Charlie

Beautiful Darkness

Hot on the heels of Charleston’s wildly successful Capital Bookfest, two more New York Times best selling literati arrive in the Holy City this week, Beautiful Darkness authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.

The Los Angeles duo, who’ve set their southern gothic series in fictional Gatlin, South Carolina, are thrilled to be returning to Charleston. “The South is about magic,” says Stohl. Which is one of the many reasons they set the series here.

But, let’s back up a tick. Stohl and Garcia never planned to have the book published. “We met years ago when I taught Margi’s daughters,” says Garcia. The women became fast friends and quickly bonded over their shared love of sci-fi and fantasty fiction.

“Margi was screen writing for video games and I was a reading teacher tutoring high school English,” says Garcia. “We spent all this time reading the same books, then we’d have these conversations and tear them apart.” Listening to their students and children, the two realized there was something missing in the fantasy genre – books from a male perspective that had a strong female protagonist.

“We kept saying, ‘Why has no one written from a male point of view? It can’t be that hard,’” says Garcia. So they decided to write one themselves.

“I went home and told my kids that Kami and I were going to write a book,” says Stohl, “and they told me, ‘ya, right Mom, you never finish anything.’” That did it. “I was like, ‘Oh man, it’s on.’ I called up Kami and said, ‘we’re totally doing this now!’ And we did.”

Writing a chapter a piece, the twosome fielded plot changes and character descriptions by their kids who worked as a kind of mini market research group. “We wrote it like serialized fiction and finished it in 12 weeks,” says Garcia.

Getting it published was a matter of serendipity.

“We realized all these kids are enjoying it. I said, ‘oh my gosh, we can make a website.’” says Garcia. “So Margi tells her friend, the author of the Secret Series who she’s been friends with since 8th grade, that we want to make a website and…”

“Well, he sent it to his agent,”  Stohl chimes in. “The agent sent it out, sold it, and that’s it.”

The book has become an international hit and the women field emails from fans all over the world. “The fans not only love the characters and the fantasy, but they also love the setting.” Garcia and Stohl say it’s the charm of the south that makes the story come to life for readers and since they have two more books in the series yet to come out, this visit to Charleston will serve as another opportunity to pick up more tidbits of inspiration for their next book.

“We love walking around Charleston and taking pictures. The cemetery in Beautiful Creatures is one we saw in Charleston,” says Garcia. The duo plan to eat their way through the city and find new recipes to include in the book as well. “We had a person from Germany email the other day asking us for the Coca Cola Pie recipe from Jestine’s,” says Garcia.

So get yourself to the book signing. Because #TeamEdward is about to become #TeamEthan.

Meet Stohl and Garcia at the Beautiful Darkness book signing at Blue Bicycle Books this Friday, Nov. 12, 4 – 6 pm.

Story by: Kinsey Gidick