Books published by publisher Front Street, Incorporated

In this Booklist Top Ten Romance Book, everything eleven-year-old Sassy knows about love comes from the magazine Love Confessions. But now that she has her eyes on her handsome neighbor, Boon, she wants more details. Only nobody will talk to her, not her widowed father or her never-married housekeeper or, worst of all, her gorgeous sister, Lula, who has more boyfriends than she can shake a stick at. When Lula sets up Sassy for an embarrassing moment, Sassy vows revenge: she will make Boon her boyfriend and show Lula a thing or two in the process.

No good deed goes unpunished. Duncan has no intention of getting involved with the crazy lady who lives down the street. But when she has a stroke, his parents insist that he go to her home and take care of her ratty little dog. Her house is a warren of old junk, literally—her husband was a junk dealer, but there are some treasures mixed in. When the woman's nephew shows up to put things in order, she starts to get paranoid, thinking someone is stealing her treasures, and she ropes Duncan into helping her hide them. And that's when things start to go bad.

It's 1959 and Winnie's family is moving to rural Minnesota. Are there even phones there? How will she keep up with her group of best friends, the Starlings? Besides, something isn't right. Her parents are keeping secrets, and Winnie is under strict orders to "keep family matters private." In Minnesota, Winnie finds out that her father's new job requires her family to live on the grounds of a mental institution--"a prison for freaks," Winnie concludes. The Bridgewater State Hospital is near an Indian reservation and surrounded by small farms. It's only a mile from her new school, but that mile brings her into a different world. At school Winnie is ridiculed not only as the new kid but as the girl who lives at the local nuthouse. At first the only thing Winnie thinks about is how to get back to her friends and her "real" life in Chicago, but eventually she is swept up in a world full of people and events that cause her to question her former life and then to see everything in a new light--her parents, the Starlings, her new friends, and herself.