51 pages • 1 hour read
Jamie McGuireBeautiful Disaster
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Jamie McGuire and the Beautiful Books
Jamie McGuire was born in Oklahoma and graduated from college with a degree in radiology. She self-published her first book, Providence, in 2010. The book is a paranormal romance featuring the dramatic relationship between Nina, whose family has supernatural dealings, and Jared, the man who protects her. Over the course of the trilogy, Nina and Jared fight demons and the forces of hell. The book is reminiscent of other supernatural romances like Twilight, showing the influence of that popular franchise, an influence also palpable in the love affair between Travis Maddox and Abigail Abernathy.
McGuire self-published Beautiful Disaster in 2011, and the book’s success led to a contract with a traditional publisher and an eventual series. A sequel, Walking Disaster (2013), which relates the events of Beautiful Disaster from Travis’s point of view, debuted at number one on the New York Times Best Seller list. The novella A Beautiful Wedding (2014) revisits Travis and Abby’s wedding, and Almost Beautiful (2022) continues where the events of Beautiful Disaster left off, depicting Travis and Abby’s life as newlyweds while the FBI investigates the fatal fire that takes place in the original novel. The novella Something Beautiful (2015) features America Mason and Shepley Maddox’s relationship, while A Beautiful Funeral (2016) concludes a spinoff series that follows the romances of each of the Maddox Brothers and wraps up by revisiting the family 10 years after the events of Beautiful Disaster.
McGuire branched into adult romance with the Crash and Burn series as well as young adult romance in All the Little Lights (2018). Most of her novels are romances, some involving paranormal elements. Red Hill (2013), classified as a horror romance, involves protagonists trapped at a ranch during a deadly outbreak. McGuire has moved between traditional and independent publishing, and has also been the subject of criticism for personal beliefs shared on social media. Her best-selling book remains Beautiful Disaster, which was made into a feature film and released on streaming platforms in 2023. On her author website, jamiemcguire.com, McGuire credits Beautiful Disaster with paving the way for the new adult genre.
Literary Context: New Adult Romance
Fiction aimed at the new adult demographic is a relatively new development in the publishing world. New adult fiction features protagonists between 18 and 29 years old and is aimed primarily at readers ages 18 to 25, with the understanding that there may be crossover to and interest from older readers. The book-centered website Reedsy.com credits the label to a contest announced in 2009 by St. Martin’s Press for novels featuring college-age protagonists (“A Guide to New Adult Books: 20 Titles to Get You Started.” Reedsy).
The book review community Goodreads has a list of new adult fiction that collects popular titles in the genre. Authors like Colleen Hoover, Jennifer Armentrout, Casey McQuiston, Tammara Webber, and Sarah J. Maas appear multiple times on this list. McGuire’s biography on her author website credits her as paving the way for the genre with Beautiful Disaster (which ranks first on the Goodreads list). However, the rise of self-published authors in the new adult space was ongoing at the time—Colleen Hoover and Tammara Webber’s debuts were also acquired by traditional publishers and re-released in 2012 alongside McGuire’s, and romance continues to be the most popular genre in the new adult category, suggesting that the new adult space is a reshaping of a longstanding literary practice.
In contrast to young adult (YA) fiction, which is typically defined as featuring protagonists between 13 and 18 years old and aimed at readers who fall within that age group, new adult novels generally encompass more varied life experience, including college, first careers, building a family, or living independently. Like YA, new adult novels cover the spectrum of genres. Frequent themes of new adult fiction include relationships, sex, and romance, leading to the popular subgenre of new adult romance. The inclusion of legal, consensual sex as a central aspect of the genre allows new adult titles to participate in the huge slice of the reading market claimed by romance titles.
