Books: Death's Daughter

Best known for her role as fan favorite Tara Maclay on the television series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Amber Benson is also a writer, director, producer, and now novelist. The 32-year-old from Alabama has already released the first novel, “Death’s Daughter,” in an urban fantasy series that follows protagonist Calliope Reaper-Jones.

In the first novel, Calliope is torn between an immortal life helping her father run Death, Inc., and a normal human existence. Callie chooses to leave the trappings of the Afterlife behind in order to pursue a career in high fashion. But when her father, who happens to be Death himself, is kidnapped along with her older sister Thalia, and the evil Devil’s protégé embarks on a hostile takeover of the family business, Callie returns home to assume the CEO mantle, only to discover that she must complete three nearly impossible tasks in the realm of the Afterlife first.

Benson started writing when she was introduced to Chris Golden, with whom she collaborated on a series of “Buffy” comics about Willow and Tara, and she just fell in love with it, so much so that she really wanted to try something by herself just to see if she could do it.

"Death's Daughter" author Amber Benson.

“I started working on this book and I wrote ten chapters of it,” explained Benson, while chatting at a Starbucks in Burbank, CA. “I knew some editors, and the management company that I was working with sent it out. Ginjer Buchanan, over at Penguin Books, fell in love with it and said, ‘I want to do this, but I don’t want to do it as one book. I want to do it as a three-book deal.’ That’s how it came into being and that’s how I got into writing prose on my own, but I like it. I can do it in my PJs. I don’t have to be anybody else. I don’t have to put on makeup, get dressed, and go somewhere. I can just do it in my house. It’s freeing.”

Having only ten chapters written and a publisher that wanted three full books, Benson had to figure out how to make it work. With the first book already taking place in Hell, she decided to pay homage to Dante.

“The first book deals with Hell, the second one [“Cat’s Claw,” out in February 2010] deals with Purgatory and Egyptian mythology with lots of Pharaohs and Cat goddesses, and the third one [out in 2011] will be about Heaven,” she said. “The mythology continues in each book, and culminates in the third, but I wanted them each to be separate, so that you could read them all individually and not read the others. The first book was its own thing, but I’m glad that she has three times to tell her story. She’s a lot of fun.”

Another look at actress-turned-author Amber Benson.

Once the first book was finally finished and published, the new author went to Borders to see it on the shelves. “I got really, really excited, started doing a jig and tried to take a picture of it with my phone, to send to my boyfriend,” she said, reliving the memorable experience. “I literally did a dance and tried to suppress giggles and excitement. It was embarrassing. There was nobody there and then, all of a sudden, there was this woman behind me, wondering if I needed to be escorted out of Borders.”

Although the actress and filmmaker is now a successful author as well, she knows that the fact that she already had some visibility in the entertainment industry made it easier for publishers to take an interest in her.

“It’s who you know, like with anything. All the struggling I did, as an actor, was actually struggling to write also. All the suffering, rejection, and crap that went along with that, I would have had to do as a writer, so I did that as an actor and it opened the door to both. If somebody gets excited about what you’re doing and you know them, it makes it easier. I’m sure they look at it and go, ‘Buffy was a big hit and her name will get people to go buy it.’ I can’t blame them for that. I was just lucky because my editor is great. She’s fun to work with, she’s really cool, she got the book and the character, and she was open to me trying things with her.”

While still a relatively new professional author, the actress, who even has action figures in her likeness, is already thinking ahead to the next project. “I sold a kids’ middle-grade book to Simon & Schuster, that my friend and I are doing together. He’s doing the illustrations, and I’m really excited about that. It’s called “The New Newbridge Academy” and it’s coming out in the fall of 2010. It’s about a girl who goes away to boarding school, only to realize that she has a special gift: she can see ghosts.”

With roles in the indie dramedy “Another Harvest Moon” and the thriller “The Killing Jar,” Benson is still doing the acting thing, but admitted that it doesn’t take precedence in her life anymore. She actually just finished co-directing “Drones” with her boyfriend, Adam Busch (who played Warren on “Buffy”).

“It’s an office comedy with alien undertones,” said Benson, when talking about working with Busch. “We’ve already got another script that we co-wrote this time, that we want to co-direct and that Adam will probably star in. I just want to make his life rough, make him suffer and crack the whip at him. We’ve made two music videos together, and we just really like working with each other. It makes it a lot easier. It’s hard to be the captain of the ship, all by yourself.”