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I'm in Dallas today and getting ready for the YA Spooky Slumber Party tonight at Romantic Times!
I've got my fuzzy slippers all ready.
And I've got my I HAVE A COMPULSION FOR READING pajama shirt. (Okay, it doubles as a T-shirt, and I'll be giving some of them away tonight, at my Club RT appearances, and at
Teen Day on Saturday, so if you want one, stop by!)
Mainly, I'm looking forward to hanging out with readers and with authors, many of whom I'm going to be fangirling over like crazy. One of those is Kami Garcia, part of the super-dynamic team whose
Beautiful Creatures got me started thinking about Southern Gothics for teens and inspired
Compulsion.
Last year, Kami and Margaret came out with
Dangerous Creatures, a new spin-off series about one of my favorite characters in
Beautiful Creatures, Ridley Duchannes. The sequel,
Dangerous Deception, comes out next week!
Want a sneak peek? Here are a few of Kami's favorite things:- Favorite lollipop flavor? Cherry... of course.
- Favorite band? Black Sabbath & Soundgarden
- Favorite place in New York? Anywhere with good pizza.
- Favorite character in Dangerous Deception or the series? Sampson
- Favorite food in New Orleans? Beignets from Cafe Du Monde & Crawfish Étouffée
This Week's Giveaway
Dangerous Creaturesby Kami GarciaSigned HardcoverLittle, Brown Books for Young ReadersReleased 5/20/2014From the world of Beautiful Creatures-a dangerous new tale of love and magic.Ridley Duchannes is nobody's heroine. She's a Dark Caster, a Siren. She can make you do things. Anything. You can't trust her, or yourself when she's around. And she'll be the first to tell you to stay away-especially if you're going to do something as stupid as fall in love with her.
Lucky for Ridley, her wannabe rocker boyfriend, Wesley "Link" Lincoln, never listens to anyone. Link doesn't care if Rid's no good for him, and he takes her along when he leaves small-town Gatlin to follow his rock-star dream. He teams up with a ragtag group of Dark Casters, and when the band scores a gig at a hot Underground club, it looks like all of Link's dreams are about to come true.
But New York City is a dangerous place for both Casters and Mortals, and soon Ridley realizes that Link's bandmates are keeping secrets. With bad-boy club owner Lennox Gates on her heels, Rid is determined to find out the truth. What she discovers is worse than she could have imagined: Link has a price on his head that no Caster or Mortal can ever pay. With their lives on the line, what's a Siren to do?
Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, the #1
New York Times bestselling coauthors of the Beautiful Creatures novels, are back to cast another magical spell. Their signature blend of mystery, suspense, and romance, with a healthy dose of wit and danger, will pull fans in and leave them begging for more.
Purchase Dangerous Creatures at AmazonPurchase Dangerous Creatures at IndieBoundView Dangerous Creatures on Goodreads
Dangerous Deceptionby Kami GarciaHardcoverLittle, Brown Books for Young ReadersReleased 5/19/2015From the world of Beautiful Creatures--a dangerous new tale of love and magic continues in the sequel to Dangerous Creatures.
Love is ten kinds a crazy, right?
Let me put it to you this way: If you can get away, run. Don't walk.
Because once you're exposed, you'll never get a Siren outta your head.
Some loves are cursed. Others are...dangerous. Especially the love between wannabe rocker and quarter Incubus, Wesley "Link" Lincoln, and Dark Caster, Siren, and bonafide bad girl, Ridley Duchannes.
But now Ridley is missing, and Link was with her-right up until she vanished. Determined to find her, Link reunites with his New York bandmates and the mysterious Lennox Gates, who wants Rid for himself. Together they travel to the deep south, find the crossroads where blues guitarist Robert Johnson made his deal with the devil, discover a menagerie of Casters locked in cages, and uncover an evil in New Orleans that threatens to destroy them all.
This time, love might not be enough.
Purchase Dangerous Deception at AmazonPurchase Dangerous Deception at IndieBoundView Dangerous Deception on GoodreadsSound great, don't they?
Do you love southern books and characters as much as I do? What do you love most?
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Kami Garcia is the New York Times best-selling coauthor of Beautiful Creatures & Dangerous Creatures novels and the author of the instant New York Times bestseller and Bram Stroker nominated novel Unbreakable and the sequel Unmarked, in the Legion Series.
SCBWI was the first professional conference she ever attended.
Kami became a writer accidentally. During a fantasy-book club meeting with her students, they shared what they wanted in a book. Kami then discussed
this her friend, Margaret Stohl, over tacos, and they brainstormed the story. With a dare, and interested teens pushing them along, they finished the story.
