Cheating Lessons

Can honesty be the worst policy?

Bernadette Terrell has always known the right thing to do. Not the most popular girl in school, her focus has always been on academic, not social, success. When her favorite teacher names her to Wickham High School's state championship quiz bowl team, she believes that she has reached the pinnacle of her high school academic career. However, her elation quickly fades as she begins to suspect that perhaps someone cheated to get Wickham into the contest and is cheating still.

In her search for answers, Bernadette must contend with a situation that isn't black and white, where a community's hope, hard work, and pride are on the line. Is a team -- and a school -- implicated by one person's behavior?

Cappo's blend of suspense and humor makes Cheating Lessons a riveting story about right and wrong -- and the downside of trust.

Nan willard Cappo has been a waitress, a speechwriter, a nurse recruiter, and a computer marketing representative for IBM. In 1992 she won the Judy Blume Contemporary Novel-in-Progress Grant given by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. She lives outside Detroit, Michigan, with her husband and three children, all of them devoted Jeopardy! fans. Cheating Lessons is her first novel.