It’s no surprise that New York Times bestselling authors Sam Humphries, Gwenda Bond, and Kami Garcia collaborated on the new audio-first fantasy romance series, The Youngbloods. Brimming with demons, dark humor, and dysfunctional family dynamics, this action-packed trilogy showcases what these three writers do best. The first novella, The Youngbloods: Family Demons, is available now, with the next two titles, The Youngbloods: Family Lust and The Youngbloods: Hell to Pay, coming later this summer. How do three amazing authors come together to write one fantastic trilogy? Read on to find out just how they did it.
Audible: How did you come together as a team to write The Youngbloods series? Can you describe the writing process?
Kami Garcia: During the pandemic, I wanted to do something to help struggling local comic shops and indie bookstores, so I called the two people I know who can get things done—Gwenda [Bond] and Sam [Humphries]. The Twitter auction #Creators4Comics was born from that call, and when it was over, we wanted to keep working together. So, we put our heads together and came up with The Youngbloods.
Sam Humphries: Every time I mention co-writing a book series with two other people, my writer friends gasp. They grow pale. They make the sign of the cross. And then they ask, “But, y’know, how does that work?” I say the number one rule is: Everyone is allowed to make edits to anyone else’s work, no permission or discussion required. This is when my writer friends reach out for a velvet pillow and sway, as if to faint. But we’re all great writers, so we trust in that.
Gwenda Bond: Never has a team assembled that was able to sync up writing-style planning so quickly. Many Zoom calls probably helped. So many. So many shared documents and plotting conversations and plans, which we adjusted as we went, of course. Generally speaking, we all had characters or throughlines we ended up taking point on, but we also all wrote everyone at times and trusted each other to edit and embroider at will.
The Youngbloods series combines the best elements of romance and fantasy. What draws you to these type of stories, and what inspired this series?
SH: Romance and fantasy are crazy enough on their own. Together, you get to do things like having two demons get it on in public and slaughter a hundred humans in the process. Spoilers!
GB: I tend to think everything is more interesting with some romance, fantasy, and humor mixed in. I bet we all remember this a little differently, mostly it’s now our process, where we throw out concepts we love until something starts to get bigger and bigger, and we see the themes we want to explore. It helps that we all like talking out stories.
KG: I grew up reading fantasy, horror, and romance, and they remain my favorite genres. Like Sam and Gwenda, I also have a dark sense of humor, so I gravitate toward urban fantasy stories with romance and quirky, flawed characters. The Youngbloods is truly the perfect mix of those things.
What did you want to explore with this new trilogy that you haven’t gotten to explore yet in your other works?
GB: Kami and Sam definitely gave me permission to indulge a darker and darker humor side than I think I’d quite explored before. And also to go full throttle on the romance—which I’d only really just started writing when we met. (Not Your Average Hot Guy had yet to come out.) And we all love writing family stories.
KG: The trilogy is about a dysfunctional family of manipulative individuals who just happen to be demons. But like most families, they actually care about one another, even if they don’t realize it. I think that’s a problem a lot of people can relate to.
SH: I love exploring family in my work—I have a very complex family, so there’s no shortage of material or emotion there. But I haven’t been able to do that in a story where, for example, you can suddenly have a geyser of blood erupt from the ground. It’s a vibe.
You’ve got a full cast of great narrators on board for The Youngbloods. What was it like writing an audio-first story? How did you envision the story being told in audio, and how do you feel about the end result?
KG: Audible and our editor Rose Hilliard made this experience a dream. I’ve had my novels adapted into audiobooks in the past, but writing something specifically for audio is different. It’s a lot like writing a screenplay. You’re constantly thinking about the way things will play out when they’re performed. The cast is incredible. When we listened to the auditions, we were blown away by the level of talent.
GB: Yes, shoutout to our editor Rose at Audible, who gave us so much good advice up front. I do definitely feel like we leaned into distinctive voices as we wrote, and that Rose gave us expert pruning when we were attributing too much or things were confusing. We were absolutely gobsmacked by how great all our casting options were across the board. It’s thrilling.
SH: It was so freeing. I knew Rose and Audible were going to come in huge with an amazing cast. Duh. With that in play, we could go wild with character and dialogue and let those run the story, because we were going to have an A-team to make it spectacular.
Do you have a favorite moment or scene from The Youngbloods that was especially fun to write?
SH: Katma and Nyx’s Wild Chicago Weekend. I’d love to do a travel show with the two of them. Hello, Netflix, are you listening??
KG: Nyx, the seemingly youngest Youngblood, was my favorite character to write. He’s an incredibly old demon trapped in the body of a 10-year-old boy, and there’s a scene where his crush is wronged that was so much fun to write!
GB: No spoilers, but there’s definitely a battle of … wits, swords, otherwise, in The Youngbloods: Family Demons that I had a lot of fun with. And, of course, the first big family meeting. Anytime they’re all in a room, chef’s-kiss level of snark is required and anything can happen.
