Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl’s debut novel, Beautiful Creatures, is our Book of the Month during January. The authors took some time our of their busy schedules to answer some questions about their story and their beloved characters. Enjoy.

*Author photo credit: Alex Hoerner

What is it like co-authoring a book? Does this process ever get complicated or confusing at any stage?

Margie: You know, since this is our debut novel, we really don’t know any other way to do it. The most complicated part is definitely juggling our schedules so we can work. The easiest part is the writing. We’ve been friends longer than writing partners, so we can finish each other’s sentences – and that’s how we write, too.

Kami: We can fight like sisters, but it’s always about the mundane – the schedule – how cold our office is – why there is no ice for the Diet Coke. We’ve never disagreed about the story. And this year has been so overwhelming for us in so many ways, I can’t imagine going through it alone.

When you write, do you get together and write, or do you writing individually and then come together and edit?

Margie: We work separately. If we are in the same room, we’re still separated by my enormous earphones. Music vs. no music – we can’t write in the same airspace!

Kami: But we edit together, hashing out huge, color-coded whiteboards that plot all the character arcs, magic developments, and story beats. Our office is in Margie’s house, and it’s like the war room.

Was focalizing the story through Ethan’s POV a conscious decision, or did it just kind of happen?

Margie: We knew Lena was our mystery, and our supernatural. We wanted a strong female character with power, and we wanted to follow Ethan as he found his way into her story.

Kami: We also knew we were doing something less typical in YA, by allowing the reader to experience insecurity, first love, and fear through the eyes of a guy. To see what guys are thinking about girls, for once.We also fell in love with Ethan, the guy we never dated in high school…

As two female authors, was it difficult to write a romance-centered story from a male point of view?

Margie: Not really. We have six brothers between us. Also, there is so much already out there that is written from a teen girl’s perspective, it might have been harder to find our own voice if we hadn’t written from Ethan’s POV.

Kami: Sometimes it’s easier to write from a perspective that is definitely not your own. And Ethan is a great guy. He’s easy to write, because we love him so much.

Did you have prior knowledge/personal interest in magic and witchcraft, or was this something you had to research for Beautiful Creatures?

Margie: Just a lifetime of reading Diana Wynne Jones and high fantasy! I can’t imagine writing a book that didn’t have some sort of magic in it. Ever since I first read Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising series in third grade, I have been living in a fantasy world. And yes, I can still recite the poem from the front of that book.

Kami: We are both huge fantasy readers, so magic and magical lore has always been swimming around in our minds. I don’t consider the magic in BC witchcraft, per say. But I have always been interested in the way religions from Africa and the West Indies influenced Southern culture. I’m so superstitious that I might as well be Amma.

When it comes to naming your characters, what kind of process do you go through?

Margie: We have raided our family genealogy for generations, to begin with… But we also do lots of research on the meaning of the names.

Kami: We used French-Creole names for Lena’s family, and traditional or more obscure Southern names for the folks in Gatlin.

A little birdy told us that Beautiful Creatures has just been optioned by Warner Bros and is set to be made into a film. Can you confirm or deny this?

Margie: Was the little birdy named Variety? ☺

Kami: Yes. We are so thrilled that Warner Brothers optioned the film for a supremely talented writer/director, Richard LaGravenese, and a hugely capable producer, Erwin Stoff.

How much input/control will the two of you have (if any at all)?

Margie: When Richard and Erwin came into the picture, we knew we could trust them. Their track records speak for themselves.

Kami: And we knew Warner Brothers would be the perfect home for Beautiful Creatures. Really, we couldn’t be happier. We’ll stick to writing and leave the rest to them.

What’s in your to-be-read list at the moment?

Margie: I am just finishing a draft of a work in progress, the newest middle grade book by my old friend, Pseudonymous Bosch. He’s the Roald Dahl of my generation, I adore him.

Kami: I am completely in love with the draft of Holly Black’s WHITE CAT, which I’m reading for the second time. Her new Curse Workers series is going to be huge! And I just finished her short story collection, POISON EATERS.

What are your all time fave YA novels?

Margie: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee. In case you couldn’t tell…

Kami: Well, she took my favorite. After TKM, it would be THE OUTSIDERS by S.E. Hinton & FREAK THE MIGHTY by Rodman Philbrick.

Is it true that this series is set to be a five-book series?

Margie: We are just finishing our sequel now.

Kami: It comes out this same time next year. We are really excited about it!

Can you tell us anything about the next instalment?

Margie: Mortal danger. True love. Broken hearts.

Kami: Ethan and Lena are up against unbelievable odds. And there’s sweet tea.

You can keep up with Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl at www.BeautifulCreaturestheBook.com.

Join the BEAUTIFUL CREATURES US fansite at www.CasterGirls.com.

Visit Little, Brown’s Beautiful Creatures website at
www.SomeLovesAreCursed.com.

