The Ghost Sitter

Charlotte is looking forward to spending the summer in her new home-she has her own bedroom, a nearby pool, a friendly neighbor, and there's a big block party coming up. Then her little brother suddenly starts asking for his new friend, "Susie." Is someone else playing with him? Someone only he can see? Soon Charlotte realizes that her all-too-normal house is haunted-by the ghost of a girl who doesn't realize that she's dead. . . .

"Has several strong appeals: new best friends solving a mystery together, a just-scary-enough ghost girl, and a deathless bond between sisters that provides the book with its resoundingly satisfying conclusion." (The Horn Book)

I am an Air Force brat, born in the long-defunct base at Harlingen. My childhood was spent reading and taking long car trips, as we moved from Texas to Alaska (where I lived through the great Anchorage quake of 1964), Alaska to Iowa (while my father was in Nam), Iowa to Maryland, Maryland back to Texas -- San Angelo, to be precise. I came to San Antonio to attend two universities, from neither of which I graduated. By that time, I was a full-fledged Texan again. In 1987 I married Michael D. Griffin, A.K.A. Damon. We live in a 90-year-old house just north of downtown San Antonio.

I sold my first short story in 1986, and my first book. The audience I aim for, generally, is myself at age ten. I have known seven year olds who read my books with pleasure, and fourteen year olds who found them too hard. Children demand better books than adults do, so I try to answer the demand. The Ghost Sitter is my attempt at a realistic ghost story. In real life (I read true ghost stories extensively), ghosts seldom understand that they're dead, and haunt all sorts of places, even suburban tract homes, not just Gothic mansions.

Readers who want to know me any better than this can check out our webpage.