Sweet Valley High #111: A Deadly Christmas

In case you missed the other books in this story, Jessica basically stole the fiance of her mom's college roommate's daughter Sue. Sue was kidnapped for a time, and after they found her, a private investigator named Sam caught the kidnapper taking the fake ransom. Jessica sees the kidnapper and realizes that he was wearing the same ring she gave Jeremy. Dun dun dun duh.

Jeremy shows up at the house, and she still throws herself into his arms. She convinces herself that it was just a similar ring and that her Jeremy would never do something like that. After the two go out on a date, he tells her that he wants to really show her how much he loves her. This leads to her and Lila shopping for lingerie for her big night.

What she doesn't know is that Sue and Jeremy are still together. They keep sneaking around on dates, and he keeps telling her that he isn't interested in Jessica. Sue is conveniently in the dressing room next to Jessica and overhears her conversation. She goes to Jeremy, who once again denies that he wants to be with Jessica. Sue convinces herself that it's not true, until she overhears them on the phone together.

Sue decides to sneak around and look for clues in Jeremy's room, when she finds a one way ticket he bought himself. Realizing that he doesn't really love her, she tells Jessica the truth. They faked her kidnapping to get her inheritance and they still see each other. Jessica doesn't believe her until Sue reveals secret conversations that Jeremy told her about. She throws Sue out of her room and cries herself to sleep.

The Oracle recently added archives to their Internet or something, so Elizabeth decides to do a search for Jeremy. The only articles he has online are ones about Project Nature and his engagement. She does some more searching and stumbles across a story about a man who took off with his fiancee's money, and the guy in the picture is Jeremy. Jessica finally tells her the truth, and all three girls decide to bring him down on their own.

Jessica keeps avoiding him and making up excuses why they can't sleep together, but she also has to stay close enough that he won't realize she knows the truth. Sue discovers that someone stole her money and blames Jeremy, so they go through with their next plan. Jessica calls him, tells him that she knows all about his scam, and begs him to take her with him. They agree to meet after school and run away together.

While all this is going on, Lila is concerned about Robbie. He has a big art show coming up but he hasn't finished a single painting. She buys a bunch of supplies, creates paintings for them, and everyone hates them. No worries though, Robbie actually finished a group of new paintings in time that everyone loves. Oh, and Ken Matthews keeps showing up and asking Jessica to do things with him.

Jeremy picks up Jessica and takes her back to the Project Nature cabin. She hears him on the phone talking about money and finds the bank account number. He sees her, grabs her, and they fight. He knocks her to the floor, and she hits her head on the coffee table. As she passes out, she remembers that Sam and the others should be right behind her. They arrive just in time to save her life.

Jessica winds up in the hospital, and the police tell her that they captured Jeremy. He apparently confessed to stealing Sue's money and stealing from two other women. Elizabeth wants Jessica to calm down and rest, but who can sleep? There's a hot Christmas party going on and she can't wait to talk to Ken!

*Sue and Jeremy apparently "sneak" around so no one will catch them together, but they spend a lot of time in his room. Yup, no one will ever find you there!

*According to Lila, none of Jessica's friends have lost their v-cards yet, which just seems really unbelievable.

*Ken Matthews should have run so fast when he heard that Jessica was single again.

*Jessica wonders why she never thought of the blond quarterback and the blond cheerleader dating before. Maybe because you did? They actually went out a few times in earlier books, and she even mentioned that he was a fun distraction and not someone to seriously date.

*It's nice that Jeremy confessed when there wasn't really any evidence against him. He could always deny that was him in the pictures they found.

*Alice acts like she doesn't know what to do or say around Sue because she wasn't the sweet girl she thought Sue was. Alice, have you ever met or spent any time with your daughter?

*Massive bump on the head and serious smoke inhalation? Eh, why would the doctor bother keeping you in the hospital? It's clear that a party is more important.

*Sue says that everything was a setup from the very beginning, which confuses the heck out of me. How did he know Jessica would be on the beach that day? How did he manage to hit her in the head? Did Robbie know about any of this?

*Speaking of Robbie, it's funny that he appears in later books. Given what his "best friend" Jeremy did, I'm not sure I could be around him. Also, how long did Robbie know him? He mentions in the first book that Jeremy was a friend from back east, which would seem to indicate that they knew each other pretty well, but then it turns out that Jeremy used false names for several years.