Carlos Ruiz Zafón was born in Barcelona, Spain, in 1964, but has lived in Los Angeles, CA, since 1994, working with what he loves most: writing and doing script work.

In 1993 he published his first book, an young adult novel full of fantasy and mystery, called The Prince of Mist (El Príncipe de la Niebla), after winning the Edebé Award, that would publish its first placed book. After that, Zafón was unsptoppable, with the publication of more books in The Prince of Mist’s series: The Midnight Palace (El palacio de la medianoche) on 1994 and Las luces de septiembre on 1995. The books were all published as an omnibus called La Trilogía de la Niebla.

During this years, he also published Marina, an young adult novel marked with his cleaver writting, as a stand-alone book. After that, Zafón’s books got a more serious tone to them, with the publication, on 2001, of The Shadow of the Wind, first book in The Cemetery of Forgotten Books series. The series are centered in darker themes and deeper characters, and got fans all around the world.

The second book on his new series, The Angel’s Game, was published on 2008, followed by The Prisioner of Heaven on 2011. He also published on 2012 a companion book called The Rose of Fire, taking place between the first and second book in The Cemetery series.

It’s easy to say that we are in love with Zafón’s writing here at Murphy’s Library, since the first single word we read of him! Let’s see what more he can give us, we can’t wait to put our hands on it.

Julie Kagawa was born in Sacramento, CA, on October 12, 1982. As a kid, she moved to Hawaii, where she fell in love with the ocean and the books.

When she needed to get a job, she tried her hand in bookstores, but soon found out that her talent for reading was a problem to the owners of the bookstores she tried to work, as she often read the book she should be putting on shelves. Dedicating her life to be a dogtrainer, her passion for writing still remained.

She got published for the first time in 2010, with the first book in The Iron Fey series, called The Iron King. Still on 2010, she published the novella Winter’s Passage and the second Iron Fey‘s book, The Iron Daughter. Her first series continued on 2011, with the publication of The Iron Queen, the novella Summer’s Crossing and the fourth book in the series, The Iron Knight. All her books were hits and known worldwide, with high rates on sites as Goodreads and Amazon.

In 2012 came the publication of two more book in the Iron Fey series: the novella Iron’s Prophecy and the book The Iron Legends. She also published the first book in the spin-off series The Iron Fey: Call of the Forgotten, a book called The Lost Prince.

A new series, centered on vampires, was also published. Blood of Eden first book, The Immortal Rules was a hit, and here at Murphy’s Library we fell in love with it. With more books to be published on 2013, as a new series that Julie has been talking about being on the making and with a movie deal in the way, we can expect to hear a lot more from Kagawa and her books. Let’s hope so.

This time we decided to change this post a little bit, and talk about not only one author, but a genre and its authors. New Adult has been making lots of fans in the last few months, showing books with more graphic scenes, hotter moments and growing characters. Most of these books are not only about romantic love, but also about self-love. Discoveries, difficulties and confrontational realities are the center of them. But how about the people who are writing it?

My first contact with Tamara Weber was with Easy, a beautiful novel about a girl who is rescued by a boy, and has to overcome so many things while he is dealing with a not so wonderful past.

Tamara Weber is a wife and a mother, and also an amazing self-published author. She has a contemporary series called Between the Lines, with the fourth book coming out soon. I can’t wait to read this series!

Jamie is the writer of the freaking awesome Beautiful Disaster, and its sequel, Walking Disaster is coming out soon. She has a way of writing that can’t be compared to anything I’ve read, making the most wrongful characters seem believable and worth reading.

She lives with her husband and children, dedicating her life to writing now. She also has a paranormal series called Providence.

I don’t think J. A. Redmerski still needs a introduction here, as I had her featured in a Murphy Introduces in the past! Author of my favorite of 2012, The Edge of Never, she has three children.

Last week, she announced that there will be a sequel to her first novel, called The Edge of Always, which I can’t freaking wait to put my hands on!

I can only imagine how much I’ll cry!

Abbi Glines is a machine, that’s the only thing that explains how much she writes a year! And everything I’ve read until this day was just so good! Her Sea Breeze series, as well as her The Vincent Boys series, make us swoon for a long time after finishing a book!

Abbi is a bestseller author with several of her series, she lives with her kids and chauffeur them around. Currently, she is working a new book! Why I am not surprised?

We posted last weekend our review for Pushing the Limits, Katie McGarry’s debut novel.

With the sequel, Dare You To to be published soon, her first series will have one more book (that we know!) and a small novella!

When asked, Katie defines herself as a writer and a mom. She lives with her husband.

While she has other series and writes other genres too, the books that made me love Nicole Williams writing were her Crash series. With Crash, I went deep in her narrative and suffered along with every character.

Clash, its sequel, made my heart break just the same, and I can’t even imagine what Crush will cause!

Nicole is a wife, mom and writer!

