Resident takes Young Adult genre by storm in ‘Dangerous Year’

| September 28, 2017 | 0 Comments

KES TRESTER’S new book is about a smart girl in a totally foreign environment.

As the October issue of the Larchmont Chronicle goes to press, first-time author and Brookside resident Kes Trester’s soon-to-be-released Young Adult (YA) novel, “A Dangerous Year,” is already racking up positive reviews.

“This is our new Gossip Girl, guys. We can feel it,” raves HelloGiggles.com. “You’ll devour this clever and dangerously good plot. We guarantee that you won’t be able to put this book down!” crows PopSugar.com.

Trester’s book, the first in a series, was released on Sept. 26. It also is included on Purewow.com’s list of YA books to read this fall, alongside teen favorites John Green (“The Fault in our Stars”), Phillip Pullman (“The Golden Compass”) and Maggie Stiefvater (“The Scorpio Races”).

“The advance reviews have been beyond my wildest dreams,” says Trester.

“A Dangerous Year” centers on 17-year-old Riley Collins, the intrepid daughter of an American ambassador who has dragged his daughter all over the world, learning defensive skills to survive in some of the world’s most dangerous cities. But nothing will be as dangerous as an unexpected assignment: thrusting Riley into the teenage world of a private, elite east coast boarding school where Riley is charged with watching over a billionaire’s daughter with a target on her back.

“I wanted to create a character who is smart, capable, political and knows survival skills, who gets dropped into an environment that is totally foreign to her,” says Trester of the Riley Collins character. “I wanted this story to be about a smart girl.”

“A DANGEROUS YEAR,” first in the Riley Collins series, was released in September.

The book puts a positive, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) -based character at the center of the action, but doesn’t forget to add high school romance and backstabbing to the mix.

“I remember very well what it was like to be 17,” laughs Trester. “I wanted to make my first book a YA book, because teenagers are not jaded yet and they are more willing to take chances. The teens’ actions can be broader and more exciting.”

Trester grew up in Los Angeles and jumped into the film industry, where she worked as a feature film development executive on a variety of independent films. She also served as head of production for a Hollywood-based film company before turning to writing. But the road to “A Dangerous Year” involved a lot of trial and error.

“Before I started writing ‘A Dangerous Year,’ I wrote another book. I made every mistake known to mankind,” laughs Trester. “The book was full of clichés, bad sentence structure, telling vs. showing… the list goes on and on! So, I put that first novel in a drawer and started taking writing classes. I spent two years learning how to write and then dove into my second book.

The novel that I ended up with was ‘A Dangerous Year,’ and it sold within eight weeks of going out on submission!”

Trester has already started work on the second book in the series, and she is happy to be revisiting Riley Collins.

“If I fall in love with a character, I want more. I absolutely love what I do, and it’s such a pleasure to write about these characters.”

Trester will be signing her book at Chevalier’s Books, 126 N. Larchmont Blvd., on Sat., Oct. 14 from 5 to 7 p.m.

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Category: People

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