Amber Benson, who earned a large following for her popular role as Tara Maclay (Alyson Hannigan's love interest) on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Amber has established a very successful career outside the show: She's co-written comics, novels and an animated web-series for the BBC with Christopher Golden (widely acclaimed author of the Hellboy novels) and written, produced and directed three feature films, including Drones, to be released later this year. Now she's launched a very cool trilogy of fantasy novels geared towards young adult females. The first book, Death's Daughter, was just released via Penguin Books.
Death's Daughter tells the story of Calliope Reaper-Jones, a girl torn between an immortal life helping her father run Death, Inc., and a normal human existence. When Callie chooses to leave the family business behind and pursue a career in fashion, she finds herself in a dead end job, relegated to a life of perpetual stasis. That is, until someone kidnaps her father, the CEO of Death, Inc., as well as Callie's older sister Thalia. Now it's up to Callie to find her father and sister, while trying to keep the business running smoothly. If she fails, Callie dooms her family to morality and allows the Devil to choose the new head of Death, Inc.
Of the book, Benson says, "
Death's Daughter is my take on the classic Hero's Journey, but told from the female perspective. I tried to create a flawed, female protagonist who--even though she makes some really selfish choices during the course of the book--still makes the reader root for her to learn and grow from her experiences."
