Before the members of the R&B group Divine came together three years ago, they were three girls from three different cities with three different levels of experience when it came to recording and performing.

Now that they're a successful vocal group with a hit single and a just-released debut album, Fairy Tales, they can't imagine what their lives would be like apart.

"I did do a demo before this, and it was crazy hard to get a deal," Divine singer Kia Thorton, 17, said. "Working with the girls has made things a lot easier."

"It's a sisterhood thing," bandmate Tonia Tash, 19, explained. "We harmonized very well together from the start. It didn't take too long. We just clicked and started writing together."

Their growing fanbase and record sales seem to indicate how well they've "clicked." "Lately" (RealAudio excerpt), their first single, has already been certified gold (500,000 copies sold) by the Recording Industry Association of America and is currently lodged at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart -- the highest point it has reached since its release eight weeks ago.

According to radio-industry magazine Radio & Records, "Lately" was the fourth most-played song on "urban" radio last week, outpacing such veteran teen R&B divas as Monica, Brandy and Xscape.

Divine, who also include Nikki Bratcher, 18, may be in sync now, but they started off in different places.

Bratcher is from Newark, N.J., and has been recording in studios since she was in eighth grade. Tash studied drama and music in high school and used to sing in front of a mirror in her Brooklyn, N.Y., home while a videotape of R&B singer Shanice Wilson on the television show "Star Search" played in the background.

Kia, meanwhile, sang in a church choir in Inglewood, N.J., and would cold-call record labels with serenades.

Three years ago, the three singers were brought together by their managers, and Divine were born. Speaking from Los Angeles earlier this month, where they were preparing to tape an episode of "Motown Live" with veteran R&B group the Emotions, Bratcher, Tash and Kia said they all were happy to put solo careers aside to pursue success as a group.

They have even written together. So far, the result of their writing partnership has been three songs on Fairy Tales, which hit store shelves Tuesday.

The songs -- "Tell Me," "My Love" and "All You Need" -- are mid-tempo funk songs about love that wear their En Vogue influences on their sleeves and fit in nicely with the album's nine other tracks.

The rest of the album includes the lively urban funk of "Good N' Plenty" and a gospel-flavored cover of pop-crooner George Michael's "One More Try" (RealAudio excerpt). Fairy Tales also is notable for its use of live instrumentation and for the fact that it eschews the trend of putting rappers on R&B songs, though former Digable Planets member Mary Ann "Ladybug" Viera drops a verse on the album's opening track, "I Never Thought."

"We evolved a lot in three years, because we didn't know each other before we came together," Bratcher said. "We started to blend a lot better, and once you reach that point where you can take the melody and sing it and all the voices come together, that's when you've got it. We worked really hard on that for three years, and I think this album reflects that."

The first time the members of Divine heard their song on the radio, it was actually over the phone.

As they explained it, they were in the offices of Red Ant, their label, in New York when they got a call from Red Ant executive Ruben Rodriguez, who was in Milwaukee. He told the group that its song was about to be broadcast.

"We just cried," Tash said. "We were overjoyed, because we've been together three years, and after all the sweating and all the work you do, your song gets on the radio. We were all experiencing a dream come true."

"I had a lot of mixed feelings about it," Bratcher added. "But now that we're traveling to different cities and hearing it on all these stations, I'm loving it."

Though Divine are busily promoting Fairy Tales by making the rounds of radio shows, concerts and televised performances, they also have started working on their next album. According to Kia, they'd like to see their next project include more of their own songwriting.

As a result, they've been taking time on the road to write.

"I can write a song on the plane without a problem," Kia said. "It usually takes us half an hour to do, and we've got plenty of time to do it. Sometimes, we get tired of sleeping and tired of walking around, so we just sit down and take out some paper and write a song."

"We haven't been singing for people on the plane," Tash added. "That's what the in-flight movies are for."