The coauthors didn't think of it as a book, they thought of it as a story. They planned to put it up online for people to read. Free.
Thankfully the two received some advice to put on the brakes, and ended up with some help along the way. Unexpectedly, they had an agent, Beautiful Creatures was going to auction, and many crazy successes followed.
So often with books, it's not just having a good book, it's timing, being in the right place at the right time.
The reason it worked? Kami believes she and her coauthor would never have written the book if they wrote it to be published. That gave them the freedom to break a lot of rules. And they did.
Writing her own book proved more difficult because now she was writing for money.
What Kami knew was that finding the right book at the right time can save a life. It was the Outsiders for her.
As Kami works on her next book, she doesn't know if it's what her publisher or editor will like or want, but she hope that it might be that right book for a reader.
Need some pep in your step? Every year, the organizers behind National Novel Writing Month reach out to authors to write “pep talks” so that participants can turn to a source of encouragement as they work on this daunting task.
Some of the writers who have contributed essays this year include Divergent trilogy author Veronica Roth, 250 Things You Should Know About Writing author Chuck Wendig, and Beautiful Creatures series co-author Kami Garcia (pictured, via). Here’s an excerpt from Garcia’s piece:
“Give your friend Doubt a name, and then block his calls. I’m not a fast writer. I type with three fingers, and there’s a video on YouTube to prove it. The way I finish my novels is one word at a time. Don’t focus on 50,000 words or 30 days. Just write one word at a time, and focus on hitting your word-count goal one day at a time.”
This is our second NaNoWriMo Tip of the Day. To help GalleyCat readers take on the challenge of writing a draft for a 50,000-word novel in a single month, we will be offering advice throughout the entire month.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
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Bianca Schulze,
on 5/1/2014
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For picture book fans there's a new Charlie the Ranch Dog book from Ree Drummond, and Tad Hills has the bestselling duo Duck & Goose featuring in a book perfect for some pre-summer reading. Middle Graders have more from The 39 Clues and How to Train Your Dragon series, while teens can indulge in Kami Garcia's Dangerous Creatures.
Authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl will reunite as collaborators on a new young adult series.
The new Dangerous Creatures series stars Link and Ridley, two characters who were originally introduced in the Beautiful Creatures series.
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers will launch the series on December 17, 2013 with the publication of a digital novella titled Dangerous Dream. The project will bridge the two series.
continued…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
By:
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on 9/5/2013
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This month's best selling kids series books are ...
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Beautiful Creaturesis narrated by Ethan Wate, a golden boy of Gatlin but perhaps the only person in town who dreams of leaving. Lena Duchannes is the beautiful, mysterious, new-to-town leading lady with a troubled past, present, and future. But the star, the heart, the – yup, I’m saying it – meat and potatoes of the story is Amma, and she’s the one I’m most excited to see come to life on the big screen.*
We all wish we had an Amma watching over us in both the real and mystical senses, doling out wisdom sometimes in cryptic phrases, sometimes in crossword answers delivered one deliberate letter at a time, and often followed by covertly-placed, hand-crafted dolls, charms, or other spiritual tokens.
But you know I love her most because she dishes out meals as fortifying as her advice.
For breakfast she serves Ethan fried eggs, bacon, buttered toast, and grits. And that’s not just for the first day of school; the next day it’s eggs over easy, biscuits and gravy.
For dinner there’s fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, string beans, biscuits, and even buttermilk pie on a regular old weeknight! Then comes pulled pork with Gatlin’s own Carolina Gold mustard barbeque sauce.**
Hold. The. Phone. Amma doesn’t make her own sauce? From scratch? I can’t believe it.
Which is ironic, because I blindly accept that the green-eyed girl Ethan’s been dreaming about for months just miraculously showed up in his town, a place where a new girl hasn’t appeared since he was in 3rdgrade. And I don’t flinch when I learn that this new Miss Lena Duchannes not only smells like Ethan’s lemon- and rosemary-scented dream girl, but that she’s been dreaming of him, too. Mystical powers, telepathy, even a secret library – I find myself believing it all because, well, it’s just delicious. ;)
*Of course I timed this review with next week’s premiere of the film adaptation!
**In case you were wondering, Carolina Gold is a real gourmet barbeque sauce made from a recipe passed down since Colonial times.
By: Casey (The Bookish Type),
on 8/14/2011
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There was a curse. There was a girl.
