Is Bella Forrest the Most Popular Author You’ve Never Heard Of?

What if I told you there as an author who has written more than 90 books in one series alone? That author is Bella Forrest, who publishes in several genres.

Bella Forrest is a self-published author who writes vampire and paranormal romance, young adult fantasy, and science fiction. Among other things. According to her Goodreads author page, she has sold more than 7 million books.

Bella Forrest has several series, including Darklight; Harley Merlin and the Secret Coven; and Gender Games.

But she might be best known for the one that started it all, her A Shade Of Vampire series. That series started in 2012, and it is already up to book 91 (A Gate of Light). That isn’t a typo. There are 91 books in that series, and it hasn’t been completed yet.

But Book 91, A Gate of Light, came out in May 2020. For such a prolific author, that’s a long period without a new book.

Is there a mystery there?

How I Learned About Bella Forrest

I used to run into ads for the A Shade of Vampire series often. Then, I saw ads for a dystopian SF novel called The Gender Game by Bella Forrest. I loved The Hunger Games, so I was tempted at first. Then, for whatever reason, I decided against taking a chance on this series. I had also seen ads for the A Shade of Vampire series.

So I put Bella Forrest in the back of my mind for a while.

The other day, I came across a new young adult (YA) vampire novel in Barnes and Noble: Belle Morte by Bella Higgin. (I know, that’s a lot of Bellas and Belles. Bear with me.) So I did my usual thing. Took a table at the bookstore café, ordered a coffee, and looked up reviews of Belle Morte on my phone. On Goodreads, one reviewer gave Belle Morte 3.5 stars and mentioned readers getting hooked on “Stephanie Meyer or Bella Forrest.”

Sitting in the middle of the bookstore café, I found myself thinking, “Who is Bella Forrest?” The name sounded familiar to me, although my first thought was, “Wait. The heroine from Twilight was Bella Swan, wasn’t it?” (Yes, another Bella!)

So then, I Googled Bella Forrest. And I plunged into a mystery.

Yes, the first mystery is, “How can one person write this many books?”

The answer is usually: ghostwriters. How else can one person write 91 books in a…