Crossover Authors

A couple of months ago I was contacted by HarperCollins Canada about doing a special post for the release of Sara Shepard's new book: Everything We Ever Wanted, and since I was such a fan of her and the Pretty Little Liar books I am ecstatic to be a part of it!

While my actual review of Everything We Ever Wanted will be posted on the actual release date of the book, in anticipation of it I'm doing a special post to highlight some extremely talented authors that have done an excellent job of genre blending and crossing over to different types of books.

Because while Sara Shepard is best known for her success with Pretty Little Liars, Everything We Ever Wanted is definitely adult fiction. And there are so many other authors that do the same thing, and it's incredible to realize just how talented they are for doing so, because it isn't easy.

Sara ShepardShepard's Pretty Little Liars series has done so well that she's written nearly a dozen books in it (number 12 is to be released in 2014), and it now has its own spin off show. On the rise of this success, it seems appropriate that she'd try something a little bit different from what she's been doing for a few years now- and I will give a small tidbit of my review about Everything We Ever Wanted, which is that it struck me as containing some of the elements which made Pretty Little Liars popular and enjoyable, but she carries it over in such a way that those readers who've grown up since reading PLL will enjoy her new book for the similar ideas, although they're expressed in a very different way.

So without further ado, my lovely list of 5 other authors (besides Sara Shepard) who can bring out both the child AND adult in you:

1. Lauren OliverAs well known as she is for her Young Adult novels Before I Fall and Delirium, Oliver is also the author of a new middle grade book titled Liesl & Po (which really is as good as her previous books, just written for a different audience)
2. Suzanne Collins Because yes, while she's best known for her outstanding Hunger Games series, Collins also wrote the Underland series which is a Middle Grade story about an 11 year old boy.
3. Marianne de Pierresde Pierres is an Australian author who has previously written adult fiction novels, until the first of her Night Creatures trilogy was released in early 2011 (so far, it hasn't been released in North America yet) as her YA debut- and it is personally one of my new favourites! You can tell she has her roots in adult fiction though, since parts of it do come across as darker than the typical North American YA releases.
4. M.J. Putney (a.k.a. Mary Jo Putney) While Putney is extremely well-known for her romance novels, she took the pen name M.J. for her YA debut, Dark Mirror, in order to help keep the two separate.
5. Richelle MeadOne of the most well known contemporary writers, Mead is currently the author of four rather involved series; two of which are adult fiction, and two of which are written primarily for a young adult audience. All of which have done extremely well, proving that you don't need to stasy within one narrow genre to be a successful writer.

Now, these are just some authors that have crossed over into writing different genres. And they've done an excellent job of proving there's no need to limit yourself as an author- let those creative juices flow! Branch out, try new things! I'm sure this is something we'll be seeing more of in the future, since there does appear to be a lot of overlap in readers from adult to young adult to middle grade books.

How do you, as a reader, feel about authors who crossover or blend genres? Do you think it can be done well? Is it something you appreciate in an author?

And for any of you who are writers- have you written books which could target various age groups? Did you find it difficult?

Any other authors you can think of who've tried this? Did they succeed, in your opinion?