There’s my favorite authors on this genre! Who are yours? Share with me

Beth Revis was born and raised in North Carolina. She studied abroad at the University of London and graduated at NC State University with a BA in English Education with a minor in history and a MA in English Literature with a concentration in fantasy literature. She was a teacher for six years–and hated being called Ms. Revis, so if you ever ran into her call her just Beth. At first, teaching was just a way to pay her bills, but soon she realized that she loved it, reason why it was really hard for her to quit teaching to focus on writing. Besides writing and teching, Beth loves to travel, and she’s competing against her mom to see who visits most states in the US and foreing countries.

The Across the Universe trilogy was published by Razorbill/Penguin in the US and is currently available in 17 countries. Across the Universe was the eleventh book Beth’s written. She says she has 10 other manuscripts that didn’t work, and it was only with Amy’s and Elder’s story that she got an agent at Writers House. Originally published on January 11, 2011, the book debuted at NY Times Best Sellers list on January 30, 2011. The next novel of the series, A Million Suns, was released on January 10, 2012 and debuted at the list on January 29, 2012. The last book of the trilogy, Shades of Earth, was released on January 15, 2013. The TV show Firefly was her big influence to write the series. The trilogy was launched into space when the Shades of Earth pre-orders combined surpassed the pre-orders of the first two books combined.

Beth is the founder of a popular dystopian blog, the League of Extraordinary Writers, and she’s also part of a project called Bringing YA to You, where YA authors will create an event in a city chosen by public audience.

Jessica Redmerski lives in Arkansas, and recently became a name well known in the blogosphere with the huge success of her new adult novel, The Edge of Never.

She is a self-published writer, who didn’t let a no in her way stop her from writing and putting her work out there.

I talked with Jessica by email, and asked her to write a little note about herself and her most famous book—I must say, I know she has other works out there, and I can’t wait to read it!

Being the incredible person she is, she not only replied me, but did it really fast. Let’s see what Jessica has to say:

J.A. Redmerski

I’m J.A. Redmerski, author of the New York Times and USA Today best-selling novel, The Edge of Never. I live in Arkansas, United States, with my three children and a dog. Aside from writing, I love the outdoors, I’m a zombie fanatic, book addict and am quite obsessed with the Universe.

In her site, Jessica tells us she is a sucker for anything about Christopher Lee, John Noble, Ralph Fiennes, Edward Norton and Cate Blanchett. But her biggest fan-girl superstars are Alex Filippenko, Michio Kaku, Brian Cox, Michelle Thaller and Neil Degrasse Tyson! She also likes The Walking Dead, as you can imagine after she states she loves zombies.

The Edge of Never

The Edge of Never was inspired mostly by my lifelong dream to just drop everything and travel the world, much in the same way that Camryn wanted to do before Ian died, except with more direction and definitely not on a bus. Camryn and Andrew’s outlook on life about living and loving in the now is how I’ve always wanted to live. And writing their story was my way of filling a huge hole in my own life and I think that’s why I was so obsessed with it during the six-week writing process.

Other works by J.A. Redmerski are the contemporary fantasy Dirty Eden, a stand alone novel, and The Darkwoods Trilogy, which is part of the paranormal series The Praveian Chronicles, that will also contain a new trilogy.

Born in West Long Branch, New Jersey in 1971, Holly Black lived in a “decrepit Victorian house” during her early years. She graduated with a B.A. in English from The College of New Jersey in 1994. Holly worked as a production editor on medical journals including The Journal of Pain while studying at Rutgers University. She considered becoming a librarian as a backup career, but writing drew her away. In 1999, she married her high school sweetheart, Theo Black, an accomplished illustrator and web designer. They both live in Amherst, Massachusetts, in a house with a secret library.

Her first book, Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale, was published in 2002 by Simon & Schuster. Tithe received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and Kirkus Reviews, and was included in the American Library Association’s Best Books for Young Adults. Holly has since written two other books in the same universe, Valiant (2005), and the sequel to Tithe, Ironside (2007), which spent five weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Valiant was a finalist for the Mythopoeic Award for Young Readers and the recipient of the Andre Norton Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature.

Holly collaborated with her long-time friend, Caldecott award winning artist, Tony DiTerlizzi, to create the bestselling Spiderwick Chronicles. The first two books, The Field Guide and The Seeing Stone were released together in 2003 by Simon & Schuster, with the next three, Lucinda’s Secret (2003), The Ironwood Tree (2004) and The Wrath of Mulgarath (2004), following in rapid succession. The Wrath of Mulgarath climbed to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. The five-book serial has been called “vintage Victorian fantasy” by the New York Post and Time Magazine reported that “the books wallow in their dusty Olde Worlde charm.”

The lavishly illustrated Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to The Fantastical World Around You (2005), The Notebook for Fantastical Observations (2005), and Care and Feeding of Sprites (2006) expanded the Spiderwick universe. To date, the books have been translated into 32 languages. There are three more chapter books in the Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles series, The Nixie’s Song (2007), A Giant Problem (2008) and The Wyrm King (2009).

