Sally Bosco on Cevin's Deadly Sin

Sally Bosco on Cevin's Deadly Sin

Who would have thought a little pair of red lace panties could cause him so much trouble?

Cevin thinks that moving to a small Florida town is the worst thing that ever happened to him ... until he falls for Tessa. She may be the one person who can accept his cross-dressing, but her brother Hunt's goal is to make Cevin's life a living hell. When Hunt "outs" him at school, Cevin has to figure out how to come to terms with his own identity in order to keep Tessa and quite possibly save his own life.

I wrote this book because I'm fascinated with gender. How much of it is inherent and how much is from upbringing? Why do people in our culture react so violently against someone who defies gender? I've never felt that I fit neatly into gender lines and have defied most of the expectations that are placed on women in life, such as marriage and family.

I have cross-dresser friends, I've interviewed a lot of cross-dressers, and I've found that they are a group that is fairly ostracized. Particularly as teens, they have few if any support groups they can access. They don't quite fit in with the gay kids; neither do they fit in with the transgendered kids. I wrote Cevin to help cross-dresser teens accept themselves as they are, realize that they're not alone, and to bring awareness to the public.

Another subject I touch upon in this book is bullying. Cevin is very much bullied in school, both verbally and physically, and I wanted his reactions to these situations to be a teachable moment for kids. Cevin doesn't always make the best choices in that area, but those decisions he makes can be a point of discussion for teachers and kids. (I'm making a teach kit available.)

Cevin's Deadly Sin is also very much a book about being an outsider. How do we treat those who are different in some way? Tessa is totally taken with Cevin, but when he tries to tell her about how he's different, she doesn't want to listen. She becomes afraid and pulls away from him.

In many ways, this is a universal story. Has there ever been a time in your life when you felt like an outsider?

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