about the book
After she finds her mother’s dead body, Kennedy Waters doesn’t realize that paranormal forces are at work. Not at first. She doesn’t believe in ghosts, after all.
Then one tries to kill her.
At the last moment, the mysterious identical twins Jared and Lukas Lockhart break into Kennedy’s house and destroy the spirit before it can harm her. They tell her that her mother’s death was not an accident. Kennedy’s mother was secretly part of a society called the Legion of the Black Dove—and now the Legion needs Kennedy to take her mother’s place.
So Kennedy goes from disbelieving in ghosts to being part of a secret society, now run by a collection of misfit teens, and dealing with ghosts for a living. As well as the handsome Lockhart twins, there is Alara, an expert in voodoo, and Priest, an engineer who seems able to make a weapon out of anything, even a soda can.
That leaves Kennedy with… what? She has no special talents or powers. Does she even belong in the Legion? Will she stay alive long enough to find out?
about the author
Though Kami Garcia grew up outside Washington DC, she is southern through and through. She remembers drinking lots of sweet tea and eating veggies cooked in bacon drippings.
With the heart of an emerging artist, she wore black and tons of rings and filled hundreds of journals with angst-riddled poems (the beginning of her writing career). Fascinated by the paranormal and very superstitious, she felt alone, different, and ugly.
Somehow she survived her teen years and went on to earn a master’s in education. She taught in the Washington DC area and in Los Angeles.
She had two sisters in her classes and met their mom, Margaret Stohl. Kami and Margaret became close friends, and at some point, Margaret’s two daughters and Kami’s teen sister issued a dare—write a book together!
Accepting the challenge, Kami and Margaret came up with a premise, characters, the beginning and an ending. Then passing drafts of chapters back and forth, literally writing over each other’s work, the two knocked out Beautiful Creatures in three months. Kami and Margaret never expected the book would ever be published, but it’s been a great success. The Beautiful Creatures series is in 48 countries and translated into 31 languages! And the film premiere was on February 13th, 2013!
Kami, who is also a professional artist, lives in Los Angeles with her husband, a son and a daughter, and two dogs, Spike and Oz. When she is not writing or teaching, Kami likes to watch disaster movies and eat pizza.
Sources:
Author profile : Dear Teen Me
Beautiful Creatures series website
Author biography : Goodreads
Author interview : Bullett Media
Also by Kami Garcia:
Unmarked (Legion, Book 2). Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. October 2014.
Beautiful Creatures : The Manga : 1 with Margaret Stohl. Yen Press. 2013.
Beautiful Redemption (Caster Chronicles, Book 4) with Margaret Stohl. Little, Brown and Company. 2012.
Beautiful Chaos (Caster Chronicles, Book 3) with Margaret Stohl. Little, Brown and Company. 2011.
Beautiful Darkness (Caster Chronicles, Book 2) with Margaret Stohl. Little, Brown and Company. 2010.
Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles, Book 1) with Margaret Stohl. Little, Brown and Company. 2009.
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