And in the end, there was a grave.
I never even saw it coming. Ethan Wate is haunted by nightmares of a beautiful girl who slips through his fingers every time -- but even in his wildest imaginings, he never thought his dream girl was real. Until she moved to town, that is. Lena Duchannes is the troubled niece of Gatlin's very own hermit, and as a result she's instantly shunned by the entire town. Except for Ethan. Ethan is determined to learn the truth about the centuries-old secret that bound his fate to Lena and her tangled family tree. Unfortunately, the path to answers ends in a single grave.
Beautiful Creatures is a haunting Gothic tale of secrets and blood bargains, set in a Southern town too small to contain it. The town of Gatlin is its own character in the story, an insular, small-minded community full of DAR debutantes and legendary shut-ins. Though it was rather over-the-top, this intense characterization provides a vivid backdrop for a timeless tale of star-crossed love. The creepy nightmares and eerie melodies that open the novel suck readers in, piquing their interest with a foreboding air.
Unfortunately, I had a hard time connecting with Ethan and Lena. Ethan prides himself on his dreams of leaving the boondocks, his college brochures and map of faraway places -- yet he never actually stands apart from the small town crowd until Lena comes along. Suddenly, Ethan is ready to cast off the clique into which he's been assimilated, risking it all for a girl he doesn't even know. Likewise, Lena was hard to get a handle on. Though she is the powerful one in this relationship, she still comes across as weak -- in need of her white knight to comfort her and chase the demons away. The two teens instantly fall in love, for no apparent reason. Though I expected a supernatural explanation at some point in the story, one never came.
Nonetheless, the secondary characters were a treat.
Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl give special attention to the creation of Gatlin's quirkier inhabitants. First, there's Amma, Ethan's voodoo psychic housekeeper and stand-in mother. Amma is an admirably strong woman who taught Ethan to stand up for what he believes in, a combination cookie-baking grandma and military general. Then there are the Sisters, Ethan's older-than-dirt, borderline insane aunts. They will keep readers laughing with their off-the-wall and lightning-fast banter, and strangely reminded me of the Fates. Finally, there's Macon Ravenwood, the town's resident recluse who is actually more Rhett Butler than Boo Radley. Macon is a mystery, cloaked in shadow and secrets. He is fierce in his family loyalty, as well as in his devotion to his niece Lena -- but you wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alleyway.
Beautiful Creatures is a dark and stormy (quite literally) tale that will keep readers guessing until the very end, as past and present collide in unnerving visions of doomed lovers more than a century before. This first installment only hints at the vast world of monsters and magic hidden beneath the human veneer of Gatlin. This is a world in which anything is possible, and Garcia and Stohl take that to the extreme -- weaving together ghosts and the gothic, curses and visions in a spell-binding tale readers will hate to see end.
Rating: 
17 Comments on
Review: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl & Giveaway, last added: 8/15/2011
Garcia’s ‘Legion’ Heads to LBBYR… and Hollywood
“Kami Garcia, coauthor of the bestselling YA series Beautiful Creatures, sold the first two books in a new series, called the Legion, to Julie Scheina at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Scheina bought North American rights to Unbreakable and Unbound from Jodi Reamer at Writers House; the series is set to launch in fall 2013. The first book, Unbreakable, is also already in development in Hollywood with producer Mark Morgan (the Twilight Saga and Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief) attached… LBBYR called the series a “frightening and thrilling urban fantasy’”full of “suspense, romance, and dark paranormal forces.”
Are you curious yet? Here’s a preview:
Kennedy Waters’ entire life changes when she finds her mother dead and discovers she is a member of a secret society formed two hundred years ago to protect the world from a powerful demon determined to find a way out of his dimension and into ours, and from the dangerous spirits he controls.
Wow, awesome news! I'm a huge Beautiful Creatures fan; I love Kami and Margie's writing, and cannot wait to read their solo projects! Remember, Margie also sold her new
YA Sci-Fi series to LB. These ladies are taking new paths, and I'm sure they'll do great in their new projects.
Good luck, Kami!
By: James Preller,
on 4/28/2011
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This is amazing good news. Great news, in fact. I’m happy and proud to say that my book, Bystander, is included on the ballot for the 2012 New York State Reading Association Charlotte Award.
To learn more about the award, and to download a ballot or bookmark, please click here.
The voting is broken down into four categories and includes forty books. Bystander is in the “Grades 6-8/Middle School” category. Really, it’s staggering. There are ten books in this category out of literally an infinity of titles published each year. You do the math, people.
