eBranch Blog

February 19, 2008

Author Phyllis A. Whitney dies

American Gothic novelist Phyllis A. Whitney passed away recently. She wrote 73 novels, which included those for children, teens and adults. She was awarded two Edgar Awards for two of her juvenile mysteries, and received the Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement from the Mystery Writers of America in 1988.

Whitney died on February 8th of pnemonia in Charlottesville, Virginia. She was 104.

You can find many of Phyllis A. Whitney's books at the library. Check out these and other titles in our collection:

Ameythyst Dreams.
Summoned to the coast of North Carolina by the critically ill grandfather of her former college roommate, Laurie Phillips sets about trying to find out the whereabouts of his granddaughter Patricia, whose disappearance bodes well for the inheritance possibilities of the other relatives. With Patricia out of the picture, who among them stands to inherit the most money?

Daughter of the Stars.
"Were they all lying? Misleading me for their own purposes?..." Lacey Elliot has been a woman without a past since the day her mother whisked her off to Charlottesville, refusing for thirty years to speak of her father, her family, or her history. But when Lacey intercepts a desperate letter from an aunt in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, Lacey sees her chance to confront the past that has terrified her mother and to fill in the gaps in her own life.

Dream of Orchids.
Laurel York has dreamed of this reunion with her father, the famous writer Clifton York, for years. And when she follows him down to the exotic Florida Keys, both love and evil meet her in the form of handsome Marcus O'Neill, who welcomes her, but her two suspicious stepsisters do not. Then there is Clifton York himself, the strange man they all love, and the secret buried treasure that has lain undetected for years. Only the prize orchids waiting in the greenhouse hold the key to a life that Laurel has only dreamed about--or a nightmare that can only end in murder...

The Singing Stones.
Despite her misgivings, child psychologist Lynn McLeod returns to Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains to help ten-year-old Jilly, her ex-husband Stephen's child. But what she finds at the secluded household are more questions. And the danger that threatens both Stephen and Jilly soon closes tightly around Lynn. And all the while, the soft, hypnotic sound in the wind--the eerie yet beautiful music of the Singing Stones--lures Lynn into a realm of mystery, murder, and dormant passion. And, perhaps, to the key to her own destiny....