Skylar Robbins: The Mystery of the Hidden Jewels
By Carrie Cross
My mom hadn’t noticed Ms. Knight’s strange reaction because she smiled when she looked at my dad. She was an American history professor at UCLA and loved anything “with a history.” My dad loved anything classic, antique, or just plain old. He’s a chemist and an inventor, but with his short, light brown hair and his wire-rimmed glasses, my dad looked like he could be a college professor himself. No one would suspect the laboratory he worked in looked like a mad scientist’s and that he’d almost blown off his eyebrows when I was in first grade.
Faint pink scars still speckle his forehead from when one of his concoctions exploded. If he hadn’t been wearing his goggles, he could have ended up blind. Whenever I want permission to do something my mom thinks is dangerous, she brings up my dad’s accident and asks me if I want to “follow in the risk-takers footsteps” or “think it through more carefully first,” as she would. I usually end up taking the risks. After finishing my detective notes, I looked out the window, trying to catch my mom’s eye, hoping they’d hurry up and get in the car so we could get this over with. I didn’t want to move in the first place.
The house I grew up in is in Santa Monica, close to the beach. I’ve investigated every square inch of our neighbourhood and know its woodsy streets by heart. My best friend, Alexa O’Reilly, lives right around the corner. We’ve been BFFs since second grade when she moved here from Texas. She still has a tiny bit of a Southern accent. Like she calls cement, “SEA-ment.” Then I’ll say, “Sea-ment?” and Alexa’s green eyes look surprised. Then her freckled cheeks will bunch up, and she’ll laugh at herself.
Genre: Mystery/Detective | Young Readers
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Carrie Cross
Carrie Cross is an avid reader who fell in love with books as a little girl after listening to Goodnight Moon at bedtime.
Biography.
Carrie discovered her passion for mysteries while reading Nancy Drew and The Happy Hollisters series–and then Judy Blume arrived with her unputdownable coming-of-age novels like Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, and Deenie. A dancer since age six, Cross took three years of ballet and nine years of jazz dance until a horrific car accident at age 18 put her in the hospital for five weeks with a broken neck, a broken hip, and severe head trauma resulting in a coma. After a year of rehabilitation, Cross returned to C.S.U.N., earning a degree in Speech Communication. Cross pursued a modelling career as a note-taker and sign language interpreter for the hearing impaired during college.
During an interview, she was asked, “Where do you get your inspiration?” “When I was six, my parents decided we needed to buy a bigger house. We looked at a creepy two-story in Santa Monica Canyon, and I played hide-and-seek with the little girl there. There were closets and secret hiding places with doors that opened into other rooms. Later, I wondered, “What if a clue was hidden in one of those closets?” And the idea for the Skylar Robbins mystery series was born. Cross’s influences include YA authors Deb Caletti, Kara Thomas, Sarah Dessen, Robert Crais, and Lee Child. She lives in Southern California with her graphic designer husband Ed– creator of the Skylar Robbins book covers–and their affectionate rescue cats, Tiki and Kona. When she isn’t writing, her favourite pastimes include boating (ocean imagery appears in every Skylar Robbins novel), watching Food Network, eating sushi, playing Words with Friends, driving her Porsche “like a Grandma,” trying new recipes and restaurants and travelling to exotic islands. Skylar Robbins mysteries have won multiple awards, and several have achieved #1 Bestseller status in Children’s Detective Books on Amazon.
Other accolades include being voted Book-of-the-Month by LASR readers, three 5-star Reader’s Favorite awards, the 5-Star Literary Titan Book Award, and one a Top Ten Finalist for an Author Academy Award in the YA/Middle-Grade category. Many reviewers have compared Skylar Robbins to a modern Nancy Drew. Skylar’s adventures begin with THE MYSTERY OF SHADOW HILLS and continue in THE MYSTERY OF THE HIDDEN JEWELS. For those who wonder what became of the magic garden and Skylar’s bullying cousin Gwendolyn, Cross penned a 92-page fantasy novella, Gwendolyn’s REVENGE. After she solves her second big case, the Skylar Robbins Detective Agency tackles the MYSTERY OF THE MISSING HEIRESS. Then, Skylar travels past the Hawaiian archipelago to solve the island’s mystery.
Carrie Cross
