Marsha Qualey

A tragic accident ending with the death of two people her own age changes life forever for an eighteen-year-old woman.

Just Like that

Nineteen-year-old Kelly, ex-addict niece of a nationally-renowned Minnesota talk show host, has an unexpected adventure with the visiting prince of a war-torn Eastern European country.

One Night

Border Baker thinks he's perfectly content in New Mexico, his home for the last three years. But when his father inherits his childhood home in Minnesota and decides to move them again, Border feels he's being held prisoner and force-fed a hometown. People in the town haven't forgotten that his dad fled to Canada rather than serve in the Army in Vietnam, and Border becomes a target of their simmering resentment. Border doesn't want to give up the streets and coffee shops of Albuquerque for church and school in rural Red Cedar. A town full of folks who know his business, a school full of teachers who notice when he's absent, and a social life centered around hockey and pizza isn't exactly what he wants. Or is it?

Hometown

Beatrice is funny, smart, and creative. Beatrice is also very clumsy, which is how she got the nickname Bumble B. From her butterfingers down to her two left feet, B. can turn the simplest event into an unforgettable memory. Like the time she blew up her best friend's birthday cake, or the time she sank the school play. Thankfully B. always has a mission and doesn't give up! With humor, spunk, and a whole lot of resilience, Bumble B. proves, without a doubt, what doesn't kill her makes her stronger! With fun-filled illustrations and easy-to-read text, this early chapter book series will prove that every negative can be turned into a positive if you have the right attitude.

Bumble B.

In 1969 the Vietnam War protest movement brings together two Minnesota teenagers.

Come in from the Cold

After a family friend accidentally detonates a bomb during a political protest, the aftershocks continue to roil through 17-year-old Beamer Flynn's life. The first child born in a commune her parents helped form, Beamer has grown up under the watchful eye of all the people once involved in the now-disbanded commune. They were all present at her birth, voted on her name (Merry Moonbeam), and still feel entitled to have a say in her life. As those friends (the “Woodies”) gather at her Northern Minnesota home to discuss and deal with the consequences of the bombing, Beamer yearns to escape their constant presence--especially their surveillance of her life, her deepening romance with boyfriend Andy, and her developing relationship with a college student, Martin. Andy will soon be graduating and heading east to college; he wants more emotional and physical intimacy. Martin wants time together and to become part of the cozy community around the family’s woodstove. The Woodies want updates on every conversation and night out. Beamer wants to escape. Cross-country skiing, school, snowmobile racing, and winter softball (on-ice) all provide welcome distractions until Beamer comes to the attention of a persistent reporter who is writing about the bombing. When the reporter expands that story to include Beamer, the turbulent winter threatens to explode. Through her relationship with Andy and Martin, and in the lingering shadow of the distant 1960s, Beamer is finally forced to examine her unusual upbringing and confront the legacy of being Everybody’s Daughter.

Everybody's Daughter

An edge-of-the-seat adventure! - Publisher's Weekly (starred review) Seventeen-year-old Arden Munro has been raised by her older brother, Scott, ever since the death of their parents 10 years earlier. He has been her only family. But now Scott too is dead--or so believe the local police and everyone in Arden's community. Arden, however, is convinced that Scott has staged his snowmobile accident and purposely disappeared. She will search until she finds him. As Arden obsessively continues her detective hunt, she is forced to examine her feelings of loss and isolation, and to finally realize that these feelings existed long before Scott's accident. Whether or not her brother reappears, where should Arden turn for the support that usually comes from family? The page-turning mystery leads to a heart-tugging conclusion that is at once hopeful and sad, piercing and satisfying.

Thin Ice

In this compilation of four separately published works, Gracie Laroo, the youngest pig on the Water Sprites, a medal-winning synchronized swimming team, gets a chance to perform at the Pig Jubilee, in a movie, on a cruise ship, as well as giving a motivational speech at her former school--all things which test her confidence and abiltiy to perform in the clutch.

The Marvelous, Amazing, Pig-Tastic Gracie Laroo!

Kelly Ray is nineteen and a recovering heroin addict. To stay sober, she lives by a severe set of rules, and the last thing she needs is a complicated guy. And who could be more complicated than the heir to the throne of a war-torn European country? But when, by chance, she meets Prince Tomas Teronovich, Kelly is hooked--not so much by his looks, his gentleness, or his obvious attraction to her, but by the idea of getting him on her Aunt Kit's radio talk show. So begins one amazing night, during which she will need to keep Prince Tom entertained, hidden from his guards and the politicians who want to control his every move; keep secret for as long as possible her connection to the controversial host of "Kit Chat"…and keep herself from falling in love.

Revolutions of the Heart won the 1994 Minnesota Book Award for Older Children's Fiction, and was named a BCCB Blue Ribbon Book, as well as an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Outspoken 17-year-old Cory Knutson faces the most difficult year of her life -- dealing with the death of her beloved mother and the racism she discovers in her own hometown. Friends and neighbors in her small Wisconsin town have become bitterly divided over Indian treaty rights, and when Cory starts dating an American-Indian boy, Mac, she becomes a target of the townspeople's bigotry.

Revolutions of the Heart

Gracie LaRoo's synchronized swimming team trades out water for snow. But Gracie is afraid of heights and has never been on skiis. Can she overcome her fears in time to shine, or is this trip going downhill fast?

Gracie LaRoo in the Snow

Several hundred women are about to converge on tiny Pepin, Minnesota, to celebrate the birthday of Ida May Turnbull, the long-dead author of a beloved series of children's books. When the "Little Girls" gather in Pepin, one woman finds life has changed forever.

A Novel of Pepin

Venom and the River

Beatrice "Bumble B." Flinn's usual Halloween costume is a bee, but this year she has decided to add a long cape and become Super Bee, but she is having a little trouble figuring out just what her superpowers are--until a sudden downpour gives her the chance to put her cape to good use.

Mission Super Halloween

Two prominent city residents have been murdered, and Barrie knew both of them. But does she know their killer? The police have connected both victims to her mother's hair salon, and the obvious focus has become Barrie's mom and the other stylists, all of whom happen to be convicted killers who met in prison vocational school. Amidst intriguing people whom she can't quite trust, and forced into living with the mother she can't forgive, Barrie tries to ignore the uproar by immersing herself in her writing. But when she shares a troubling suspicion with the homicide detective, she suddenly finds herself pulled deeper into a situation that's growing more frightening every day.

Marsha Qualey

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