Alien Secrets

Puck, expelled from boarding school on Earth, is on her way to stay with her parents on the planet Shoon. On board the spaceship she befriends Hush, a native Shoowa who is also returning home in shame. He is desperately seeking a stolen treasure that was entrusted to him, a symbol of freedom for his people. Puck and Hush must find the precious Soo before they reach Shoon. But who can they trust? And how will they save their own skins as they hurtle through space on a ship haunted by terrifying ghosts?

Annette Curtis Klause, a self-professed fan of horror, science fiction and fantasy, read her first vampire book when she was 14; it was Jane Gaskell's <i>The Shining Narrow Grin</i>. "I was enthralled," she says, and immediately began fantasizing about the book.<br><br><br>Klause, who is currently head of children's services at the Aspen Hill Community Library in Maryland, had been a member of a biweekly writing group, mostly writing picture books, when the group's "mentor" encouraged her to write a novel. While deciding on a subject, she "remembered the vampires," and after years of work, and six rejections, her highly acclaimed <i>The Silver Kiss</i> was published. Her second novel, <i>Alien Secrets,</i> features a main character whom Klause calls "a rather feisty