Bodaciously True & Totally Awesome: Episode II, True Blue

by Chris Orcutt

The unforgettable 2nd installment of a bodaciously true story about teen life in the 1980s.

It’s 1986, and as the cold March winds blow, Avery “Ace” Craig’s life heats up with more coming-of-age adventure and steamy teen romance.

Newly introduced to the affections of the opposite sex, Avery becomes entangled with a teen siren. The pair are burning up with their mutual attraction, making it impossible for Ace to stay true blue to his girlfriend. Between his burgeoning friendship with a brilliant girl who gets him, and poor relationship advice from his Scout leader, Ace is starting to feel the heat.

Friction with an overprotective father, a sarcastic guidance counselor, a rookie town cop, and a special request from an FBI agent, turns up the heat. A self-appointed mission to retrieve a friend’s stolen belongings proves more perilous than he thought, but it’s nothing compared to what happens at a party on the ides of March, or what Avery learns are the three most dangerous words in the English language.

In True Blue, the second episode of Bodaciously True & Totally Awesome, Chris Orcutt delivers a no-holds-barred look at ’80s teenhood—unfiltered, steamy, and unforgettable.

☎ MORE ’80s culture, fashion, and slang.
🎵 MORE righteous ’80s tunes that will carry you back to your youth.
💘 MORE first loves, uncontrollable passions, and secret late-night phone calls.
👓 MORE run-ins with authority, bad advice, unsupervised freedom and risky choices.
🌟 MORE bonus content, including playlists (available on Spotify) and retro factual references in every episode!
It's not YA, and it's not for teens. It’s a time machine for every adult who remembers the fire of being 16.

398 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 14, 2026

About the author

Chris Orcutt is a professional writer with over thirty years of experience and more than a dozen meticulously crafted novels to his name.

Born in Maine, he has spent most of his life in New York. He attended college in Boston, graduating summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, with a degree in philosophy. His professional writing career began at Taconic Newspapers (where he was honored by the New York Press Association), followed by freelance reporting for the Poughkeepsie Journal, New York’s oldest newspaper.

In his 20s and early 30s, while honing his craft as a fiction writer, Orcutt earned a living as a high school American Studies teacher, college writing instructor, and speechwriter. His earlier fiction—including the Dakota Stevens Mystery Series and One Hundred Miles from Manhattan—has earned praise from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews.

For over a decade, Orcutt immersed himself in ’80s teen culture and shunned the internet in monastic devotion to his magnum opus, Bodaciously True & Totally Awesome, a 9-book episodic novel debuting in January 2026. Writing drafts on typewriters and vintage computers, blasting everything from A-Ha to ZZ Top, and drinking enough coffee to fill a swimming pool (seriously), he set out to craft an authentic and fearless exploration of the suburban teenage experience in 1980s America. The result prompted one cultural historian to dub him “Lord of the ’80s” and another “The American Tolstoy.”

He loathes bad writing, stoplights, Grammarly, and pretentious people—but loves old movies, Peanuts comics, Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, and cross-country skiing. Orcutt lives quietly in New York’s Hudson Valley with his wife and Muse, Alexas, and their dog Dashiell Hammett.
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Reviews

[jason thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loving this trip back to the 80’s!! Love Caitlyn!! She’s the one!