Nine-year-old Zoe Sophia travels with Mickey, her dachshund, from New York City to Venice, Italy, for a visit with a famous author--her aunt Dorothy.

When social workers begin to scrutinize Mercy's homelife in modern-day Pietermartizburg, she uses life lessons taught to her by Mr. Singh to stand up for herself and her eccentric foster aunts.

"Frankie Vega is angry. Just ask the guy whose nose she broke. Or the cop investigating the burglary she witnessed, or her cheating ex-boyfriend, or her aunt who's tired of giving second chances. When a kid shows up claiming to be Frankie's half brother, it opens the door to a past she doesn't want to remember. And when that kid goes missing, the only person willing to help is a boy with stupidly blue eyes, a criminal record, and secrets of his own....

Zoe and her great-aunt do research in New York to solve a mystery surrounding a pink scarab at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

An ancient and terrifying Narragansett native-American legend begins to come true for a teenage long-distance runner, whose recovery from the accident that killed her parents has stunned everyone, including her guardian aunt in Providence, Rhode Island.