BookWorthy Chats with Lyndsey Lewellen

---

Valerie - Welcome to Bookworthy. Today, we're talking with YA author Lyndsey Llewellyn about her second YA sci-fi, The Cryer Stone. I met Lyndsey at a local book event last year and scooped up her first book, The Chaos Grid, which follows Juniper through a Mad Max-style adventure. But in the sequel, The Cryer Stone, we go full Blade Runner style into the one place Juniper

said she would never return to. I can't wait to hear more about this book and Lyndsey on today's episode. Welcome to Bookworthy, Lyndsey .

Lyndsey - Thank you, I'm so happy to be here.

Valerie - It is a pleasure. Now, since we usually start things with a random question, so here's our random question of the week. What is your favorite summer food?

Lyndsey - Well, I would probably have to say barbecue and anything on the grill. I love it when my husband goes outside, or my son goes outside, and they just cook things up, it smells so good. So yeah, definitely that.

Valerie - It is definitely a, because we're both Texans, so it's a very Texan thing to do, but what is this? It's funny because, like it's summer, it gets so hot. That's usually when the grill comes out, and it's like this funky like I want to grill, but it's so hot.

Lyndsey - The hotter, the better, I think my family likes it. They love it hot, so.

Valerie - That's awesome. Always have the porch ceiling fans going, for sure. Lyndsey , tell us a little bit about this sequel, The Cryer Stone.

Lyndsey - Yeah, so book one starts, it's a Texas wasteland. So, it's a world where mankind's attempts to fix nature have backfired, and the whole world has descended into chaos. One girl joins a crew of truckers to cross the waste and avoid becoming the savior of the city that murdered her parents. Now, in book two, we're gonna take place a whole lot in these domed cities. So it does have that Blade Runner feel. There are a lot of cybernetics and enhancements. So yeah, it's just. I like to say it's book one enhanced, going harder, faster, and lots of twists and turns that if you read the Chaos Grid, you're going to get a lot of that in book two.

Valerie - Now it's a very, Chaos Grid is a very fast-paced book, what inspired you to write this story and the Cryer Stone.

Lyndsey - It's actually kind of fitting, I think. I came up with the idea while I was driving in DFW traffic. Some of that, sometimes that's fast-paced when I was in, it was lots of bumper-to-bumper, but it was super hot outside. And I thought, what if there was a world where this was the wasteland, where Texas was the wasteland? And that idea kind of came to me as I

was learning a writing tip that said, write what you know. And I said, well, I know, sitting in traffic. So I thought, well, what if everything with sci-fi happened here in Texas? What would that look like? What kind of world would it be? And I thought, well, people still have to get food if they're living in domed cities away from the wasteland. Still have to get food. And so I was behind a giant truck, and I thought, okay, what would it be like to be in one of these big trucks getting food from one place to another in kind of a crazy Texas world? So that's kind of where the inspiration is.

Valerie - I love that. Just kind of where you were at. You don't get a whole lot of what Texas traffic vibes in the wasteland, but you get a lot of heat, at least in the chaos grid. And so excited to, for the, for choir stone and just kind of that different take, where are we going to find Juniper as we jump into the plex and the other dome cities?

Lyndsey - Well, she kind of starts in the grid. There is a big section of the book that's the grid is what we call the wasteland. So the outer grid and then you have like the inner grid cities. So, the outer grid, she'll start there trying to get and follow her destiny, even though she still does not want to do it. She cannot stand the people inside that city. So, I like to say this is her journey to discover what it means to do it right when you have every reason not to because she doesn't have a reason they murdered her family, but she still feels that pull to do what's right and then from there there's just going to be a whole lot of Blade Runner vibes going on in book two.

Valerie - Now, in book one, there wasn't very much romance. There are little hints of attraction between the two characters. But are we going to see more of that in book two?

Lyndsey -  Yes, yes. There's going to be more romance in Book 2. Like I said, it's just that everything that she found in Book 1 moved up another few levels for sure. Yes, yes.

Valerie - Turned up to be 11, right? Too fun. Now, what do you hope to communicate with the young adults who are reading your books?

