Media kit
Micro bio (140 characters)
Rebecca Anne Nguyen (she/her) is the winner of the 2024 Reader's Choice Award for Best Adult Book (Bronze) for her debut novel, The 23rd Hero.
50-word bio
Rebecca Anne Nguyen (she/her) is the winner of the 2024 Reader's Choice Award for Best Adult Book (Bronze) for her debut novel, The 23rd Hero, and the recipient of the 2019 Foreword Indies Award (Silver) for the memoir Where War Ends. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Insider, and Slackjaw, among others.
100-word bio
Rebecca Anne Nguyen (she/her) is the winner of the 2024 Readers' Choice Award for Best Adult Novel (Bronze) for her fiction debut, The 23rd Hero, and recipient of the 2019 Foreword Indies Book of the Year Silver Award for Where War Ends (with Tom Voss). Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Insider, and Slackjaw, among others. Rebecca's stage play, Hypotheticals, was the 2023 winner of the Epiphanies New Works festival at Wild Imaginings Theatre Company and received its world premiere at Kith & Kin Theatre in Milwaukee in 2024. Rebecca studied fiction with Susan Choi and Hannah Tinti at the Sirenland Writers Workshop in Positano, Italy.
400-word bio
Rebecca Anne Nguyen (she/her/hers) is the author (with Tom Voss) of Where War Ends: A Combat Veteran’s 2,700-Mile Journey to Heal , a 2019 Foreword Indies Book of the Year Silver Award winner for Autobiography & Memoir. Rebecca’s fiction has appeared in Defenestration, Wintermute Lit, and Write Launch, and her humor has been published on Slackjaw, Points in Case, and Frazzled. Rebecca’s nonfiction has been published in The New York Times, Insider, and in the Military Times. She has studied with Susan Choi and Hannah Tinti at the Sirenland Writers Workshop in Positano, Italy. The 23rd Hero is her first novel.
Rebecca is a playwright whose short plays and one acts have been produced in New York City, Los Angeles, and Miami. Staged readings of her first full-length play, Hypotheticals, have been produced as part of World Premiere Wisconsin, Cincinnati LAB New Works Festival, and Epiphanies New Works Festival in Waco, TX, where her play was the 2023 festival winner. Hypotheticals will receive its world premiere production at Kith & Kin Theatre Collective in Milwaukee, WI in April 2024. It will also be produced as a regional premiere at Wild Imaginings Theatre in Waco in November 2024.
Rebecca is a conference speaker and workshop leader. She has given talks and led breakout sessions at Netflix, Adobe, and Confab, the world's largest content strategy conference, as well as Digital Summit Chicago and Digital Summit Kansas City,
When she’s not writing fiction, Rebecca is a UX Content Designer who helps companies and brands improve their digital experiences with words. She works with Generative AI, such as Large Language Models, to help prevent toxic content from harming users and companies.
Born and raised just outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Rebecca has called many cities home, including Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Syracuse, and Charlotte, as well as Chiang Mai, Thailand and Hoi An, Viet Nam. Her favorite city in the world is Vancouver, B.C., which is where her novel, The 23rd Hero, begins. Rebecca is Mom to Patrick and Aden, Cat Mom to Prema, and Plant Mom to a growing collection of houseplants.
Category
Fiction
Genre
Adult science fiction, women's fiction, climate fiction, time travel romance, cross-genre
Logline
An ordinary woman with an extraordinary memory is chosen as the world's first female time traveler and sent to the sixteenth century on a mission to save the world from environmental apocalypse.
Description
On the verge of being forced to live in an underground bunker due to climate crisis, an ordinary woman with an extraordinary memory is recruited for a time travel program to stop environmental disasters before they happen. But when she falls in love with the program's mysterious founder, she must learn to believe in herself and her abilities before she's sent to sixteenth century France with no way to save the world or return to the man she loves.
Publication date
August 13, 2024
Book details
-
ISBN : 979-8-9895934-1-5
-
ASIN : B0D3WKVP3X
-
Publisher : Castle Bridge Media
-
Pub day: August 13, 2024
-
Price: $18.99 paperback / $4.99 eBook
-
Language : English
-
Paperback : 404 pages
-
Item Weight : 1.3 pounds
-
Dimensions : 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
Sample chapter
View an excerpt on She Reads
Where to buy:
Ask your local indie bookstore or library to order it!
