I pulled my iPod out of my pocket and turned it on. There was a new song on the playlist.
I stared at it for a long time.
Seventeen Moons.
I clicked on it.
Seventeen moons, seventeen years,
Eyes where Dark or Light appears,
Gold for yes and green for no,
Seventeen the last to know.
Acknowledgments
IT ONLY TOOK THREE MONTHS to write the first draft of Beautiful Creatures. Turns out, the writing was the easy part. The getting it right part was harder, and took the help of a lot more people. Here is the Beautiful Creatures family tree:
RAPHAEL SIMON & HILARY REYL
Who saw it before there was anything to see
SARAH BURNES, OF THE GERNERT COMPANY,
AGENT EXTRAORDINAIRE
Who read it & got it from the start
COURTNEY GATEWOOD,
OF THE GERNERT COMPANY, AGENT 007
Who got it across the pond & beyond
JENNIFER HUNT & JULIE SCHEINA
LITTLE, BROWN’S MERCILESSLY GENIUS EDITORIAL TEAM
Who made us sweat & cry until we got it right
DAVE CAPLAN, OUR TALENTED AND PSYCHIC DESIGNER
Who created the road to Ravenwood just as we imagined it
MATTHEW CHUPACK
Who translated our Pig Latin into actual Latin
ALEX HOERNER, PHOTOGRAPHER TO THE STARS (AND US)
Who made us look good without any Casting
OUR NORTH CAROLINA RELATIVES, ESPECIALLY
HAYWOOD AINSLEY EARLY, GENEALOGIST
Who helped us plant our family trees
& ANNA GATLIN HARMON,
OUR FAVORITE DAUGHTER OF THE CONFEDERACY
Who lent us her maiden name & kept us talkin’ right
AND OUR READERS:
HANNAH, ALEX C, TORI, YVETTE, SAMANTHA, MARTINE, JOYCE,
OSCAR, DAVID, ASH, VIRGINIA, JEAN X 2, KERRI, DAVE,
MADELINE, PHILLIP, DEREK, ERIN, RUBY,
AMANDA, & MARCOS
Whose wanting to know what happened next
changed what happened next
ASHLY, AKA TEENAGE VAMPIRE QUEEN
SUSAN & JOHN, ROBERT & CELESTE, BURTON & MARE
Who listened & cheered us on, as they have our whole lives
MAY & EMMA
Who stayed home from school twice to edit out the cheese,
& who figured out the missing bit of the end,
as only a 13 & a 15 year old could
KATE P AND NICK & STELLA G
Who fell asleep every night to the sound of a laptop clicking
& OF COURSE,
ALEX & LEWIS
Who found all the holes
& made sure the universe didn’t fall through them,
who put up with all of the above
and then some.
About the Authors
Like Amma, KAMI GARCIA is very superstitious, and like any self-respecting girl with Southern roots, she makes her biscuits by hand and her pies from scratch. She has relatives in the Daughters of the American Revolution, but has yet to participate in a reenactment herself. Kami attended George Washington University and has an MA in education. She is a teacher and reading specialist, and leads book groups for children and teenagers.
Like Lena, writing has gotten MARGARET STOHL in and out of trouble since she was fifteen. She has written and designed many popular video games, which is why her two bad beagles are named Zelda and Kirby. Margaret fell in love with American literature at Amherst and Yale, earned an MA in English from Stanford, and studied creative writing under poet George MacBeth at the University of East Anglia, Norwich.
KAMI AND MARGARET both live in Los Angeles, California, with their families. Beautiful Creatures is their debut novel. Kami and Margaret invite you to visit them online at www.kamigarciamargaretstohl.com.