Lyndsey - I really would like it mainly for adventure. Think, I think with fiction, I want to give people an escape into a new place. But in, lots of page turning. So, I was a reluctant reader growing up. And so I want to give people an opportunity to enjoy reading. And I think that's a valuable thing is reading. But beyond that, I hope people will see just who Juniper is and that they can relate to that, that maybe they feel, well, there's no way I can forgive these people, or there's no way I can help somebody else. And what it's like to at first say no, but then later say yes, and what that looks like. And it's not always easy when you say yes, you think, okay, I've said no for so long, the same yes was the hardest part. It’s not always easy, but it is good To see that not everything hard is bad sometimes, it can be good, and so I hope that readers will come out with that from reading books one and two.

Valerie - Very neat. There is kind of a biblical story that the overarching story of the chaos grid and the Cryer Stone kind of follows a particular biblical story. Can you tell us a little bit about that story and how it impacts the book?

Lyndsey - Yeah, it's kind of a spoiler, but it follows the book of Jonah. So, book one follows the

first half, and book two follows the second half. Now, if you've read the book of Jonah, It ends kind of abruptly, I would say. This book does not necessarily end that way because it's inspired by the Book of Jonah. It's not a complete retelling. There's a lot of imagination in this one. It goes in lots of different directions, but it does have some very strong similarities to the Book of Jonah.

Valerie - That's fun. I loved kind of finding the little Easter eggs of Jonah's story in The Chaos Grid and being like, okay. Okay. I see where we're going here, but I will, hopefully The Cryer Stone will have a complete ending when Jonah does it.

Lyndsey - Yes, it's a duology, and it completely ends the entire way. There will have, I think they'll have a good satisfaction. Readers will have a good satisfaction when they read the end of the choir stone.

Valerie - Very neat. Now, you're not only an author but an artist as well. And you have done a bit of a comic book element to the books. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Lyndsey - Yes, so I designed some bookmarks for the book and some character art, so that was exciting. I wanted to be a comic book artist when I was younger, so that was something that I wanted to put in the novel, not only through drawing those kinds of things but also the writing in and of itself. I wanted it to follow a comic book feel. So that was pretty exciting to do. And I made a little comic book. Think it's only, yeah, it's only two pages. But I gave it to my street team, and they started coloring it. And so that's exciting to see those that have just started popping up. I love it. I love sharing art. think art and writing go well together.

Valerie - They do. I remember at our book event, one particular character drew the girl's eyes. Tell us a little bit about Dax.

Lyndsey - Oh yes, so Dax, who is the main shipper, the lead shipper of the crew that she follows through the Cryer Stone. And yes, if you do, that's one way to get girls to read the books. I'm like, here's Dax. They're like, oh, he's so cute. I'm like, well, he's a little more than cute. He's kind of good-hearted, but yeah, he's cute.

Valerie - He is a good-hearted guy with a goal. What is it? With his glasses. He's laser-focused on his goals. Too fun. Now, Lyndsey, when did your writing journey begin?

Lyndsey - I always hear people say I started when I was like five years old, and I think that's so cool to have written that or wanted to write that for that long. I never did. I didn't even like reading until I was a late teenager. I grew up with mild dyslexia, so books did not come easy. I'd have to read the same paragraph 20 times, and I still had no idea what was said, so it makes it still takes me quite a while to read books.

But when I was in my 20s, I started teaching Bible to teen girls. And when I was doing that, I thought, I saw a lot of the books that they were reading, and they were very dark, and they were very not uplifting at all. So it was a very depressing kind of kind of literature. And I thought, well, you know what, maybe I can write something a little bit more uplifting, still adventurous, still have the romance and fun that they like, but teaches hope and teaches good things that I think they could have some good value. So I started writing, but it was my, let me back up. I told my mom because my mom is a romance writer, I said, you should write these kinds of books. And she said, how about you write that? I can't write those books. But she was like, yes, you can. So, I started writing, and I just fell in love with it. Yeah. So, a lot of my books are geared towards teenagers because I love that time of life.

I just feel a calling towards that age demographic right now. Yeah, I just love writing for teens.

Valerie - Well, there's such a, what is it? Crucible of a time in your life. Just that young adult, young teen, older teen, just, you know, I think I've mentioned it with some other YA authors, is it is, you're making a lot of decisions that are big and important in that, that, that teenage, you know, who you are, who you stand for, you know, or what you stand for, you know, what college you're going to go to, what are you not going to go to college? Know, just what job am I going to have? Just there's all these big, big decisions that they're faced with. And a lot of it is who they are and what they believe gets lost in all of that. And I think fiction does a good job of helping them see I can make these decisions about my own heart and my mind because they can just get swept one way or the other, whether by friends, by music, by whatever culture itself, and just pulled in so many different directions. And I love how there has been this increase in Christian fantasy and Christian fiction so that kids can get both a fun, adventurous story and also be reminded of what is true and where to find the truth. Did you, when you came to the story, did you want there to be kind of a Christian element, or did you try to shy away from that?