Book awards & honors & lists
WINNER of the 2024 Readers' Choice Award for Best Adult Novel (Bronze)
Advance praise for The 23rd Hero
"Rebecca Anne Nguyen is so fierce, funny, rollicking, racy, unsparingly insightful about our talent for making a mess of things and irrepressibly optimistic about our chances for fixing them that she makes us eager to follow her anywhere, whether to times past or futures newly imagined. The 23rd Hero is a page-turning, wild and marvelous ride.”
— Susan Choi, Pulitzer Prize finalist, National Book Award Winner and author of Trust Exercise
“A love story that transcends time with a hero the reader will never forget. This compulsively-readable debut will transport you from a dystopian future to the idyll of 16th century France, all on the wings of a love story for the ages. Nguyen’s razor-sharp humor, gorgeous prose, and lush world building had me turning the pages late into the night. A writer to watch.”
— Jessica Pearce Rotondi, author of WHAT WE INHERIT: A Secret War and a Family’s Search for Answers
"Rebecca Nguyen’s novel THE 23RD HERO is a breathtakingly original and gripping story of one apparently ordinary woman’s struggle to reverse climate change by revisiting the errors of history. Seamlessly bringing together modern Vancouver and 16th Century France, Nguyen weaves a beautiful and compelling narrative that is ultimately about our universal search for identity and connection—even across the centuries. I stayed up late reading, utterly captivated by this surprising and magical combination of dystopian science fiction, call to environmental action, and passionate love story. A fabulous debut!"
— Melodie Winawer, critically acclaimed author of THE SCRIBE OF SIENA and ANTICIPATION
“The 23rd Hero is a thrilling, escapist ride through time, an old-fashioned romance, a modern parable about climate change, and, most importantly, the story of a woman finding her purpose. This is a delightful page-turner by an exciting new voice in fiction. Do yourself a favor and get lost in this story; you’ll return feeling a little more hopeful about everything.”
— Mandy Berman, author of THE LEARNING CURVE and PERENNIALS
Book review quotes
“The consistently high emotional intensity throughout Nguyen’s novel is the fuel that powers its narrative engine, as is the complex dynamism between the two lead characters. The passion is incendiary…in this Outlander-esque adventure. Fans of time-travel romance are likely to find this story deeply satisfying.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“The passion Rebecca Anne Nguyen captures between the two [lovers] is equaled by the challenge to their psyches…as the story evolves. Readers who look for intriguing time travel settings will find the tale steeped in unusual connections. The result will appeal to both romance readers and time-travel enthusiasts…with satisfyingly original dilemmas and outcomes.”
— D. Donovan, Midwest Book Review
"A love story that transcends time. The beating heart of the book is the love story between Sloane and Bastian, a man who exists only as a dream until he steps into her life and reveals his true identity. Their chemistry leaps off the page, and the heroine's humor and grit had me laughing and biting my nails to see what happened next! The lush settings of a dystopian future and idyllic French countryside were transporting (let's just say I want a treehouse now). I could not put this down. A brilliant debut from a writer to watch."
— Jessica Pearce Rotondi, author of WHAT WE INHERIT: A Secret War and a Family’s Search for Answers, via Goodreads
Shareable social snippets
Coming soon
Excerpts
-
Excerpt on She Reads
-
Excerpt in Wintermute Lit
-
Excerpt in The Write Launch
-
Excerpt in Defenestration
How to be your own literary agent, from getting yourself a traditional publishing deal to negotiating your contract
No literary agent? No problem! Rebecca shares how she negotiated her own book deal directly with the publisher and offers resources for writers to feel confident becoming their own agent.
The myth of the starving artist
Forget teaching, waiting tables, and scraping by on freelance writing jobs. Rebecca reveals how working as a writer in tech has allowed her the flexibility and financial security to pursue her passions. She also shares why UX writing and content design offer fiction writers lucrative alternatives to traditional jobs in academia, and 3 steps they can take to break into this separate-but-related industry.
Writing the (truly) flawed heroine: How feminine power plays out on the page
Rebecca reveals her process for creating a female heroine that embodies feminine power and eschews the stereotypes typically associated with "badass" female heroes.
One-sheets
-
The 23rd Hero one sheet - event hosts (coming soon)
Upcoming appearances
-
Books on Main in Friendship, WI 8/16/2024
-
DSM Book Fest, Des Moines, IA 10/19/2024
Book club guide
(Coming soon)