As part of our Book of the Month promotion for September, we’re giving away one hardcover copy of Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater and one audiobook of the same title.

Just to clarify that we’re all on the same page here, there will be two winners for this competition – one will receive the book and the other will receive the audiobook. Please don’t ask for one or the other as we’ll be drawing this one via an online randomiser. We believe that this is the fairest method in circumstances like these.

Competition is open until Wednesday September 30, and is – unfortunately – open to US residents only.

Fans of teen vampire fiction are going to love this contest. Thanks to Little Brown UK we have four of the House of Night novels to giveaway to one lucky winner. Unfortunately, we’re not in posession of the entire series, but the titles we are offering are:

To win one of these awesome prize packs you need to do one or more of the following:

• Comment on this post with your email address.
• Post about the contest on your blog
• Leave a link on your sidebar telling people about the contest
• Add yareads.com to your blogroll (if you don’t have a blog, you can link to us on your myspace,facebook, other forums, etc…)
• Post about the competition on Twitter

Leave a comment on this post outlining exactly how many of the above options you participated in with the link/s for proof. If you’re not comfortable displaying your email in public, you can send us your email address at yareadscontest(at)gmail(dot)com.

Each option will get you a new entry.

Competition closes Friday July 31.

This just in, straight from Richelle’s blog:

Turns out I have a bit of news for those of you who live in Oregon. I will be doing a signing at Escape Fiction, a bookstore in Salem (3240 Triangle Dr SE), on July 18 from 12-2. That’s a Saturday, and I’ll be with the other Seattle-area authors if you’d like to meet them: Mark Henry, Caitlin Kittredge, Cherie Priest, and Kat Richardson. So, if that’s in your vicinity, I hope you’ll come on down to chat and get books signed.

I have this feeling that I might get some comments from people wanting to know why not Portland. Well, this is kind of a thing the whole group threw together, and Escape Fiction was the store that invited us. Also, I was just in Portland in May–so I gave you guys some love! It’s funny, whenever I post new signing dates and locations, I often get people wanting to know why I can’t come to X place. What’s particularly interesting is that I’ll get people who are new blog readers asking me to visit places I was actually at within the last couple months.

So, for those who aren’t familiar with where I’ve been and think I’m missing certain cities, I thought I’d give you a list of the places I visited in the last year: New York, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Portland, Phoenix, Orlando, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, and of course, Seattle. So, I’ve made some rounds, and while my publisher sends me back to some repeat cities, we also try to get to new places, which is why my tour schedule looks the way it does

Click here to link to Richelle’s blog.

In case you don’t know, Richelle Mead is the author of the ever popular Vampire Academy series. The fourth book in the series, Blood Promise, is scheduled for release in August 2009. Fans will be happy to know that she’s embarking on a book tour throughout America and Australia. Here are her tour dates and locations:

August 25—Seattle, WA
August 26—Los Angeles, CA (Upland)
August 27—San Francisco, CA
August 28—Denver/Boulder, CO
August 29—Houston and Austin, TX
August 31—Detroit, MI (Birmingham)
September 1—Chicago, IL (Naperville)
September 2—Lexington, KY
September 3—Alpharetta, GA
September 4-7—Atlanta, GA (DragonCon)
September 8—Baltimore, MD (Ellicott City)
September 9—Washington, DC (Fairfax, VA)
September 10—Boston, MA (Burlington)
September 12-19—Australia (Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney) Schedule TBA

For Ever, life at Laguna Beach is anything but sun, fun and living the Californian dream. Ever hides her slimline figure and pretty face under baggy jeans and hooded sweatshirts so she doesn’t attract any unwanted attention, or any attention at all, in fact. You see, Ever is in mourning. She lost her entire family in a car accident the year before and doesn’t think she deserves the second chance she was offered. Why not her? Why them? Why did they have to leave her behind like this?

To make things even more traumatic, Ever is seeing the ghost of her dead sister everywhere. They’re even having conversations. It’s a comfort for Ever, though, because it almost feels like Riley is still alive – even if she is in the whispy, non-corporeal sense. Something else is happening to Ever, too. She’s developed a kind of psychic power where she can see into people’s minds. But Ever knows it’s not polite to wade through people’s privacy like that so she does very little with her gift.

But then Damon comes along and things start to change. For one, she can’t see inside his mind at all, which is very strange indeed. But it’s more than that. Something about Damon is off. Ever notices this straight away but can’t seem to put her finger on it. The more time she spends with him, the more her imagination gets carried away and suddenly she finds herself contemplating all kinds of crazy things about him.

Damon is totally not what he seems. Or at least, he’s not what Noel wants you to think he is. He’s old – very old, in fact – he drinks a red substance straight from a glass at dinner, he keeps disappearing, he’s got loads of money, and he’s got books signed by authors that died a century ago. Sounds familiar, huh?

