Books with author kelly-fiona

Pretty, popular Marijke Monti and over-achieving nerd-girl Lily Spencer have little in common--except that neither feels successful when it comes to love. Marijke can't get her boyfriend to say "I love you" and Lily can't get a boyfriend at all. When the girls end up at a late night showing of Titanic, sniffling along with the sinking ship, they realize that their love lives could--and should--be better. Which sparks an idea: Why can't life be like a movie? Why can't they create perfect romantic situations? Now they have a budding friendship and a plan--to act out grand gestures and get the guys of their dreams. It seems like fun at first, but reality turns out to be much more complicated, and they didn't take into account that finding true love usually requires finding yourself first.

"The Secret of Thunder Mountain" (#6), utilizes Gulliver's Texas ranch as a setting- a ranch that Gulliver seems to spend precious little time on. Here a cavern in a nearby peak is being utilized by ruthless killers who robbed an armored car of three million dollars in gold several years before. At Thunder Mountain the gang have high-powered electric furnaces to melt the gold and local rocks together to form an appearance of ore which they then hope to be able to "legitimately" reprocess without suspicion. But their huge electrical generators and furnaces produce a loud static interference on television and high-frequency radio bands, and in an effort to track down the location of this static in order to help out a friendly old man whose television reception is being ruined, Tom builds a radio direction-finder which is, incidentally, described with complete technical accuracy. (In fact, as a boy, I once built a similar one after reading this book.) Plotting on a map from two different locations the directional readings for the static, Tom finds that the two lines on his map meet at Thunder Mountain. This book contains some of Fran Striker's very best writing, from the descriptions of Hamilton Quest's somber victorian apartment in New York City to the killer waiting in the weeds of a vacant lot in Texas, sweating in the hot sun and slapping at a bug on his hand. The tone, detail, and pace of this book are unsurpassed.

Pretty, popular Marijke Monti and over-achieving nerd-girl Lily Spencer have little in common--except that neither feels successful when it comes to love. Marijke can't get her boyfriend to say "I love you" and Lily can't get a boyfriend at all. When the girls end up at a late night showing of Titanic, sniffling along with the sinking ship, they realize that their love lives could--and should--be better. Which sparks an idea: Why can't life be like a movie? Why can't they create perfect romantic situations? Now they have a budding friendship and a plan--to act out grand gestures and get the guys of their dreams. It seems like fun at first, but reality turns out to be much more complicated, and they didn't take into account that finding true love usually requires finding yourself first.

Nora Henderson has been basting baby back ribs for as long as she could reach the counter of her dad's famous barbecue joint. When she's accepted to Taste Test, a teen reality cooking competition, Nora can't wait to leave her humble hometown behind. On set, run-ins with the maddeningly handsome and talented son of a famous chef, Christian Van Lorten, make Nora wonder if it's him or the win she really wants. But as she and Christian emerge as front-runners for the final prize, Nora can't ignore the mysterious accidents plaguing the kitchen arena. Someone is conducting eliminations of their own, and if Nora doesn't stop them, she could be next to get "chopped" for good. With romance and intrigue as delectable as the winning recipes included in the story, this debut novel will be devoured by all.