Phyllis Christine Cast is an American romance/fantasy author, known for the House of Night series she writes and her daughter Kristin Cast edits, as well as her own Goddess Summoning and Partholon book series.
Career
On her own, P.C. Cast is known for her Goddess Summoning and Partholon book series. Her first book, Goddess by Mistake, originally published in 2001, won the Prism, Holt Medallion, and Laurel Wreath awards, and was a finalist for the National Readers' Choice Award; her subsequent books have also won a variety of prizes. In 2005, she and her daughter began co-writing the House of Night series. In the wake of the current popularity of vampire fiction led by Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, the Casts' books have enjoyed substantial and increasing critical and commercial success, and in March 2009, the fifth book in their series, Hunted, opened at number one on the best-seller lists of USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. According to P.C. Cast, the concept for the House of Night novels came from her agent, who suggested the theme "vampire finishing school." The books take place in an alternative universe version of Tulsa, Oklahoma inhabited by both humans and "vampyres". The protagonist, Zoey Redbird, age 16, is "marked" as a "fledgling" and moves to the "House of Night" school to undergo her transformation. In November 2008, Variety reported that producers Michael Birnbaum and Jeremiah S. Chechik had obtained an option to acquire the motion picture rights in the House of Night series. No film resulted from this, and in November 2011, it was announced that the film rights had been acquired by producer Samuel Hadida's company, Davis Films.
One of Cast's former students is horror journalist and novelist Preston Fassel, who calls Cast his "earliest writing mentor" and cites her as an influence on his novel Our Lady of the Inferno.
The Divine Series was Cast's earliest work, with the first entry, Goddess by Mistake, published in 2001 by the independent press Hawk Publishing. The series follows Shannon Parker, a high school English teacher from Oklahoma who swaps places with Rhiannon, a Celtic goddess from a parallel dimension ruled by centaurs. Following Cast's later success, the original entry was rereleased under the title Divine by Mistake, and followed by a sequel, Divine by Choice, in 2006. Two further entries in the series followed in 2007 and 2009.
Divine by Mistake or Goddess by Mistake, 21 April 2001
