stepfathers

While vacationing with their mother and new stepfather in a semi-deserted plantation house outside New Orleans, a boy and a girl discover a murder and help track down the murderer.

Sandburg, early 1960s: In the dust and shadows of the attic, two friends as close as sister shared everything--fanciful stories, high school crushes, plans for the future, dreams to travel the world. For Karen, the attic is her escape from the reality of her stepfather's unwanted attentions. Together in the eaves of a house with its own murderous history, the best friends concoct a scheme that will put Karen's stepfather in his place. It wasn't supposed to turn deadly. But in the attic Karen shares one more secret with her best friend--a secret to take to the grave.

After heartbreaking betrayal, Carley is sent to live with a foster family and struggles with opening herself up to their love.

Twelve-year-old Addie tries to cope with her mother's erratic behavior and being separated from her beloved stepfather and half-sisters when she and her mother go to live in a small trailer by the railroad tracks on the outskirts of Schenectady, New York.

When Lizzie's mother announces that she is going to have a baby, best friend Heather helps Lizzie deal with her fears that her stepfather will love the new baby more than he loves her.

After his mother divorces his father and remarries, Asa's sharp intellect and capacity for forgiveness help him deal with the instabilities of his new world.

Carley struggles with being open to love after she suffers a betrayal that forces her to move in with a foster family.

Josh, who has just moved to Vermont with his mother, stepfather, and new baby brother, must deal with the bullying of a neighbor boy and discovers that his dog, whom he hears talking with other dogs, is also facing a bully of his own.

Wealthy and beautiful African-American twins Sydney and Lauren both face boyfriend problems as they continue to delve into a murder mystery that somehow involves both their father and stepfather.

Seventeen-year-old Savannah, fed up with her violent stepfather, hits him over the head with a frying pan and takes to the road with her eight-year-old half-brother in a journey that echoes in reverse the one her mother Alice took as a young unwed mother running away from home.