Illinois Authors

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston : 2013.

While touring with group of Confederate Civil War re-enactors for a summer internship, Libby and Dev attempt to design and sell Southern Confederate costumes for a ball, investigate haunted battle grounds, and seek handsome Southern soldier boys.

High school senior Avery Dennis runs the prom committee, and she has always had a date for everything, but when a public breakup with her current boyfriend makes her start wondering about her own dating history, she sets out to investigate why her relationships never seem to work out--and ends up discovering some hard truths about herself and her dating choices.

High school juniors Rosie Radeke and Henry Yi, both enrolled in an elite cooking program in Paris, must balance rivalry and romance.

Fourteen-year-old mermaid princess Lana reluctantly visits her mother on land for the Royal Festival after her mermaid-father appoints her a royal ambassador, but when an earthquake strikes back home and Lana is forbidden to go back home, she discovers nefarious forces may be at work against her kingdom.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston : 2012.

During a summer internship at a living history museum in Maine, fashion-conscious Libby runs afoul of her roommate, investigates a haunted ship, and seeks a romantic hero like those in the historical novels she loves.

Tomboy Dylan, sixteen, meets the boy of her dreams when she is forced to play maid of honor to her beauty queen sister, who is marrying Scottish royalty on a reality television show.

"High-school seniors Kimberly Landis-Lilley and Teddy Lin have been together since kindergarten, but then someone starts a rumor that they have broken up, and suddenly the whole William Henry Harrison High School is taking sides, somebody is putting up posters supporting Kim and criticizing Teddy, there are incidents of artistic vandalism, people are talking about having separate proms, and even teachers and parents are getting involved--and nobody is more confused about the chaos then Kim and Teddy themselves." --

Angelica Marie Hutcherson is an aspiring reporter for the San Anselmo Prep's newspaper, The Prepster; sophomore Colin Von Kohorn is its editor, who keeps rejecting her stories because they do not reflect his "vision"; but when Colin suggests she write a story on the upcoming Academic Battle, Angelica senses an opportunity--unfortunately somebody has scheduled the Battle (which their school always wins) on the same day as the homecoming game (which they always lose), and to make the chaos complete it is also the day for class elections.

"Cass McKay has been called stubborn, temperamental, difficult, and that word that rhymes with "witch" more times than she cares to count. But that's all about to pay off. She has finally landed the role she was born to play--Kate, in The Taming of the Shrew--in the summer apprentice program of a renowned Shakespeare theater company in the forests of Vermont"--