Supernatural Investigations Book 5

In a quiet corner of South Carolina, where winding country roads stretch toward the horizon and cicadas hum in the summer dusk, B. B. Alston began dreaming up worlds far bigger than his hometown. Long before his debut novel Amari and the Night Brothers catapulted him onto the global literary stage, he was crafting spooky short stories for his middle school classmates—sometimes just to spook them, other times to see if he could.

What sets Alston apart in the crowded landscape of middle-grade fantasy isn’t just his imagination—it’s the urgency in his storytelling. His protagonist, Amari Peters, isn’t just navigating magic; she’s pushing back against every closed door, every voice that says she doesn’t belong. There’s real-world fire beneath the spells and secret societies. His books don’t whisper escapism—they roar with it, yet they always return to themes of identity, injustice, and resilience. In a genre often content to follow formula, Alston reinvents the rules.

When Amari and the Night Brothers was released, it wasn’t just a success—it became a movement. Translated into over 30 languages and optioned by Universal Pictures, the novel spent more than 30 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Yet Alston talks about these milestones with the quiet humility of someone who still marvels that a Twitter pitch contest opened the first door.

“I wanted kids who never saw themselves in magic to feel like they could be the chosen one,” he’s said in interviews—a guiding principle that threads through his work like starlight through dark branches.

Though fame has come quickly, he hasn’t drifted far from his roots. He still finds joy in simple things: too many sweets, long drives down unfamiliar backroads, and the mystery of where a turn might lead. That sense of curiosity—about people, places, and the worlds tucked just beyond reality—fuels his fiction and makes every page feel like it might open into something extraordinary.