Jennifer Jenkins | NAMELESS: My Unconventional Textbook

When I was in high school and college, I always believed that writing would play a major role in my future… because I wanted to write history textbooks.

You read that right, my friends. I loved history so much, the idea of writing dry, boring textbooks appealed to my adolescent fancy. (NERD ALERT!) If I could go back in time, I’d shove a copy of Patrick Rothfuss’ NAME OF THE WIND in one hand and a copy of THE IDIOT’S GUIDE TO NOT BEING LAME in the other (doesn’t exist, but it should).

The older I get, the less seriously I seem to take myself. Instead of scholarly writing, I write Young Adult Fantasy and I can’t imagine finding a more fulfilling writing medium. Despite what you might assume, I haven’t completely abandoned my desire to write about societies of the past. On the contrary, history plays a leading role in most of my fiction writing.

NAMELESS is a story involving four very different clans, all of which are inspired by one of my favorite cultures in history. Most of the book takes place inside the walls of Ram’s Gate in a society very similar to that of Ancient Sparta. History buffs will not miss the brutal training methods inspired by the Spartan Agoge System as well as systematic starvation, obsession with a warrior’s shield, and phalanx warfare.

Other clans featured in the book emulate the Viking, Navajo, and Maori cultures.

These clans set a backdrop for forbidden romance, rebellion, and revenge with characters prepared to fight like hell for the ones they love. This is my unconventional textbook, and I absolutely love building this world on the shoulders of real histories.

While the content might by the workings of my imagination, the fears, hatred, love, and triumph in this book will hopefully move my readers in the way stories of valor and bravery throughout history moved me as a teen. That’s the goal, at least.

Giveaway

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About Jennifer Jenkins

With her degree in History and Secondary Education, Jennifer Jenkins had every intention of teaching teens to love George Washington, the Napoleonic Wars, and Ancient Sparta . . . until the writing began. Author of Young Adult fantasy and co-founder of Teen Author Boot Camp, she divides her time between reading, writing music, taking spontaneous trips, and researching random events from the past. NAMELESS, a Young Adult tribal fantasy, releases October 6, 2015 with Month9Books.

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About NAMELESS

Four clans have been at war for centuries: the Kodiak, the Raven, the Wolf, and the Ram. Through brutal war tactics, the Ram have dominated the region, inflicting death and destruction on their neighbors.

Seventeen-year-old Zo is a Wolf and a healer who volunteers to infiltrate the Ram as a spy on behalf of the allied clans. She offers herself as a Ram slave, joining the people who are called the Nameless. Hers is a suicide mission—Zo’s despair after losing her parents in a Ram raid has left her seeking both revenge and an end to her own misery. But after her younger sister follows her into Rams Gate, Zo must find a way to survive her dangerous mission and keep her sister safe. What she doesn’t expect to find is the friendship of a young Ram whose life she saves, the confusing feelings she develops for a Ram soldier, and an underground Nameless insurrection.

Zo learns that revenge, loyalty, and love are more complicated than she ever imagined.