I can still remember being 11 years old, walking into my Grade 6 classroom and noticing that one of my friends was holding a copy of a book I’d been seeing everywhere. When I asked her what Twilight was about, she responded,
“It’s about a girl who falls in love with a vampire.”
It sounds simple. Boring, even. But nonetheless intrigued, I went out and got myself a copy… and soon became hooked.
What I loved about reading Twilight as a budding teenager wasn’t necessarily the romance (it certainly had its issues, in hindsight).
It was more the fact that I found myself absolutely enthralled by the experience of this very average human, who somehow stumbled into this supernatural world that was hidden in her plain sight, and was let in on this massive, family secret that nobody else was special enough to know about.
Bella then goes on to be part of something so unreal, so unlike anything her peers are experiencing, and still manages to keep up the pretenses of a double life (sidenote: this is probably why I enjoyed Sailor Moon and The Vampire Diaries so much as well).
Honestly, I ate that shit up. This is an experience that I love in stories—I loved it about Splintered by A. G. Howard, I loved it about Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins, and I loved it about the Percy Jackson series.
And, I find it so unbelievably rare to come across in books nowadays—the concept that something can start out seemingly normal and unravel to reveal something strange, magical and wonderful.
I knew, even back then as a developing writer, that I wanted to tell stories like this and that it would make up a huge foundation for the types of stories I tell throughout my lifetime.
It feels in some ways like a forgotten art—maybe I’m just reading the wrong books, but everything I read now is either set in an already-established fantasy setting, or involves the protagonist getting transported there. I really love it when two worlds blend, or even layer themselves on top of our modern-day reality.
To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with stories set in pre-established worlds, but I’m a big believer in writing the kinds of books I want to read—and nobody’s writing them, so I’ll gladly take up that challenge!
When I wrote Kingdom of Sirens and Monsters, I really loved crafting the island setting in which the story starts out, and then slowly submerging readers into the Undersea—at first, through carefully sprinkled clues and hints, and then all at once as Coral discovers the three kingdoms, the magic system of the Undersea, and the beings that reside in each part of it. Even then, she’s able to balance her ‘normal’ life with her magical one, travelling from one to the other, and maintaining appearances on the island to everyone who isn’t closely involved in her family’s secrets.
And then, in Blood Magic, we have a french-inspired University campus that seems normal in every regard (aside from the vampires), until you get further and further into the book. Only then do you discover there are more magical beings on the campus, there are strange happenings afoot, and the whole town may not be what it seems.
If you enjoy stories like Twilight, or the other books I mentioned above, and for the reasons I mentioned in this article (as well as the romances, let’s be real!) then you may just love my books. You can learn more about each series here.