Well sorry to disappoint, but Damon is no vampire. He’s just a guy that has lived for a helluva long time. And apart from the mind reading stuff, his tricks are limited and fairly unimpressive. He’s not running from a big bad (not really) and he’s not a threat to Ever in any way. Where oh where is the conflict, I ask? This is no forbidden romance guys, so don’t go into it thinking it’s going to be all hopeless like Romeo and Juliet. It’s not. Not even close.

I know that there are hoards of girls out there that really got into this novel, but I found Ever so irrational and so whiny that being inside her head was just annoying. As I sit here and type this, I’m strapping on my protective armour and picking up my sword, because I know I’m going to offend masses of readers when I say that this book was average. In fact, I think the best thing about it is the beautiful cover art. I put it down three times before I forced myself to pick it up and keep reading. It took foooooorreeeeevvveerrrrrrrr to get started.

Having said that, I didn’t hate it, but I most certainly didn’t love it. I’m not even quite sure I liked it. If someone handed me the second one, I’d read it (or I’d at least give it a chance) out of sheer curiosity. But I’m hoping someone I know has a copy because I’m not forking out my hard earned dollars to acquire it.

On a final note I would like to ask why everyone is comparing this to Twilight? Why are people comparing every single novel that comes out these days to Twilight? There are no vampires present within the pages of Evermore, and the love story that plays out between Damon and Ever bares no resemblance to that of Bella and Edward. So I ask you, why oh why is this being compared to Twilight? In my personal opinion, the two don’t even really belong in the same genre. My two cents, though, and I’m sure others will have much to say about the issue.

Rating: :

Seth wasn’t trying to pretend things were all right.

“I don’t know what happened between you two before tonight but I can probably guess…”

The look Keenan gave him confirmed Seth’s fears.

“Right. Here’s the thing. If she chooses to give you more than her friendship, it’ll suck for me. Probably how you feel now.”

Keenan was motionless, but it was much the same way that caged lions became motionless – sizing you up for weakness. For all their feigning humanity, faeries were something Other. Aislinn was Other, and the longer she was with them, the further away from mortal normalcy she would be.

And from me.

If you liked Wicked Lovely and Ink Exchange then you’re going to love this.

Aislinn is Seth’s world. Before Ash came along, Seth never pegged himself for the couple-type. He’d always been happy to cruise along and engage in a little no-strings-attached kind of fun when it suited him. But Ash changed all that. Changed him. Now Ash is Seth’s whole world. She is his everything and he can’t bear the thought of losing her. But as Ash falls further into her role as queen of the Summer Court, it’s a thought that he’s entertained more than once. He can see the connection between his girlfriend and the king of the Summer Court – Keenan – growing stronger the more summer approaches.

And Keenan has noticed, too. Keenan notices nothing but Ash. He watches her every move, doesn’t miss a single bat of her eyelid. The fact that Ash is still with Seth is killing Keenan. He swears his romantic interest in Ash is for the betterment of the court only, but that doesn’t exactly make it any easier for Seth. If Keenan keeps pushing Ash, keeps testing the boundaries with her, will she give into his charming ways? Seth, being the smart, savvy guy that he is, knows all too well that if he doesn’t act now, he’s going to lose his girl.

You won’t believe what he does…

And what about Donia? Poor Don and Keenan have been trying to work things out for ages. Are they ever going to get their stuff sorted, or will Ash and the whole court rivalry thing going to keep them apart always? Donia is one feisty chick that you don’t want to put off side. Is Keenan smart enough to see that, or will he put himself, his queen and his entire court in danger because of his blindness?

I couldn’t possibly write a review of Fragile Eternity without throwing a shout out to Niall. Although his role is sort of secondary, he still manages to throw his bad ass self around, making sure that everyone knows that he’s one fey not to be messed with. Niall’s protectiveness over Seth is more than a little endearing and I can’t help but wonder if perhaps the strength of their relationship that we saw in this novel is a taste of wicked things to come…

Niall, ruler of the Dark Court, you rock my socks off. I can’t wait for more action from you in the future.

Melissa Marr’s faery world is one I love to get lost in. Seth, Aislinn and Keenan are all so alive and real in my heart that I can feel Keenan’s jealousy pulling at my insides, hear Ash’s tears as she weeps for her lost love, and see the desperation painted on Seth’s face as he watches his lover engage with another. The words flow effortlessly across the page and paint a picture so beautiful that its hard to believe they’re just words. There’s not one single part of Fragile Eternity that I didn’t love. The character development is mind blowing, the twists and turns are both tiny and ginormous (and totally surprising, let me add) and even though nothing goes the way I want it to, as I turned the last page I still had a huge smile on my face.

I think the divide between Team Seth fans and Team Keenan devotees will become clearer than ever now. While Melissa Marr lays out a pretty solid case for both her boys, if you were sitting on the fence before Fragile Eternity, I’m willing to lay money on it that you wont be at the end. And I reckon it will be a pretty easy choice, too.

Totally and absolutely brilliant in every possible way!

Rating: :