The Spiderwick Chronicles were adapted into a film by Paramount Pictures in conjunction with Nickelodeon Films. Released in February 2008, the film stars Freddie Highmore and Sarah Bolger, with Mark Waters as the director and Black as co-executive producer.

Holly has also been a frequent contributor to anthologies, and has co-edited three of them: Geektastic (with Cecil Castellucci, 2009), Zombies vs. Unicorns (with Justine Larbalestier, 2010), and Bordertown (with Ellen Kushner, 2011). Her first collection of short fiction, Poison Eaters and Other Stories, came out in 2010 from Small Beer Press. She also has a graphic novel series, The Good Neighbors, and recently released the last book of a Young Adult trilogy called The Curse Workers, Black Heart.

Yesterday it was announced that Scholastic bought five-book middle-grade series by Holly and Cassandra Clare, the first book due out in 2014.

Sources: Holly Black’s official website, Wikipedia, Publishers Weekly

Born in August 10, 1962, in Connecticut, Suzanne Collins is the daughter of an Air Force officer who served in the Vietnam War. As the daughter of a military officer, she and her family were constantly moving. She got a Theater Arts major during her High School years of education. She graduated from Indiana University with a double major in Drama and Telecommunications and went on to earn her M.F.A. from New York University in Dramatic Writing.

Collins has worked on the staffs of several Nickelodeon shows, including the Emmy-nominated hit Clarissa Explains it All and The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo, she also penned multiple stories for the Emmy-nominated Little Bear and Oswald. She co-wrote the critically acclaimed Rankin/​Bass Christmas special, Santa, Baby! Most recently, she was the Head Writer for Scholastic Entertainment’s Clifford’s Puppy Days, and a freelancer on Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!

Thinking one day about Alice in Wonderland, she was struck by how pastoral the setting must seem to kids who, like her own, lived in urban surroundings. In New York City, you’re much more likely to fall down a manhole than a rabbit hole and, if you do, you’re not going to find a tea party. What you might find…? Well, that’s the story of Gregor the Overlander, the first book in her five-part fantasy/​war series, The Underland Chronicles.

Her next series, The Hunger Games Trilogy, is a USA Today and The New York Times Best Seller, already translated into 26 different languages. She says the inspiration to write The Hunger Games came from channel surfing on television, on one channel she observed people competing on a reality show, and on another one she saw footage of the invasion of Iraq. The two “began to blur in this very unsettling way” and the idea for the trilogy was formed. The first book was made into a movie that hits the theaters tomorrow, and has been announced as the new big blockbuster. A second move, based on Catching Fire, is currently in development.

The first book originally had a 50,000 first printing, which was then bumped up twice to 200,000 copies. By February 11, 2010, The Hunger Games had sold 800,000 copies. Rights to the novel have been sold in 38 territories, and there are over 2.9 million copies in print. It was on The New York Times list for over 100 consecutive weeks as of September 2010.

The Hunger Games trilogy has sold exceptionally well in ebook format. Suzanne Collins is the first children’s or young adult author to sell over one million Kindle ebooks, making her the sixth author to join the “Kindle Million Club”, which recognizes authors who have sold over 1 million paid units in the Amazon Kindle store. Earlier this month, Amazon announced that Collins had become the best-selling Kindle author of all time. Amazon also revealed that Collins had written 29 of the 100 most-highlighted passages in Kindle ebooks—and on a separate Amazon list of recently-highlighted passages, Collins had written 17 of the top 20.

Sources: Suzanne Collins official website and Wikipedia

Becca Fitzpatrick, born 1979, was raised in Centerville, Utah, and graduated in April 2001, at Brigham Young University, with a degree in Community Health, and got married in December 2000. She always held on to the dream of writing, but she went through a phase in college where she wanted to be a spy. “I stalked the CIA website and filled out at least a dozen applications. I thought being a spy was dangerous and sexy. I didn’t want to be the girl who got a degree, only to settle down and do house-ish things… like answer telemarketers’ calls and choose between Spanish or Ladybug Red for the kitchen walls.”

She went to work as a secretary/teacher/accountant at an alternative high school in Provo, Utah. In February 2003, her husband Justin, a native of Philadelphia, enrolled her in a writing class for her 24th birthday. It was on that class that she started writting Hush, Hush. “On that day, I went from the girl who wrote stories daily in the privacy of her journal, to the girl who wrote stories and shared them with people outside of the worlds in her head.”

Five years, one baby, and one move to Colorado later, she had a book, and it was just about as sexy and dangerous as the spy-life I’d always dreamed about. With the Hush, Hush series, she’s sold over 1 million copies in print, her books were on the New York Times Bestseller List over 45 weeks, and she’s won a few awards—while Patch, with his mysterious air, has worldwide won the heart of tons of girls…

Source: Becca Fitzpatrick Official Website