if I hadn’t had sports, I likely might have actually found people more like myself, out of necessity. But I didn’t. Mainly, I walked around pretty alarmed and outraged. I saw a lot of bullying and small cruelties – as well as really terrible things. I spent a lot of my days trying not to speak out. And then I’d hear myself chewing out someone for being cruel almost before I’d even decided to do it. I slapped a football player once in the cafeteria in front of all his friends. I could get away with this stuff, in retrospect, because I was small and sarcastic and because the school had some a lot of rules that kept a lot of things in check. I’m still the same way. Someone’s telling that racist joke or that homophobic slur, and I feel that familiar rattling in my chest, and I know I’m about to make the whole social situation really really uncomfortable. This past fall, my husband and I started werepresentthe47percent.com – in response to the cruel and inaccurate things that Mitt Romney said of nearly half this country. We’re also involved in transgender rights. We try to be as politically involved as we can to make a difference. In 2006 we started a nonprofit called Kids in Need – Books in Deed, that gets free books to underprivileged kids in the state of Florida. We try.
IBT: Bradwell is such a key character in the book, why wasn’t he one of the narrators in PURE?
JB: If Bradwell has a voice, the romance loses all intrigue – a plot problem. Also when I tried his voice out, he sounded too righteous, too convinced of his own purpose and moral outrage. (See young Baggott above.) It’s not a compelling voice.
He will have a voice in Book III – right now, the prologue is his.
IBT: We wonder how aware Helmud is? Can you tell us more about him as a character? How will Helmund’s heroic moment change the way El Capitan treats or interacts with him?
JB: Helmud will continue to change and their roles of brothers, abuser/abused … will change too. It’s been a very organic thing to write actually. I rarely write about siblings, but these two have really opened up that territory for me. There’s so much to say about the sibling dynamic. More to come!
IBT: What characteristics do you look for in a hero?
JB: I think whining isn’t a positive. I also think that self-doubt is necessary. So I don’t like someone who’s brave for all the right reasons. I want someone who’s real – afraid, restless, sometimes selfish, full of longing… Someone with desires and fears. Someone who is likely to fail.
IBT: In your opinion what is worse; the damage done by the detonations and the mutations and fusings and deaths that came as a result. Or what Willux is doing to the boys of the dome, mutating them into his super race?
JB: Good question. I think the first is worse – just death toll, suffering, loss. But the second is so psychologically twisted, it’s hard to imagine how one rationalizes it.
IBT: What makes a good villain?
JB: The same as a good hero. I have trouble with pure villains. I don’t believe in them. If you get in close, no one sees themselves as villainous – at least I don’t think it happens often. The worst villains are the ones who believe in their own heroic purpose.
IBT: How soon did Bradwell start having feelings for Pressia?
JB: Honestly, I think he liked her right away. From the first time he saw her.
IBT: What are your key ingredients in making a story?
JB: Character = Plot. When the character is revealed in action. I’m not always successful at this. My characters are too prone to sitting back and thinking … But I work on it.
IBT: The political aspects of PURE are a chilling picture of what could happen in our country. Most especially in regards to women’s rights since it seems to foreshadow the frustrating and scary climate in politics today. Can you tell us what led you to add these crucial elements to the story?
JB: Gosh, things just got worse and worse for women this past year. It started to sound like the emergence of a dark tide – I thought of Handmaid’s Tale as truly speculative. I was aware of a new double speak on feminism when Sarah Palin entered the scene. There was this new high-profile women who was using the word feminism in ways I’d never imagined – twisting it into new shapes. It scared me. Feminine Feminists is my version of what I felt Palin might have been trying to achieve.
IBT: Dystopian and Apocalyptic fiction is so incredibly popular today. I think readers have a fear of what lies ahead in our future, and they want are looking for heroes to give them a sense of security or hope. Maybe readers want to read stories where the youth of a nation can change things for the better. Do you think that reading these genres will result in more socially conscious young adults?
JB: I hope so. I believe so. I think that the female heroine in particular – the way she is no longer shielded from violence – is key.
IBT: What was Ingership talking about when he was referring to Willux’s collection? Why did Ingership’s wife Ilea murder him before he had the chance of explaining it to Bradwell? Is Ilea Bradwell’s mother?
JB: Book II and III. More to come.
JB: If Bradwell has a voice, the romance loses all intrigue – a plot problem. Also when I tried his voice out, he sounded too righteous, too convinced of his own purpose and moral outrage. (See young Baggott above.) It’s not a compelling voice.
He will have a voice in Book III – right now, the prologue is his.
IBT: We wonder how aware Helmud is? Can you tell us more about him as a character? How will Helmund’s heroic moment change the way El Capitan treats or interacts with him?
JB: Helmud will continue to change and their roles of brothers, abuser/abused … will change too. It’s been a very organic thing to write actually. I rarely write about siblings, but these two have really opened up that territory for me. There’s so much to say about the sibling dynamic. More to come!
IBT: What characteristics do you look for in a hero?
JB: I think whining isn’t a positive. I also think that self-doubt is necessary. So I don’t like someone who’s brave for all the right reasons. I want someone who’s real – afraid, restless, sometimes selfish, full of longing… Someone with desires and fears. Someone who is likely to fail.
IBT: In your opinion what is worse; the damage done by the detonations and the mutations and fusings and deaths that came as a result. Or what Willux is doing to the boys of the dome, mutating them into his super race?
JB: Good question. I think the first is worse – just death toll, suffering, loss. But the second is so psychologically twisted, it’s hard to imagine how one rationalizes it.
IBT: What makes a good villain?
JB: The same as a good hero. I have trouble with pure villains. I don’t believe in them. If you get in close, no one sees themselves as villainous – at least I don’t think it happens often. The worst villains are the ones who believe in their own heroic purpose.
IBT: How soon did Bradwell start having feelings for Pressia?
JB: Honestly, I think he liked her right away. From the first time he saw her.
IBT: What are your key ingredients in making a story?
JB: Character = Plot. When the character is revealed in action. I’m not always successful at this. My characters are too prone to sitting back and thinking … But I work on it.
IBT: The political aspects of PURE are a chilling picture of what could happen in our country. Most especially in regards to women’s rights since it seems to foreshadow the frustrating and scary climate in politics today. Can you tell us what led you to add these crucial elements to the story?
JB: Gosh, things just got worse and worse for women this past year. It started to sound like the emergence of a dark tide – I thought of Handmaid’s Tale as truly speculative. I was aware of a new double speak on feminism when Sarah Palin entered the scene. There was this new high-profile women who was using the word feminism in ways I’d never imagined – twisting it into new shapes. It scared me. Feminine Feminists is my version of what I felt Palin might have been trying to achieve.
IBT: Dystopian and Apocalyptic fiction is so incredibly popular today. I think readers have a fear of what lies ahead in our future, and they want are looking for heroes to give them a sense of security or hope. Maybe readers want to read stories where the youth of a nation can change things for the better. Do you think that reading these genres will result in more socially conscious young adults?
JB: I hope so. I believe so. I think that the female heroine in particular – the way she is no longer shielded from violence – is key.
IBT: What was Ingership talking about when he was referring to Willux’s collection? Why did Ingership’s wife Ilea murder him before he had the chance of explaining it to Bradwell? Is Ilea Bradwell’s mother?
JB: Book II and III. More to come.
PURE/FUSE Giveaway!
PURE TRILOGY GIVEAWAY DETAILS
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- This Contest Ends 01/31/13 11:59pm.
