There are lots of references in my books – adding them in is one of my favourite parts of writing! Some of which are obvious, like Kate and Matt’s flashbacks to past lives. Others, you might have missed, especially if you were reading fast! So here are five tiny references in The Last Beginning.
1) The Loneliest Girl in the Universe
In the epilogue, there are not one but three references. The first is to my next book, featuring Romy Silvers, my new character!
2) Celebrities
You might have spotted the second reference in the extract above! Vlogger Casey Neistat and his famous skateboards gets a mention, as does Beyonce & Kim Kardashian’s famous offspring.
3) One Direction Fangirls
On the side of a webpage, there’s a little clickbait advert which is a (loving!) jab at Larry fans.
4) Death and Dream from The Sandman
On the same page, I reference one of my favourite books – The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman
5) Ella’s sneaky cameo in the prologueThis one is a favourite of mine. It’s one of the very last things I added to the book, and I’m so glad i thought of it in time! If you’re writing about time travel, you just have to embrace the tropes.
Ella also appears in The Next Together, by the way – let me know if you spot her!
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Published by Lauren James
Lauren James is the twice Carnegie-nominated British author of many Young Adult novels, including The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker, The Loneliest Girl in the Universe and The Quiet at the End of the World. She is also a Creative Writing lecturer, freelance editor, screenwriter, and the founder of the Climate Fiction Writers League. Her upcoming release is Green Rising, a climate change thriller.
Her books have sold over a hundred thousand copies worldwide, been translated into five languages and shortlisted for the YA Book Prize and STEAM Children’s Book Award. Her other novels include The Next Together series, the dyslexia-friendly novella series The Watchmaker and the Duke and serialised online novel An Unauthorised Fan Treatise.
She was born in 1992, and has a Masters degree from the University of Nottingham, UK, where she studied Chemistry and Physics. Lauren is a passionate advocate of STEM further education, and many of her books feature female scientists in prominent roles. She sold the rights to her first novel when she was 21, whilst she was still at university.
Her writing has been described as ‘gripping romantic sci-fi’ by the Wall Street Journal and ‘a strange, witty, compulsively unpredictable read which blows most of its new YA-suspense brethren out of the water’ by Entertainment Weekly. The Last Beginning was named one of the best LGBT-inclusive works for young adults by the Independent.
Lauren lives in the West Midlands and is an Arts Council grant recipient. She has written articles for numerous publications, including the Guardian, Buzzfeed, Den of Geek, The Toast, and the Children’s Writers and Artist’s Yearbook 2021. She teaches creative writing for Coventry University, WriteMentor, and Writing West Midlands, providing creative writing courses to children through the Spark Young Writers programme.
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