Lyndsey - I didn't shy away at all. I started listening to a lot of Christian punk rock music when I was younger, in my teens and early 20s. I was actually in a Christian punk rock band, and no, I love writing lyrics to the Lord, and I love writing because it's real life, and it's exactly what I'm going through, and I don't want to hide it at all. It's like putting your light under a basket. I'm not interested in that at all. Yes, while that is the I still don't want it to be preachy in one way where it's it's it's not the story itself I want it to be very real, and I think we see that in the Bible. We see people who told, like Jesus, lots of parables that tell the truth, but as you're listening to it, you're kind of off guard going, what is this story about? What is, what is the prodigal son going to do? Like, what is this guy going to do? His dad kicked him out. He's, he's living with a swine. Like, what's going to happen? And then he turns it around. He tells the whole story. He says, Hey, Pharisees, this is what you're like. And this is how it should be. And this is what the kingdom of God is like. And this is how God's character is.

But you're so busy listening to the fictional story that you're just caught off guard. I mean, we see that with Nathan and with David when David commits adultery with Bathsheba. Says, Nathan comes in, he's like, hey, let me tell the story about this rich man who had a whole bunch of sheep and this poor man who had this one sheep that he's living with. The rich man takes his sheep and gives it to his friends for this banquet. And this poor man has lost his only sheep. And David was so outraged. And then Nathan says, you're the rich man who took the, and so he's caught off guard, and then that truth that he knew he was committing adultery he knew that but then when he saw that truth through fiction, He goes. My goodness. That is me. That is my heart, And so I think that the power that we have through fiction is that it can reveal the truth, But you're so busy being caught off guard that you just don't see it, and then all your defenses are down, and it penetrates the heart, and so Yeah, I think that's why I'm passionate.

Valerie - I agree. There's a power in, even like you said, the parables that Nathan and Jesus told themselves. It's like God knows that we need stories. We need to be kind of wooed and moved in different directions to have our heartstrings played for us to connect to the head and the heart. And I think fiction does an amazing job at that. Now, what is your favorite book?

Lyndsey - Okay, you asked the question, and I thought, I have no idea.

I like so many books for so many different reasons, so I made a tiny list. I love Fawkes and Wishtress by Nadine Brandes. Those are my two favorite ones that she has written so far. I also love Calculated by Nova McBee; her whole series is right there. It's fantastic. I like Skyward by Brandon Sanderson. The ending of that just blew me away. It was such a good ending. And speaking of endings, Memoria, which is by J.J. Fisher. The whole series, her Calor series by Memoria, was just, it was the best. I loved that book. And then some classics, at least classics to me. It's like Hunger

Games and Divergent and those kinds of books. Love all those.

Valerie - All kinds of within that genre that you enjoy, love and are writing for. So that's kind of fun to see you play in your sandbox, in a sense. Now, what's been the most impactful book in your life other than the Bible?

Lyndsey - Yes. That one would be the Scarlet Pimpernel. And the reason the Scarlet Pimpernel was so impactful is because, like I told you, I had

dyslexia. And so I didn't like to read. One day, I came home, it was, I can't remember if it was middle school or high school, but I told my mom I had to write a paper on a classic, and I couldn't read it that fast. And I said, what am I gonna do? I can't read a whole book like that by myself and write a paper. I came home crying. And she said, okay, let's look at your paper. She found one of the books there. She got it for me. And she said, okay, we're going to read it together. We're going to read the first chapter, and we're going to do this. And she said you're going to love it because there's romance and sword fights and spies. And I said, in a classic novel? She said yes. I said okay. So we read it. After the first page or two, I said, I got it. And so I went to my room, and I barreled through that thing. It was not easy, but I enjoyed it. So that showed me that I can read fiction and I can read big books and not just comic books, which is what I was used to.

I could read a big novel, so that story.

Valerie - I love that.  I have a dyslexic kid in my own house. So we kind of have that same story as we usually, you know, he gravitates towards comic books and graphic novels. And it's fun to challenge him a little bit and to start a book or start a series. And, like, I'm only reading book one. If you want to find out the rest, you get to read it. And he's like, what, what? No. Yep. So, what are ways that you would encourage other parents who have kids with dyslexia and are reluctant readers to help encourage them to be readers?

