Bio: Saundra Mitchell

'09 Book Title: Shadowed Summer

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Favorite Books: The Outsiders by SE Hinton, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon, Party of One by Anneli Rufus, Fun Home by Allison Bechdel, Song of the Lioness by Tamora Pierce.

Favorite Bit of Writing Advice: The only way to write a book is to sit down and write it.

Random Info About Me: In my life, I've sold cars, enlisted in the US Army, read tarot cards as a phone psychic, hitchhiked from Montana to California, marched on Washington, been homeless, investigated hauntings and accidentally broken international news- and I still think writing is the most exciting thing I've ever done.

Shadowed Summer Synopsis: Nothing ever happened in Ondine, Louisiana, not even the summer Elijah Landry disappeared.

His mother knew he ascended to heaven, the police believed he ran away, and his girlfriend thought he was murdered.

Decades later, certain she saw his ghost in the town cemetery, fourteen-year-old Iris Rhame is determined to find out the truth behind "The Incident With the Landry Boy."

Enlisting the help of her best friend Collette, and forced to endure the company of Collette's latest crush, Ben, Iris spends a summer digging into the past and stirring old ghosts, in search of a boy she never knew.

What she doesn't realize is that in a town as small as Ondine, every secret is a family secret.