Lindsay Ribar Books In Order

Publication Order of The Art of Wishing Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Lindsay Ribar is an author of fantasy and young adult fiction. In addition to being an author, Ribar is one of very few writers who is also an associate agent at a book publishing company, Greenburger Associates. Ribar spent most of her childhood in New Jersey where the only thing that any person thought about after graduating from high school was to move to New York City. After she was done with her high school, she would enroll in New York University (NYU) where she graduated with a bachelor’s in English literature and drama. Being an assistant to one of the best literary agents in the states, she has a very funny way of describing herself. She asserts that she reads aspiring novelists’ manuscripts by day and writes young adult fiction at night. As for her home life, she loves the nightlife and always finds time to attend concerts, watches nerdy television programs like they are going out of fashion, reads fanfiction like it was manufactured of chocolate, has an unhealthy love for cheese, wine, and finds continental European English accents quite cool.

Lindsay Ribar asserts that she has always had a love for writing though she only started thinking of writing professionally in 2007, the year she became an associate agent. However, being the fantasy fiction buff that she is, she had always been a writer of fanfiction and had many unpublished narratives under her belt. Working at an agency made her love of writing bubble to the surface, as she got to work with many authors who were already successful or went on to become successful. As an insider in the publishing industry, she also had the advantage of knowing the ins and outs including what was expected of her, what the rules were and how the system worked. Moreover, given that she primarily worked with fantasy and science fiction authors, she already knew readers expectations about a good sci-fi or paranormal novel. Her specialty as an associate agent is finding authors that write middle grade and young adult fiction. Most of her clients will be ones that have scripts to do with mystery, soft sci-fi, fantasy, contemporary realistic, and smart paranormal romance, most of which are reflected in much of her writing.

Ribar loves a novel that comes with either LGBT themes, dual identities, musical theater, or some elements of music. Nonetheless, she has asserted that great writing and memorable characters what move a novel from simply good to bestseller. While she is contracted to a publishing agency, Lindsay does not bother with techniques per se. She has emulated some of her favorite writer’s style in some of her past writing, particularly when she was writing fanfiction, to great effect. In such narratives, the voice would come before the plot as she was often dealing with second person narratives. However, for her full-length works such as The Art of Wishing, she does not actively focus on voice given that it is too large of a project to do so. As such, Ribar tends to focus on the story and characters as the most important element in the story. Even so, while she does not go into too much detail with regard to structure, she usually knows the points that she wants to include in the story, it’s mid and end points. As for the editing, she will self-edit as much as possible but also get beta readers to point out any glaring errors. Even as she now has a publisher in Greenburger Associates, the beta reader editorial advice is something she is yet to let go.

Lindsay Ribar has always loved supernatural boy meets girl stories, whether they be ghosts, werewolves, vampires or any other otherworldly characters. Lindsay’s interest in the power dynamic of genies is what drove the development of The Art of Wishing series of novels. For Lindsay, the mix of romance and magic particularly when wielded by a persons that is more or less a master of a relationship makes for an explosive story. Even so, having read many paranormal romances in her childhood and young adult life, she felt that many of the narratives gave most of the power in the relationship to the boy given that he was the supernatural one. She decided to flip the concept on its head by having the boy have immense power, yet curtail it by making him a genie, who can only wield the power through the girl’s wishes. As such, while the chief protagonists in The Art of the Wish novels possess immense power, they can only wield those magical powers in concert with their less powerful partners. This gives the novels some fun complexities as the balance of power is tipped in the other direction.

In The Art of Wishing, Lindsay introduces Margo McKenna who seems to be highly organized in nearly all aspects of her life from leading her high school musical to getting herself into an Ivy League college. As such when she comes into the possession of a genie’s ring, which means she can make three wishes, she is at a loss on what to do. She has never been one to trust any important decisions in her life to another person. But Oliver the genie is not just any supernatural being, he is a young man who happens to attend Margo’s high schoo,l and is on the run from a mysterious character that wants him dead. As the two grow closer, Margo realizes that three wishes may not be enough to save Oliver.

The Fourth Wish is the second novel in The Art of Wishing series. Margo has fallen in love with Oliver the handsome genie she saved from a murderous archenemy, made three wishes, and got to see Aladdin numerous times. But now that everything is going so well, her master forces her to become a genie, just at the time when she is least ready. Everything that she has always taken as a given such as being a girl, leading the school musical, going to college and even graduating from high school is now in doubt. Nonetheless, she now has more power than she knows what to do with. Can she reconcile her life with her new life as a genie? And will her romance with Oliver remain the same after she becomes a genie?