Lyndsey - I would say just continual reading times is something that helps with me is you don't have to read a huge thing. So sometimes, with dyslexia and such, you see a huge part of the text, and you get anxious. Like if I see an epic fantasy, I'm just like, I can't read that so much reading. And so you think, I have to take this huge bite all at once. And it's like, you don't have to take a huge bite. Take a little bit of a paragraph and stuff, and then and then and then go on. So, some books that have short chapters that are very engaging through those chapters help. So there is a book series by J.R. Hannibal, and it's called Bear Knight is the first one, and

that book series is young adult, but I think it's good for middle grade too and for kids with dyslexia because the chapters are only like two or three pages and they're they have got really good hooks at the end of those and so you can take those bites, and now you were talking about kids with comic books usually take at dyslexia tend visual arts and so encouraging kids with visual arts, I think is good and say hey you got keep going with that visual art and look there's a comic book you can read as you're going, and so as I was reading the comic books I was learning story, and so I understood where the beginning middle end was where the climax and the cliffhangers were, and I love that about comic books are they always end on a big huge cliffhanger you've got to get the next one so um so that's one of the things.

I took away that in my books, and I wanted to end on that cliffhanger because that will help reluctant readers because they're like, okay, it was hard, but I want to know what happens next, and so yeah, books like that are really helpful I think for reluctant readers.

Valerie - I know what it is, the R.L. Stine's Goosebumps books. That's kind of one of his biggest

tips every chapter ends with a big gasp. You're like, somebody is stepping up behind them, and in chapter and you're like, no. And so, yeah, there's this need to keep reading and keep going. And so it's a way to give that reward system that, you know, desire to continue to read and get a reward. The reward is finding out what happened next and to keep going.

Lyndsey - Yeah, and if you want to know what your kids like, what kind of TV shows do they like? What kind of movies do they like? Books that are similar in that genre will help them to read because sometimes people say they don't like to read. I'm like, well, you just haven't found what you like to read yet. No.

Valerie - Yup. That's a quote I use often, you know, when I'm at school visits and, like, how many people like to read? And they're like, and some people raise their hand and some people, kids don't, so like, who doesn't like to read and they raise their hand. Like, we're going to find a book for you, I promise. And so it's just, you kind of see them go, there's a book for me? And I was like, that's right, there is, you just have to find it. And so it's a little fun to kind of find those kids that, you know, don't like to read and be like, it's out there. You just have to keep looking. And that kind of makes it fun. Now, what can we expect next from you, Lyndsey?

Lyndsey - So next coming up, and it's going to be The Cryer Stone, and I think it will either have been released or it's close to being released. And so that is the conclusion of that. I am working on a fantasy and a sci-fi right now at the same time because why not write two books at once?

Valerie - Why not?

Lyndsey – I have no idea what will come from that. I do have a middle-grade steampunk novel that I have written, and I'm trying to get that one out, so hopefully, we'll see some progress on that soon as well.

Valerie- Very exciting. Now, where can people find out more about you and your books?

Lyndsey - Just at my website www.lyndseylewellen.com and there are so many L's and I'll try to spell it's L-Y-N-D-S-E-Y, then L-E-W-E-L-L-E-N dot com or you could just find me on Instagram.

 Valerie - Too fun. You are fun to follow on Instagram. You always have some amazing graphics and reels and stuff going on because that artistic side seems to come out. And you also paint shoes, don't you?

Lyndsey - You know, I have them next to me because I wondered if you'd ask me about them. So, yes, I paint on shoes, and these are the ones I'm doing for the Crier Stone. I'm slowly getting them painted just on canvas shoes. I only do about two a year because they take so long to do. As I said, I'm writing two books at once, and I have my other design jobs. So, yeah.

Valerie - Two books, painting, you, your parents, you know, you have a farm. Yeah. Let's just add it all.

Lyndsey - I can find covers for novels, it's just so much. Yeah, so two, usually two a year, and I like to make a book related, so they're kind of fun to do.

Valerie - I might have to get some tips. I have some ideas. Lyndsey, thank you so much for joining us today.

Lyndsey - Thank you so much for having me, Valerie.

Valerie - And thank you for joining Lyndsey and me on this episode of the Bookworthy Podcast. Check the show notes for any books or links that we discussed and let us know in the comments what's your favorite summertime food. Be sure to check out the Bookworthy Summer Reading Challenge and like and subscribe to discover more great books together.

Happy reading.