I’ve been writing stories ever since I learned how to hold a crayon, and now I write faith-based books for women of all ages, and novels for teens and tweens. If  my novels can make you shiver with goose bumps, then snuggle deep down into some warm-fuzzies, then laugh so hard you snort soda out your nose… and if my Christian work can help you see how heart-soaringly God loves you, then unlock the these-people-were-just-like-me stories in the Bible, then equip you to step into the emotional-beautiful person He made you to be… then I’ve done my job.

Click here to check out my teen and tween fiction

Click here to check out my faith-based work for teens

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Ever since I wrote The Thirteenth Summer, I’ve been in love with the number 13. I guess you could call it my lucky number.

I started writing lists of 13 things for my blog. Here are a couple of lists of 13 about me!

13 Book Worlds I Want to Live In

1. Hogwarts: I want to turn mice into teacups in Transfiguration, stuff myself full of strange Britishy foods like treacle tarts in the Great Hall, get lost on the moving staircases, hide from Peeves in the Room of Requirement, then climb through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor common room to curl up with a book in a squashy armchair before finally going to sleep in a four-poster bed in a tower room overlooking the lake.
2. Mary’s garden, so full of wonder and mystery and beauty, from The Secret Garden (Francis Hodgson Burnett)
3. The almost-magical attic in A Little Princess (Francis Hodgson Burnett)
4. Prince Edward Island, especially Green Gables, White Way Delight, the Lake of Shining Waters, and the little schoolhouse from Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
5. The Realms from Libba Bray’s A Great and Terrible Beauty
6. The London Institute with Tessa and Will and Jem from Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series
7. This isn’t a geographical place, but an emotional one: I want to be the fifth member of the sisterhood in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
8. Forks, because a) it rains a lot, and I adore rain, and b) even though I’m not a vampire/werewolf kind of girl … well, lots of exciting things happen there
9. The time-traveling house in Tom’s Midnight Garden
10. The black and white circus in The Night Circus
11. Amsterdam with Hazel and Gus from The Fault in Our Stars (John Greene)
12. I want a magic treehouse in my backyard like they have in the Magic Treehouse books (Mary Pope Osborne).
13. Genovia, Mia Thermopolis’s kingdom in The Princess Diaries books (Meg Cabot).

13 Things I Love

1. A rainy day, a comfy armchair, and a good book.
2. Going to the movies and sharing a ginormous popcorn and Cherry Coke with Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome, and squeezing his arm at the scary parts.
3. Venti half-caff light whip mochas from Starbucks.
4. Cats with squashy faces, dogs who double as foot warmers.
5. Baby giggles and kid snuggles.
6. Fuzzy socks.
7. The smell of old books.
8. Sweatshirts on the beach.
9. The first time we turn on Christmas music for the season.
10. Organizational bins and cute calendars (You’d think this meant I’m super organized. Really it just means I fantasize about being super organized.)
11. Swimming laps till my heart’s about to burst out of my chest.
12. Telling the same funny stories and quoting the same stupid movie lines over and over again with my brothers and sister.
13. My kitchen table packed with kids, everybody laughing so hard water’s squirting from their noses.