Called "America's queen of romantic suspense" and the "Grandmaster" by reviewers, Phyllis A. Whitney, with over forty novels for young adults to her credit, is a master crafter of mysteries, romances, and intrigues about young women whose attempts to unlock secrets and solve puzzles often put them at the threshold of danger. A popular writer and commercial success--at one time she had over forty million copies of her books in print--Whitney also has garnered critical recognition for her artistry in the genre. She has received the prestigious Edgar Allan Poe Award for two of her young-adult mysteries, and award-nominations for three others.

Whitney's incredible plot twists, foreign settings, complex family dynamics, sinister villains, and spooky overtones echo the eighteenth-century Gothic motif, to which Whitney adds twentieth-century themes, issues, and characters. Critics esteem her works for their realistic, likable, and spunky protagonists, who unlike many traditional heroines of romantic...