For more background stories on Bystander — that cool inside info you can only find on the interwebs! — please click here (bully memory) and here (my brother John) and here (Nixon’s dog, Checkers) and here (the tyranny of silence).
Below please find all the books on the ballot — congratulations, authors & illustrators! I’m honored to be in your company.
-
GRADES pre K-2/PRIMARY
Bubble Trouble . . . Margaret Mahy/Polly Dunbar
City Dog, Country Frog . . . Mo Willems/Jon J Muth
Clever Jack Takes the Cake . . . Candace Fleming/G. Brian Karas
Lousy Rotten Stinkin’ Grapes . . . Margie Palatini/Barry Moser
Memoirs of a Goldfish . . . Devin Scillian/Tim Bower
Otis . . . Loren LongStars Above Us . . . Geoffrey Norman/E.B. Lewis
That Cat Can’t Stay . . . Thad Krasnesky/David Parkins
Turtle, Turtle, Watch Out! . . . April Pulley Sayre/Annie Patterson
We Planted a Tree . . . Diane Muldrow/Bob Staake
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GRADES 3-5/INTERMEDIATE
The Can Man . . . Laura E. Williams/Craig Orback L
Emily’s Fortune . . . Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Family Reminders . . .
I found this on the Figment blog, and thought it was hilarious! I wanted to share it with you, so here it is!
10. If a mysterious stranger in town suddenly appears in your dreams – or if your dream stranger suddenly appears in your town – you may have gone Southern Gothic.
9. If you move into the abandoned plantation house on the outskirts of town – or wish there was an abandoned plantation house on the outskirts of town – or wish your town had outskirts or inskirts or any kind of skirts at all – you may have gone Southern Gothic.
8. If you find yourself eyeing the rebellious, dark-eyed, new boy/girl, and suppressing the urge to climb to the top of the Summerville water tower with him/her, you may have gone Southern Gothic.
7. If you hang out in graveyards for fun – and in particular, talk to the people who live there – and more importantly, if they talk back – you may have gone Southern Gothic.
6. If you read tealeaves or chicken bones, stick bottles on the tree in your front yard, or line your windowsills with salt, you may have gone Southern Gothic.
5. If you named your wooden kitchen spoon – say, for example, the One-Eyed Menace – and use it for more powerful, elemental transformations than bringing the Chili-ghetti to a boil – you may have gone Southern Gothic.
4. If you use the term “Mortal” to describe some of your friends the way someone else might say “Canadian,” “Yankee,” or “Blonde,” you may have gone Southern Gothic.
3. If magical, angst-ridden poetry begins appearing on your walls – whether or not you wrote it – you may have gone Southern Gothic. (Ditto music magically appearing on iPod, pages magically turning in a book, or rooms magically rearranging themselves.)
2. If you start pining away for this or that or the other and nobody understands, you may have gone Southern Gothic.
1. If you find yourself falling in love before first sight, it’s too late. You’re full on, full-blown Southern Gothic. So pour yourself some sweet tea, go out on the veranda and sit for a spell. You’ll be fine so long as you keep reading.
Good Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.
Ethan has lived in the same small Southern town all his life and longs to escape. The town is full of people whose ancestors have been there since before the Civil War (known to the younger generation as the War Between The States and to the older residents as The War Of Northern Aggression). The school is full of the standard cheerleaders and sports players and there are only two small places to hang out after school.
Now there's a new girl in town. Lena is beautiful and intelligent and, naturally, gets on the wrong side of the cheerleaders, as heroines tend to do in these novels, but even the boys are avoiding her, because she is the niece of "Old Man Ravenwood", the town recluse.
Ethan is in love. But Lena is under a curse, caused by an ancestress who made a huge mistake - a curse that will take effect on her sixteenth birthday. Or perhaps it won't; her family is magically gifted and has been for centuries, but nobody knows what will happen on their birthday, what gift they will have or even whether they will become good or evil.
The days are passing, and unless Ethan and Lena can find out the truth about the beginning of the curse in time, they may not have a future together at all.
This is just the sort of novel teenagers are likely to devour. Despite the standard stuff about sixteenth birthdays and curses and horrible cheerleaders and evil, it has a few original touches. The story is seen from the boy's viewpoint and the girl's family aren't vampires. And nobody tries to persuade you there's anything scientific about it. The family is magical and there's a curse, right? Simple!
The book is thoroughly entertaining. I look forward to putting it into my library and watching the fighting over who gets to read it first.
It helps that one of the authors' Kami Garcia, has worked with teenagers.
