Young Adult Revisited

Quick note, this is the revised edition from 1959 and not the original edition from the 30s. Nancy gets a call from her close friend Helen for help. Since this is early in the series, Nancy is still honing her skills and wants to go on another investigation. Helen asks her to come check out the home of her aunt and great great grandmother. Before she can though, a Mr. Gomber arrives on her doorstep. He's the lawyer for this guy Willie. Willie owned land that a railroad company wanted to buy, something happened with his signature, and now the railroad company is suing. Gomber warns Nancy and Hannah that Carson is in serious danger and acts so threatening that Nancy throws him out. She then goes to see Helen's aunt Rosemary and Miss Flora, her great great grandmother. Rosemary gives her a short history of how they thought their big ass family home was haunted because they kept hearing weird footsteps and noises. Someone then broke in and stole some things. Nancy a...

Secret Admirer starts with a letter addressed to Selena from someone named The Sun that's all about how she is oh so beautiful and has hair of gold. Either she's a Wakefield twin or part of The Brady Bunch. Selena is the top actress in Shadyside High School and super popular too. After finishing up her latest performance, she steps off stage and rolls her eyes when her friend Jake calls her Moon. It's a nickname from when she was a kid because her name literally means moon. Selena then chats with her best friend Katy who is one the backstage crew. They were both overweight as kids, Selena lost some weight, and since Katy still has 20 extra pounds on her frame, she's clearly a loser. Backstage, Selena finds a bunch of dead flowers waiting for her and a note that says tonight was her final performance. On her way out, she has a run in with her ex-boyfriend Danny. Even though he's handsome, a football player, and super popular, she dumped him after six ...

Nancy is such a nice young girl that she offers to drive her new neighbor, Mrs. Tenney to Follett Mansion. Her Aunt Sara lived there for years before passing away. Tenney tells her all about how her aunt had a ton of antiques, but when they get there, everything of value is gone. Aunt Sara apparently split the furniture between Tenney and her cousin Alpha Zinn. Zinn is an antiques dealer, but Nancy doesn't think that's enough evidence or proof. Nancy does find a weird symbol. It's the witch tree symbol, which is a curse in Pennsylvania Dutch communities, and Zinn just so happens to live in that area. Tenney also tells her about an antiques dealer she met. He heard about Sara's death and stopped by to say he was interested in buying anything the heirs didn't want. She says that he left at the same time she left with the estate lawyer but isn't totally sure that the door was locked behind them. Nancy calls local hotels to see if the dealer – Roger Hoelt...

Here's what you need to know about Lily Bancroft. She's up for a prestigious honors scholarship that goes to the valedictorian. She has a boyfriend named Alex. And she works for her uncle Bob in his drugstore. Oh, and she really, really hates her social studies teacher Mr. Reiner. At the very beginning of the book, she goes to see him about changing her grade on a recent test. She claims she got all the multiple choices questions right and gave him everything he wanted in the essay section. I'm totally on her side until she says that some random girl in another class had similar results and got an A instead of the B that Lily got. He then points out that the other girl is in regular social studies class and not the honors section like her. Lily fantasizes about jumping over the desk and strangling him before running off when he won't change her grade. After chatting with Alex and her friend Julie, who had an older brother killed in a robbery, she start...

  Jessica is super excited because (a) her class is taking a field trip to the zoo and (b) Alice is the field trip mom/chaperon. As she explains to Liz, it means they get to lead the group and basically do whatever they want. That clearly isn't true though. Alice won't make Amy and Eve switch seats with them and makes them go to the back of the line when Jessica tries to cut to be next to her. She eventually gets so ticked off that when they reach the zoo, she convinces Liz, who is her buddy, to ditch the group. Liz refuses and they fight for so long that Winston and Todd come over to see what's going on. By the time they finish explaining themselves, the group really is gone. That's okay with Jessica because a bunch of kids wanted to see the snakes that she hates and all she wanted to do was see the monkeys. The zoo closed down that branch because a baby chimpanzee went missing. That doesn't stop her from convincing the others they should sneak over a...

You might remember Coach Wu from back when Kristy joined the softball team. It turns out that she also played soccer for UNC, which is where Mia Hamm went to school, and she's now the coach of the Stoneybrook Special Olympics soccer team. They take players with mental handicaps and partner them with other players. The handicapped kids are players, and the other kids are their partners. Abby signed up because she isn't getting the chance to play as much as she wanted. Abby spends most of her first practice thinking about how she's so much better than all the other players. Erin, one of the handicapped players, is a lot better than Abby expected. When the coach assigns spots, she puts Abby in a defensive spot and gives Erin Abby's usual spot. Abby tells her that she's a striker and was the top scorer on her old team, but the coach remains unmoved. Since she knows way better than anyone else, Abby decides that it's her job to show the coach how wron...

  In the very short prologue, the cheerleading team from Salem University are competing in the regional championship. Someone keeps watching them from the shadows and whispering about how they will get what is coming to them soon enough. Apparently Salem University does cheerleading in a completely different way than any other school in the world. All the girls trying out live in a dormitory called Abby House, even though classes already started and they presumably already live on campus. Delle is a new freshman who tries out because she was a cheerleader in junior high and high school. It totally kicks her ass and makes her think back to her high school boyfriend, Warren, who she dumped after he proposed to her. The girls also meet Marla and Rory, who are the co-captains of the squad and Jennifer, one of the other cheerleaders. Marla later tells them that the reason they need new cheerleaders is because the old squad died in a bus accident. The bus crashed and e...