Maureen Daly's first novel, Seventeenth Summer, written between the ages of eighteen and twenty, has remained in print for nearly half a century, selling more than seven million copies. Though originally released as an adult title, Seventeenth Summer is now credited as one of the first novels to begin defining the genre of young adult literature.

Living in the small town of Castlecaufield in a troubled Northern Ireland, Daly's father, both the town mayor and the owner of a small bicycle factory, ran into difficulty when he lent a bicycle to a young man carrying a message to some anti-British dissidents. "The lad was shot and my father apprehended for abetting the enemy. The British piled straw around our house, told my father if he failed to leave the country by St. Patrick's Day, the straw would be lit at an unannounced hour and the house burnt to...