Margaret Stohl Books In Order

Publication Order of Beautiful Creatures Books

Publication Order of Beautiful Creatures: The Untold Stories Books

Publication Order of Beautiful Creatures Graphic Novels

Publication Order of Icons Books

Publication Order of Dangerous Creatures Books

Publication Order of Black Widow Books

Publication Order of Cats vs. Robots Books

Publication Order of The Mighty Captain Marvel Graphic Novels

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

Margaret Stohl, known for the book series “Beautiful Creatures” (with her friend Kami Garcia), was born in 1967 in California. She obtained M.A. degree from Stanford University and worked as teaching assistant in Romantic Poetry at Stanford. The Creative Writing Program at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, assisted her in improving creative writing abilities. This academic background assisted her in writing series of books, which secured awards such as NYPL Book of the Teenage, YALSA Teen Top Ten Pick, and #1 Teen Pick from Amazon in 2009. Apart from writing novels, she is also known for her expertise in video game industry as she created games such as Spider Man and Fantastic Four.

Along with her husband, Stohl founded the 7 Studios. To her credit, Stohl’s novels, that include titles such as Beautiful Creatures, Beautiful Darkness, Beautiful Chaos, and Beautiful Chaos, are available in 28 languages and 37 countries, which is a notable achievement. The Alcon and Warner Bros., in 2013, presented Stohl’s “Beautiful Creatures” as a movie with actors such as Alden Ehrenreich, Alice Englert and others. As a participant in the LA Times Festival of Books, Romantic Times, and the Texas Book Festival, Stohl is conscious of the need to impress critics.

An interesting aspect of her book series “Beautiful Creatures” is the narration by male characters who are in love with mysterious personalities maintaining contact with the dark world. The author succeeds in analyzing psychology and behavior of male narrators, who are used to introduce various major and minor characters to the audience. The major characters of the book series are Ethan Wate, his lover Lena Duchannes, Link Lincoln, and Ridley Duchannes. While Ethan Wate is in love with Lena, his friend Link expresses his love for Ridley. Mystery is an important theme of the work, and the characters show how they struggled to solve the mystery. Ethan Wate has lost his mother and lives with his father and family members. His interactions with Lena reveals that he had seen her in his dreams, where he fails to protect her. There is a meaning to his dream regarding the dream girl. Although the dream girl appears as a normal person, she is actually part of the Caster world with mysterious powers.

Wate’s interactions with Lena further reveals secrets of his own identity and the reality of his family having connection with the world of witches or the Caster world. He realizes that he is the link between the Caster world and the humans, but he realizes that they are not compatible. The union between humans and members of the Caster world would lead to destruction of his own people. Ethan Wate is in love with Lena, and attempts to find a solution to her problem. Sadly, he had to take the decision to sacrifice himself as he realizes that he cannot protect Lena who was likely to become part of the dark world. In this way, he attempts to protect his family members and Lena.

Another character Lena is aware of her “dark” identity. In the childhood, she has suffered insults and repudiation from her friends, and she needs the support of Wate to prevent from becoming dark. She unsuccessfully struggles to manage ordinary human life and mysterious powers as she was the part of the Caster world. Eventually, she loses her lover Wate even though for a good cause. Wate’s friend Link is happy-go-lucky character, but he is in serious love with Lena’s cousin Ridley, another mysterious character who is aware of her connections with the dark world. Even though she likes Link, Ridley is reluctant to exhibit her love for him, and this leads to ambiguous relationship between them.

The characters find conflict between the values of human and dark world. The dilemma faced by Ridley summarizes the approach of the Stohl towards relationship between human and the dark world. Interestingly, Ridley exhibits her dual nature. On the one hand, she has evil powers, which she can utilize to destroy humans. However, in actuality she shows her human side when she assists Wate and Link to protect Lena. Ridley has been punished for supporting human characters, and she loses her immortal powers, as she is compelled to live as a human being, even though for a limited period. It is in the presence of Link that Ridley shows that she is human and that she has soft feelings for her friend even though she is not expressive of those emotions.

“Beautiful Darkness” is the work that has beautifully demonstrated Ridley’s character. It is true that she is evil, but she also shows her gentle nature, thereby indicating that characters with dark nature have soft features also, and this becomes an important part of Stohl’s works. This shows that all members of the Caster world are not evil and mysterious. It is possible to understand them. For example, Ridley shows her human face when she is jealous of girls who flirt with Link who has obtained special powers to attract girls. However, the dilemma of Ridley is that she cannot openly express her love for Link.
Tragedy becomes a major theme of Stohl’s work. This is because there is death of Ethan Wate, and other characters cannot save him. Stohl has used the title “Beautiful Creatures”, which is very apt, considering the fact that main characters such as Ethan Wate and Lena are creatures but they are beautiful. Stohl successfully shows the beautiful face of the creatures who otherwise are despised and feared.

They, interestingly, do not cause harm to the humanity. In this sense, they become beautiful. In the same way, Stohl’s “Beautiful Darkness” is also interesting. Even though the world is dark, it is beautiful. The dark world has the capacity to cause considerable hardship to the humans. In actuality, characters such as Lena and Ridley have come from darkness and eventually they will go to darkness. The main task of characters such as Ethan and Link is to prevent Lena and Ridley from reaching the dark world. Stohl should be credited for giving “beautiful” works to the readers who can enjoy reading the “beautiful” series. Not surprisingly, her works have received considerable critical acclaim.