A story of second chances

Jeff Rivera knew he had a story when his Kmart co-worker told him about a lost love and the time he served in a juvenile boot camp. The tale inspired Rivera to write a novel after moving to Hull in 2004. With walks along the town's beach and weekly trips to the Borders bookstore in Downtown Crossing, Rivera wrote relentlessly about his friend's story of love and redemption.

"I had to get the story out there," says Rivera, 30, whose book, "Forever My Lady," will be published by Warner Books this week , two years after it gained a cyber audience when he self-published it in Boston. "Every little penny I made, I put back into printing more books. I thought the mainstream audience could connect with it."

The book tells the story of Dio Rodriguez, a gang banger who lands in a prison boot camp, where he resists authority and fights with other inmates. His only escape: writing letters to his girlfriend about his dreams of a new life outside prison. The story is a transformative one -- a person given a second chance to better his life. The message inspired Rivera to write the book through the voices of his mostly Latino characters. (Despite his last name and his characters, Rivera is not Hispanic but a mix of Native American and African-American.)

At first Rivera, now a Miami resident, tried turning the story into a screenplay. He sent copies of his script to movie studios in Hollywood, but he felt deflated after rejections poured in.

"I just got so frustrated," says Rivera, who began writing screenplays when he was 13. He says it was an escape from the reality of his childhood. He had lived in Oregon and then Nevada with his mother and brother, and they were often homeless, some times living in a two-door Buick.

After briefly living in Orlando, Fla., he moved to Hull to work as an assistant to a real estate developer. He wrote in the mornings, getting inspiration from strolls on the beach and subway rides to Downtown Crossing. Three months later, the novel was done. With $200, he self-published it, printing 40 copies. He also began posting the book online on websites such as Soychicano.com and brownpride.com to build a following among readers of "urban lit."

It's a growing genre that Rivera embraces, but he finds that it carries some misconceptions. Often filled with raw street language, drug dealing, and violence, the genre has been criticized for glorifying criminal life. Rivera says his novel has more romance than typical urban lit.

"Some people think of it as trailer trash and ghetto books, with no class and no story," Rivera says. "My book can be classified as literature that happens to be in an urban setting. It's Nicholas Sparks meets urban lit."

The book began to take off in cyberspace. Rivera printed and sold at least 3,000 copies based on orders and word-of-mouth publicity. He hired a literary agent who began shopping the book around.

And like his main character, Rivera got a second chance.

Adrienne Avila , an editor at Warner Books in 2005, read "Forever My Lady" and made an offer, despite her not being a regular reader of urban lit.

"It was quite compelling considering that it was the kind of book I would never pick up myself," says Avila, now an editor at Berkeley publishing in New York. "He has colorful characters and rich language and dialogue. A lot of language rang true for me, and I could picture these kids stuck in the juvenile detention center."

These days, Rivera is preparing to promote the book. He already has two sequels lined up, if his publisher is interested. He's also working on another novel.

"The whole process, finally this dream of having it published, doesn't happen that way very often," says Rivera, who works as a concierge in the club lounge at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Miami Beach. "Whenever I can, I am always writing, after work or whenever my days off are. It's not work. It's fun."

Johnny Diaz can be reached at jodiaz@globe.com.