Babysitting four-year-old Cassie Lord will be a piece of cake, as far as Lisa Kingsley is concerned. The little girl doesn't do much except stare out the window, seemingly lost in another place and time. The money is good--really good--and Lisa needs a dress for the harvest dance, Christmas presents for friends and family, as well as dorm room necessities for her coming freshman year at college. But things are strange at the Lord's isolated house, overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Western Washington State. The little girl claims she has a missing twin, which, according to Mr. and Mrs....

Emma Byrd is happy to accompany her older cousin, Pat, to their mothers' ancestral home in the South Carolina Low Country. As summer jobs go, typing, editing and researching material for her cousin's proposed book on low country myths and legends beats flipping burgers. The antebellum homestead is a perfect setting, too, offering peace, tranquility, and plenty of motivation in which to work. Emma does not know her Carolina relatives very well and wonders why her mother kept her brother and her away from this side of the family. The tragic accident that took the life of her older cousin,...

An afternoon hike through the Olympic Peninsula rain forest turns into the adventure of a lifetime for two sixteen-year-old cousins, Hannah and Jonah. The splendor of Olympic National Park beckons, and the cousins are eager to explore. The trails take them deep into a primeval forest of gigantic Sitka spruce, Douglas fir, and western red cedar. Like a scene out of Middle Earth, one particular behemoth stands as a monument to a time before time began. Jonah finds a small totem-a Native American artifact-wedged deep in the tree roots. Searching for more treasures, he climbs the gigantic roots...

Tabitha Brown loses her world when her fiance, Sam, is killed while on a skiing trip in the Cascade Mountains. With no family except a great-aunt whom she's met only once, Tabitha feels alone-bereft of everything meaningful. When great-aunt Rita dies, leaving Tabitha an old house, overlooking the Strait of Georgia in the northwest corner of Washington State, as well as a sizable sum of money, she resigns from her teaching position, packs up her meager possessions and leaves Seattle for a fresh start in life. The old house is nothing like the dream-house she and Sam had planned to have. In...

Mysterious secrets await Randy Smith at The Shadows - her deceased mother's Civil War era ancestral home in South Carolina's Low Country. A month long summer stay at the foreboding mansion full of relatives she has never met isn't how Randy planned to spend her vacation. But her father has decided to remarry and while he and his new wife honeymoon in Europe, it will be a perfect time for Randy to reunite with her mother's family. The Shadows lives up to its name - dark, gloomy, and stuck in a century, long gone. What's more, the place is shrouded with tragedies and unsolved mysteries....

Kate Merrick's goal is to be the most popular girl in high school. Already part of the -in- crowd and one of only four freshman accepted into drama club, she is well on her way to achieving this dream. Only one obstacle stands in her way. Rose Coughlin. The girl no one wants around. The girl who shuffles; never looks anyone in the eye. The girl who wears stained, ill-fitting clothes. The girl who smells. When the unthinkable happens and Kate is paired with Rose on a class project, her world falls apart. Shunned by her friends, Kate is desperate for a way out of this dilemma. So, no one is...