This has been a banner year for Brigid Kemmerer, the author of several YA series and stand-alone contemporary novels, combined sales of which recently topped one million copies for Bloomsbury.

Following her breakout Cursebreakers series, whose 2019 “Beauty and the Beast”-inspired debut title, A Curse So Dark and Lonely, was the first of her novels to reach the bestsellers list, Kemmerer embarked on two other popular fantasy series. The first launched in September 2021 with Defy the Night, and will add a sequel, Defend the Dawn, on September 20; and the second debuted last June with Forging Silver into Stars, and will continue in fall 2023 with a still-untitled sequel.

Kemmerer was quick to point out that, though her last five novels have all been bestsellers, she was hardly an overnight success as a YA author. She published her first six books with Kensington, beginning with Elemental in 2012, before moving to Bloomsbury with the 2018 publication of Letters to the Lost. Her first bestseller, A Curse So Dark and Lonely, was her ninth published novel.

Hearing the news that sales of her books had exceeded one million copies, Kemmerer said, was “a bit shocking” to her, but also very rewarding. “Publishing is such a roller coaster—there are so many ups and downs,” she noted. “This has been quite a wild journey.”

Playing the Juggling Game

Kemmerer seems unfazed by the task of writing two series simultaneously, despite living—and working—in a “very busy and loud home” in Baltimore with her husband and three sons, ages 15, 10, and eight. She has come to appreciate the need for “self-discipline, consistency, and flexibility,” and rises at 4:30 a.m. daily to write before her family awakens. “Not only do I need some way to hang on to my sanity, which was especially crucial during the pandemic,” she said of her early wake-up call, “but even if my day goes off the rails by nine o’clock in the morning, if I’ve been writing since I woke up, I know that the day is not a total loss!”

And the novelist is quite comfortable writing the Forging Silver into Stars and Defy the Night series simultaneously. “Because the books in these two series feel very different in my head, it’s never a challenge to jump between stories,” she explained. “I have a whiteboard in my kitchen, on which I track both series. I write down ideas as they come to me, and my outlines are made up of scribbles going in all different directions. I am meticulous in my writing, but I like to be creative in my drafting, which means my outlines are more spontaneous than planned out.”

The author also shared that she is equally at home writing fantasy and creating standalone contemporary novels, which she describes as “somewhat different to write, since they are more coming-of-age stories in which the characters are going through some kind of self-realization. I do love writing both genres, and in each I dive down deep into real-life human issues and tackle some heavy themes. I call my fantasy ‘contemporary romance dressed up with magic and adventure,’ and there is an element of incredibility in YA fantasy that makes them accessible to teens in a safe way and easy to digest.”

Kemmerer’s longtime editor at Bloomsbury, publishing director Mary Kate Castellani, praised her versatility and reliability as a writer. “The thing that makes Brigid such a special author is her ability to craft characters that shine so wonderfully, in any story,” she said. “She creates relatable people with emotional and moral complexity, puts you in their shoes, and ropes you in. There is such an ease to her storytelling. In any novel, Brigid lives up to her fans’ expectations while keeping it new—she always has a plan and I always trust her.”

Back on the Road Again

After the pandemic sidelined her from in-person events for two-plus years, Kemmerer has already completed two multi-city promotional tours in 2022, one in the U.S. in June (for Forging Silver into Stars) and another in Europe in July (for her recent fantasy works, with an emphasis on the Cursebreakers series).

And she’s not finished yet. On September 18, Kemmerer will embark on another six-city national tour to promote Defend the Dawn. She’ll wrap up her busy year with an appearance at the Guadalajara Book Fair at the end of November.

Kemmerer is looking forward to introducing fans to Defend the Dawn, her 15th novel, for which Bloomsbury has announced a 150,000-copy first printing. “The second book in a series always presents a challenge, because you want to give readers a similar reading experience as they had with the first book, but also want to find creative ways to add the unexpected,” she said. “Defy the Night had a lot of surprise twists, and with Defend the Dawn, I wanted to give it the same twistiness—and make it even twistier! And I think I pulled it off.”

Forging Silver into Stars by Brigid Kemmerer. Bloomsbury, $18.99 June 7 ISBN 978-1-547-60912-3

Defend the Dawn by Brigid Kemmerer. Bloomsbury, $18.99 Sept. 20 ISBN 978-1-547-61007-5