Young Adult
Sharon Biggs Waller
Sharon Biggs Waller is the Friends of American Writers award-winning author of the critically-acclaimed young adult novels The Forbidden Orchid, A Mad, Wicked Folly, and Girls on the Verge. She writes for magazines about horses, chickens, and farming, and she’s a co-author of The Original Horse Bible. Previously, she worked as a riding instructor at the Royal Mews in Buckingham Palace and as a national park ranger at Indiana Dunes National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, and Cabrillo National Monument. In addition to writing, she is a dressage rider and trainer, a fiber artist, and a Planned Parenthood clinic escort. She lives on a 10-acre sustainable hobby farm in a ghost town in Northwest Indiana with her husband Mark, two horses, ten dairy goats, four cats, three dogs, ten laying hens, and a gaggle of geese.
2020 Young Adult Shortlist: Girls on the Verge
Camille couldn’t be having a better summer―she kills it as Ophelia in her community theater’s production of Hamlet, catches the eye of the cutest boy in the play, and nabs a spot in a prestigious theater program. But on the very night she learns she got into the program, she also finds out she’s pregnant. She definitely can’t tell her parents. And her best friend Bea doesn’t agree with the decision Camille has made.
Camille is forced to try to solve her problem alone…and the system is very much working against her. At her most vulnerable, Camille reaches out to Annabelle Ponsonby, a girl she only barely knows from the theater. Happily, Annabelle agrees to drive her wherever she needs to go. And in a last minute change of heart, Bea decides to come with.
Over the course of more than a thousand miles, friendships will be tested and dreams will be challenged. But ultimately, the girls will realize that friends are the real heroes in every story.
