Books in Elodie Fontaine Mysteries series

For the first 7 years of her life, Elodie Fontaine was part of an ultra-secret psychology experiment in China. Now, at 17, she is trying to put that behind her and simply be a normal Florida teenager. She plays on her high school tennis team, is a nerd-in-good-standing in the Math and Science Club, and has come to terms with the fact that she is interested in girls rather than boys. She is even thinking of asking a certain someone on a date when she begins getting disturbing email messages from one of the other subjects of the Chinese experiment. Then someone tries to break into her house to steal her late mother's papers about the project; but why? What value could they have? Elodie realizes she can no longer bury the past. She must act before someone gets hurt. Together with her friends Margo and Kelli, Elodie reluctantly begins searching for answers. But to do this, she must polish off her programming skills and revisit her years in Shanghai with five Chinese girls, an unfinished experiment, and a mother she never really knew.

When mysterious occurrences threaten to disrupt Horses Wild, a popular local riding barn, Elodie, Kelli, and Margo go undercover for The ORG to see if they can root out the problem. Margo and Kelli, who are experienced riders, hire on as working students for the barn’s owner, Macy Malloy, who is deeply involved in training a wild mustang for a national competition. Elodie, who has never ridden before, poses as the daughter of a rich family who pays handsomely for her private riding lessons.At first, the few small thefts and accidents seem to be random—maybe even coincidental—but things turn serious when Elodie is almost killed during her first riding lesson. Someone is deliberately trying to ruin not only Macy’s business, but her reputation as well. With the help of a local barn bunny named Terri, Elodie not only learns the most efficient way to clean stalls, but is able to get the lowdown on the employees and clients of the Horses Wild Ranch. Can she identify the perpetrator before someone else is hurt?Meanwhile, Elodie and Kelli’s affection for each other continues to grow and smolder almost to incandescence. With the two of them working together at Horses Wild, anything might happen.

The fourth book in the popular Elodie Fontaine mystery series finds Elodie travelling to Southern California to search for the birth father she never knew. She discovers his name—Hector Melendez—and learns that he was a Mexican-American professor whose main interest was the study of petroglyphs—ancient rock carvings in the desert mountains. Trouble is, he vanished from sight a decade earlier and his car was found abandoned on the shores of a once-famous salt lake. Refusing to believe that he is dead, Elodie, along with her half-sister Layna, embarks on a journey that takes them through the off-the-grid settlements of Bombay Beach, Slab City, Salvation Mountain, and finally into the lonely Sonoran Desert hills, where deep washes and shifting rocks make any kind of traveling treacherous. Where has Hector gone and why won’t anyone talk about him? Even some of Elodie’s newfound relatives in California make it clear that her efforts to find him are not wanted. Elodie is trying to find out answers to these questions when she learns that she is not the only one looking for him . . .