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Jeanie and Frank are both involved in demanding careers and have young children who are clamouring for their share of their parents’ time. Just as Jeanie decides to leave her job as a horse trainer, deferring to her husband’s movie industry career, one of the principals of the race track where she works is murdered and she is thrown back into the maelstrom of racetrack politics and the care of the valuable horses. Frank’s seeming indifference to the pressures of her life puts the marriage into jeopardy.

In the second Camilla MacPhee mystery, it’s now forty below in Canada’s capital, but victims’ advocate Camilla is feeling the heat. When a savage serial batterer goes on the rampage looking for revenge against his former girlfriend, the terrified woman turns to Camilla and Justice for Victims for help. But a sudden change of fortune causes her client to really feel the chill. Camilla wades into the investigation, now one of murder, and gets a frosty reception from the police.

It’s not easy having your own father for a teacher, but that’s only one of twelve-year-old Nikki’s problems. Her beloved dog has died, leaving a gaping hole in her life, which is thrown into further turmoil by the arrival of her long-lost eccentric grandmother from Australia. Life is pretty tense around Nikki’s house, but Nikki relaxes by taking long rides on her horse and visiting a nearby secluded pond inhabited by a rare species of turtle. Things do begin to get brighter when she receives an unwanted, runt puppy as a birthday present.

An expert at fierce scowls and unpleasant grimaces, twelve-year-old Kaitlin Anderson presents a tough face to the world, usually hiding her quirky, imaginative nature. Still dealing with the loss of her mother to cancer, Kaitlin is less than kindly disposed to her stepmother Jane and her bratty half-sister, Anna. Meanwhile, Kaitlin has firmly fastened the bulk of her antagonism on her next-door neighbour - the odious boy, Michael, who used to be her best pal. Now, with the help of her friends, she devotes much of her energy to scheming to make him as miserable as possible.

Fourteen-year-old Jennifer Bannon cannot face another boring summer in Springhills. She convinces her mother to let her spend July at her grandmother’s cottage in Hawk’s Creek. She does not reveal that her plan is to live with her grandmother forever in order to avoid the problems back home. But Hawk’s Creek holds dark secrets, and Jennifer is soon drawn into the troubled world of Audrey Musquash, a Native girl accused of stealing and being out of control. In this tale of suspense and haunting friendship, Jennifer must face truths that will change her perspective on life forever.

Thirteen-year-old Mark Rogers knew that his Grandpa Luigi had Alzheimer’s but he hadn’t counted on it turning his life upside-down. When his mother suggests that the two of them move in with Grandpa and help care for him, Mark reluctantly agrees because his grandfather has always been something of a hero to him. He doesn’t know, however, how strange Grandpa’s behaviour has become or that the kids in his new school have a nickname for him: Crazy Luigi.

The Lawrence family (three children, one dog, one cat and two parents) has a crisis on its hands - too much laundry and no place to put it. Are the thirteen baskets they buy in the mysterious shop in the market the end of their problems? Or is it just the beginning of a grand and maybe dangerous adventure for Abigail, Jacob and Ernest? When the baskets become the gateway to another time, the children encounter mysteries which they must solve…before their parents disappear altogether.

In The Golden Grasshopper, ten-year-old Lisa’s and her cousin Paul’s lives were changed forever when they met Gagar, from the planet Ylepithon. In Galena’s Gift, Gagar returns with his precocious young daughter, asking Lisa, now a twelve-year-old grade sixer, to babysit her and teach her about life on Earth. How will Lisa and Paul accomplish this without arousing the suspicion of their fellow earthlings? Using her remarkable abilities, Galena is able to save a young alpaca close to Lisa’s heart from a serious medical emergency.

Jade is a curious nine-year-old who likes to help out at her family’s Chinese restaurant, The Fragrant Garden, after school. Though she is often allowed to help set tables or clean up, she longs to be part of the more exciting tasks such as helping in the kitchen or using the cash register. Her father thinks she is too young for these responsibilities - until a fire breaks out in the kitchen. Jade’s quick-thinking response wins her praise and her father reconsiders her request for more responsibility at the Fragrant Garden.

The sequel to Tree Fever is a story of redemption and the power of belief. Tree Fever, Hood-Caddy’s first novel, introduced strong, spiritual heroine Jessie Dearborn, who struggled to save an old growth stand from a ruthless developer in her small Muskoka town and found her life’s meaning in the process. Flying Lessons once again finds Jessie and her small group of friends fighting those who would despoil the beauty of nature, this time the builders of a resort which will destroy the ecosystem of the lake on which she lives.