Norma Jean Lutz Classic Collection Series

Latina Harmen knew she was going to hate Missouri. "There's nothing in Missouri!" she had told her father when he announced they were to spend the summer there.And now she knew she had been one hundred and ten percent right.   Latina had taken for granted that she would be spending another happy summer vacation with her friends at Periwinkle Cove on the East Coast. After all, her family had spent summers there as long as she could remember. Now, in the summer before her senior year, she would be stuck in a hick town with no one around but her boring parents and bratty younger brother.   How could she have guessed the beauty that lay waiting for her in those brooding hills? How was she to know she would meet fascinating people, and that she would learn more about herself than she'd ever known?   How was she to know she would meet a special someone whose friendship and support would change her life forever?

The Clash of Cultures – Mozart Meets Heavy Metal!   Arianna Stefanoff--concert violinist: rock music sounds like pots and pans banging together Reid Lavelle--rock star extraordinaire: doesn't know an oboe from a piccolo… So how did this unlikely pair wind up on a weekend date in New York City?   Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Handel. Arianna Stefanoff is familiar with the works of all these and more. Growing up in a musical family, she has an intimate knowledge of classical composers. On the other hand, her knowledge of the latest rock stars, and their current hits, borders on zilch.   Being steeped in classical music blended well while the Stefanoffs lived in the culturally-heavy city of Boston. But once her symphony-conductor father accepted the conductor position for the St. Louis Symphony, Arianna is suddenly catapulted out of her comfort zone.   Her new set of friends have scant appreciation for her flavor of music. She doesn't think much of theirs either. Then her friend, Kara, persuades her to enter a contest, a contest in which the winner is treated to a weekend date in New York City with rock star, Reid Lavelle.   Explosions ensue when, against all the odds, Arianna wins. The girls at her school are not only jealous but furious knowing she's not even a fan of Reid's. Reid's ego is mangled when he learns his date knows nothing about his music. All signs point to disaster.   Is Arianna destined to be ostracized forever just because of a dumb contest? And could it possibly be that her own narrow-mindedness regarding Reid is aiding in her misery?  

The strangest thing about the nightmares was that Serena never knew the screams were hers until Aunt Loula woke her. In her dream, the screams were always Kris's. Always Kris's. Aunt Loula's husky voice would croon as she patted Serena, "There, there. It's all right. It's all a dream. Go back to sleep now."   But it was never all right. And she almost never went back to sleep, for fear it would come again...   The accident that injured her seven-year-old brother, Kris, was all Serena's fault. Her mother and Kris are in Texas at a rehabilitation center, and Serena has been exiled to her farmer relatives in Oklahoma.   Serena misses the accelerated school she attended in Minneapolis. She misses her family, and she misses her best friend, Brent. Through the hot Oklahoma summer, Serena struggles with a heavy load of guilt. By mid-summer when her mother and Kris come for a visit, the sight of Kris in a wheel chair is almost more than Serena can bear.   Open friendship is offered to Serena by her extended family, by a stray dog named Rompers, and by a young man named Vince—who seems to know a lot about dogs, and about wounded hearts.    What will it take for Serena to emerge from the morass of guilt and self-pity so she can truly see the sterling friends with whom she's been surrounded during her Oklahoma exile?

Lori froze. Maritza turned to look at her with perfectly made-up eyes. Her hair was fluffed high on top and cascaded down into long soft curls, as though a professional stylist had just put a finishing touch on it before pushing her on stage. Her vivid aqua blouse was neatly tucked into a pair of slim black jeans. Black boots completed the ensemble as neat as a pin. She must have grown six inches—tall and willowy. What had Amy said? A knockout? That was an understatement.   What could be more traumatic to a sixth grader than to have her best friend and neighbor move away?    The answer? To have that friend return in eighth grade, totally changed. But then, Lori Ann Layton doesn't believe her former best friend has changed.  Lori believes even though friend, Maritza Novales, is devastated by her parents' divorce, and even though she now looks like a model for Seventeen Magazine—she's still the same on the inside. After all, Lori knows Maritza better than anyone, or so she thinks. And now she sets about to prove it.   Lori is convinced her troubles stem from her father's election to the school board. He pushed through a ruling for city-wide academic eligibility for sports participants at all schools. Four first-string football players at East Birch Jr. High, are off the team.   As editor of the East Birch Junior High newspaper (Panther Paw Prints), Lori needs interviews from the team. But team members are upset with her because of her father's actions. Her friend, Amy, who is also on newspaper staff, says Lori should write an editorial saying she disagrees with the board's decision. But Lori isn't sure she is in disagreement with the ruling. It's a confusing time in Lori's life.   But then—insight and help come from the very person Lori least expects.

"You won't know if you don't try."   Shy, quiet Kirsten Nicholson's life on the sprawling family ranch in Oklahoma has been one of serene predictability. In fact, her rancher father, Carter, detests change. But changes galore explode when seventeen-year-old Enrique Delaire arrives on the scene. Wearing his "Bronc Busting's a Kicker" ballcap, his Nikes, and his surfer shirt, Enrique is ready to ride.   And ride he does, not only into the hearts of this family, but into the hearts of this entire rural community.   Enrique is the foster son of Kirsten's aunt and uncle from Albuquerque. They sent Enrique to help out on the ranch while Kirsten's fiancé, Dan, is away at farrier school in Colorado.   Kirsten has always been content to stay on the sidelines watching life go by, quietly writing her songs and playing her guitar alone in her room. Now all she hears is Enrique Delaire saying: "You won't know if you don't try."   In the wake of Enrique's encouragement, she finds herself stepping into the limelight in ways she never dreamed.   Suddenly doors open to Kirsten and difficult decisions must be made. Will she make the right decisions? Or slip back into her old life of sameness?