Back in December, the kidlitosphere was all abuzz with talk of Beautiful Creatures [full disclosure: the publisher Little, Brown is a sponsor of Ypulse.com], a debut novel from Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl and the first in the author duo's... Read the rest of this post
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By:
Lizzy Burns,
on 12/6/2009
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The William C. Morris YA Debut Award "honors a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens and celebrating impressive new voices in young adult literature." The Morris Award Committee announces the shortlist in December; which means we know the five finalists, so have plenty of time to read them all prior to the announcement of the winner on January 18 at the Youth Media Awards press conference.
This is the second year for the Morris Award; last year's winner was A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce.
From the Morris Award webpage: "This supernatural novel retells the story of Rumpelstiltskin, setting it at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and centering it around the life of Charlotte Miller. When the bank wants to repossess her mortgaged mill, Charlotte strikes a bargain with the mysterious Jack Spinner, (a creature who knows the art of turning straw into gold), but then discovers she must free her loved ones from a generations-old curse.
At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, Charlotte Miller strikes a bargain with the malevolent Jack Spinner, who can transform straw into gold, to save her family’s mill. With masterly writing and vivid characterization and setting, Bunce weaves a powerfully seductive tale of triumph over evil.
“Bunce has crafted a story that superbly embodies the criteria for this award. Her work is compelling and has broad teen appeal,” said Chair Bonnie Kunzel. “Thoughtful reflection and spirited discussion characterized this outstanding committee’s work as its members selected a shortlist that honors the influence of William C. Morris on the field of young adult publishing.”"
The five finalists for the Morris Award are:
Ash
by Malinda Lo.
From my review:
"This retelling unfolds slowly, deliciously. It's an internal story; a story about Ash grieving the loss of her parents, shutting down from it, and eventually choosing life and love. This is a tale about recovering from grief and unbearable loss. . . . Take note, librarians and teachers looking for a great book with both literary merit and one that encourages deep discussion; you'll want this one."
Beautiful Creatures
by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. Little Brown. Publication Date December 2009. Reviewed from ARC supplied by publisher. Official Book Website.
The Plot:
Ethan Wate wants out of his small, sleepy, South Carolina town, where nothing ever changes and only "the stupid and the stuck" stay. It's a town where any "new girl" is the subject of much attention. All the more so when the new girl is Lena Duchannes, niece of Old Man Ravenwood, the town recluse who lives in a run-down plantation house. She is pale in a town where the girls are tan; wears black; and has numbers scrawled on her hands. Weird; but Ethan cannot stop thinking about her, even dreaming about her.
Odd thing is; the dreams started even before she moved to town.
The Good:
There are family trees. More than one. There are certain types of readers who, just knowing this, will put this on their TBR list.
The tricky thing about reviewing a book like this -- a book that is about secrets -- is figuring out just how much, if any, of the secrets to reveal. On the one hand, readers like to discover things for themselves as they read the book; on the other hand, one or two of those secrets may need to be told up front, because they could be the reason a reader wants to read the book. For example, in my review of Carrie Ryan's The Forest of Hands and Teeth, I said "zombies". So here I will say "supernatural" and "witches" (er, "casters" is the preferred term in Beautiful Creatures.)
Now that I've given that away, this is a lushly written Southern Gothic tale, with family and town secrets, and teens discovering that the world is not what they thought it was. It's not just finding out that the supernatural is real; it's learning that trusted adults have kept secrets. And then trying to figure out what to do about it; and trying to take charge of your future when everyone is telling you that future is set in stone.
I won't say this is the next Twilight
(because I'm scared of Carlie and she hates reviews that do that.). I will say that this has several elements that will appeal to those who liked Twilight: an against-the-odds, everything-is-working-at-keeping-them-apart romantic pairing; a unique author(s) created supernatural mythology built around "casters"; a setting (Gatlin, SC) that is as much
Title: Beautiful Creatures
Authors: Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
US Release date: December 1, 2009
Summary (from Amazon.com): Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever. Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them. In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.
Why I'm interested: Well, I've spent a fair amount of time reading Kami Garcia's and Maragert Stohl's blogs, and I can say that if Beautiful Creatures is even half as interesting as they appear to be, it'll be pretty darn interesting. And as I've mentioned with a few other of my Waiting on Wednesday picks, I adore old houses and history and a bit of mystery, so this looks great. Plus I cannot wait to know what the powerful secret is.
What's your selection this week?
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I'm looking forward to watching this movie too, though I haven't read the book :)