Truth behind the fiction: A close call that became story fodder

By guest author Elise Abram

Photo by Talesin for Morguefile

When I was a teenager, my family business had a booth at the Canadian National Exhibition in the Food Building. My brother and I ran the booth during the day and my cousins at night.

I was very insecure as a teenager. I wasn't popular, I didn't like the way I looked, I didn't like who I was, and I didn't date. So when a cute boy approached me to strike up a conversation at the counter one day, I was incredibly flattered. When he left, he said he'd come back a few days later to continue our conversation, which he did, only this time, he started spouting religious dogma in the middle of the conversation, which turned me off.

He told me the name of the organization he worked for and I went to the Coliseum Building to check it out. He wasn't there when I went, so I approached, questioned the people working there, and collected some flyers.

It turns out they were in the business of seeking out teens for the purpose of converting them to their way of thinking. I liken their organization to a cult, because in later years, a number of deprogramming stations for their organization and similar ones, popped up around the GTA.

I was worried, but we came up with a plan:  the next time he came around, if I was in the back, someone would tell him I was busy, and if I was at the counter, someone would call me into the back on some "urgent" business. It just so happened that when he next came, I was in the back room and my brother told him I no longer worked there. He never came back.

When I was brainstorming for THE NEW RECRUIT, I thought about this experience and what might have happened if I hadn't had the support system I did. What if I'd ignored the warning signs and went with the recruiter because I was lonely, or if he had something to offer me that I couldn't find on my own?

THE NEW RECRUIT explores this question. Judith, my protagonist, is sixteen-years-old and she feels like an outsider. She's lonely because her mother has passed away, her father is always at work, and she has only one friend. She desperately wants to find a job so she can help her father with the finances and so he will be around more often.

When she meets Cain at the mall, he strikes up a conversation with her, offers her a job, and eventually recruits her into his cult of ecoterrorists, which he is able to do because he makes her feel special, offers her something she can't find on her own, and she doesn't have a support system in place to protect her from going with him.

THE NEW RECRUIT is timely in that it deals with the question of how a child with a seemingly normal upbringing can easily separated from her family, brainwashed, and coerced into doing something that horrifies the majority of the population.

About the author

Elise Abram is high school teacher of English and Computer Studies, former archaeologist, editor, publisher, award winning author, avid reader of literary and science fiction, and student of the human condition. Everything she does, watches, reads and hears is fodder for her writing. She is passionate about writing and language, cooking, and ABC’s Once Upon a Time. In her spare time, she experiments with paleo cookery, knits badly, and writes. She also bakes. Most of the time it doesn’t burn. Her family doesn’t seem to mind.

Connect with Elise Abram:
Blog /  Facebook / Twitter / Amazon Author Page

About the book

The New Recruit
Genre: YA Contemporary
Pages: 214

Sixteen year old Judith Abraham feels like an outsider. She has just transferred to a new school, has only one friend, and suffers from social anxiety, but when recruiter Cain Barrett offers her a job, her whole life changes. Things are great at first, but the more she learns about Cain's world of climate crusaders, the more she questions his motives behind singling her out. Will Judith find a way out before it's too late?

THE NEW RECRUIT is the first book of a trilogy (followed by Indoctrination) by author Elise Abram, winner of the 2015 A Woman's Write competition for I WAS, AM, WILL BE ALICE. THE NEW RECRUIT is a young adult contemporary romance for the new millennium. In a time when jobs are scarce, politics are unstable, and the future is uncertain, millennials are ripe for recruitment by cults, groups offering a stable world view in exchange for total devotion. THE NEW RECRUIT is meant to be a cautionary tale exploring how, without love and support from those around them, our disenfranchised youth can be so easily misguided.

Buy Links:
Amazon / Google Play /  Apple iBooks / Kobo / Barnes & Noble

Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Have you ever had a close scrape with danger and wondered "what if things had gone differently"?

Categories: blog tour, Clean Indie Reads, contemporary fiction, giveaway, guest post, ideas, young adult fiction