Author Francesca Lia Block “writes in a style that she says is influenced by Greek myth, the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez and the modernist poetry of T. S. Eliot and H. D. Her stories abound with sudden transformations, fairies, genies and ghosts.” But her novels, aimed at a young adult audience, also contain plenty of frank discussion of drugs, sex, and the other temptations confronted by teens and college students. As might be expected, not everyone is happy with Block’s subject matter, but her books are flying off the shelves, and winning awards on their way to the cash register.