Using the pseudonym Darren Shan, Irish writer Darren O'Shaughnessy turned a penchant for watching horror movies into a million-dollar cottage industry with his year 2000 juvenile novel Cirque du Freak: A Living Nightmare, in which two twelve-year-old boys sneak into a visiting freak show and get far more than they bargained for. Sold to England's HarperCollins publishing house, the book was quickly optioned for film and several sequels were immediately put in the works. For author O'Shaughnessy, then only twenty-seven years old, such success was sweet indeed. Living with his parents in Limerick, Ireland, collecting public assistance, and about ready to go back to his day job, O'Shaughnessy found that the overnight success of Cirque du Freak allowed him to achieve the dream of most writers: writing full time. "It's great," O'Shaughnessy told Erin Doherty in London's Sunday Mirror, "because I can go and write what I want and...