Zoe, a teenager in Bath, England, writes letters to a death-row inmate in Texas, hoping to find comfort in sharing her guilty secret over the death of a friend with someone who can never tell her family.

A thousand years after the release of the Straker Tapes, when Peter and Alpha discover that stories of human upgrades are true, they strive to stop a group of scientists from making a decision that could destroy humanity.

The six Bastable children try to restore their family's fortune using a variety of schemes taken from books, including finding buried treasure, rescuing someone from bandits, and starting a newspaper.

In post-World War I England, eleven-year-old Triss nearly drowns in a millpond known as "The Grimmer" and emerges with memory gaps, aware that something's terribly wrong, and to try to set things right, she must meet a twisted architect who has designs on her family.

Although fifteen-year-old Jane has always loved vampire lore, she is surprised to awaken in her coffin with fangs, and she goes to her parents and younger brother for help in figuring out why undead factions are vying for her eternal allegiance.

Twelve-year-old Jenni's much-anticipated vacation with her family and best friend Autumn goes awry when an old elevator transports her to a future in which everything has changed, and she must not only return to her time but find a way to prevent what she has seen from coming true.

The further confessions of teenaged Georgia Nicolson continue as, among other things, she begins to wonder if Robbie is really the right boy for her.

Creative, intelligent, nine-year-old Mina keeps a journal in her own disorderly way that reveals how her mind is growing into something extraordinary, especially after she begins homeschooling under the direction of her widowed mother.

In the beautiful Cartier makeup compact she bought at a flea market, Phoebe finds a letter written during World War II in London, from one sister to another, which contains a "spell" for bringing people closer together, a kind of treasure hunt around London-- and Phoebe could really use such a spell, because her older sister, Alice, will be leaving for university soon, and just now she seems to be cutting Phoebe out of her life.

In alternating voices, thirteen-year-old Rosa and her mother are trying to adopt a Tanzanian child in England, while in Tanzania, nine-year-old Abela watches her family die and her uncle illegally sends her to England, in the hopes of selling her.