Shannon's Sweet Valley High Blog

Read part one of this miniseries here. Read part two here.

The Moral of the Story: Nothing brings people together like a crazed woodsman.

The Big Deal: Summer camp color war

Synopsis:

Even though camp is almost over, Liz is suddenly all spooked out by the camp legend, which is this: A long time ago, a counselor fell in love with a guy who lived in the forest and chopped wood all day long. When the camp owner found out about it, she told the woodsman he could never set foot in the camp again and the counselor wasn’t allowed anywhere near him. So the girl ran away into the forest to be with her woodsman. There was a search after she disappeared, but nobody ever saw her or the woodsman again. People assumed she died, but sometimes you can still hear the sound of chopping wood…

Whatever. It’s a stupid story, but Liz based her play on it and now she’s walking around with a sense of impending doom. ‘Cause she’s psychic, don’t forget. Joey tells the story while everyone sits around the campfire one night and says there’s more to the it, something about an ax murderer named Crazy Freddy. Later, Liz makes out with Joey in the woods for a while and then goes back to the cabin, where she starts to panic because Jessica isn’t back yet. Jessica and Paul woke up in the middle of the night from where they fell asleep looking at the stars. I guess Paul’s parents took his car and are never coming back or something. He and Jessica walk to his neighbors’ house and Paul borrows one of their horses to take Jessica back to camp.

There’s a big camp color war coming up. The teams are announced, and of course Nicole and Liz are the opposing captains. Nicole is crazier than ever and thinks she deserves Joey because she likes him the most or something. She wants to fuck up Liz’s life, so she writes Todd a letter and includes a picture of Joey and Liz kissing. Maria catches her and won’t let Nicole send it. Dammit. Nicole gets Liz out into the woods alone one night and starts swinging an ax around, trying to scare her. Maria has a talk with Nicole and she agrees to stop being such a bitch.

Paul is in big trouble for stealing the neighbor’s horse and he’s grounded or something. This has Jessica in a tizzy, and the day of the color war, she sneaks out to see him, leaving Liz to cover for her and participate in all her color war activities as well as her own. Paul and Jessica have this great idea that they’re going to pretend to be Crazy Freddy and sneak into camp and scare everyone. That goes just great for about five seconds. Then an actual crazed ax murderer grabs Jessica and starts to drag her away. Tanya, Paul’s sister and one of Jessica’s campers, runs into the woods and starts yelling at the guy to let Jessica go, so the guy punches her and takes her with him. He takes them to a cabin where they cower in a corner.

There’s commotion at the camp about Tanya having gone missing. Joey says he knows of an abandoned cabin and runs into the woods alone. The rest of the counselors pair up and start searching. Nicole and Liz have to work together to save the day. Aww. They meet up with Paul, who tells them Jessica was with him and she’s missing now, too. The three of them find the cabin. They look in the window and see Joey, Jessica and Tanya. There’s some plan that involves Nicole and Liz acting as bait and Paul getting the better of the guy, but of course Liz nearly gets captured. Nicole distracts the guy and he captures her while Liz gets away. Meanwhile, Paul breaks a window at the back of the cabin, climbs inside and cuts Tanya and Jessica loose.

You know what, whatever. You know they all get away in the end. Nicole and Liz become friends for the last two days of camp and everything is great. Nicole also gives Liz and Joey her blessing because she’s pissed at him for running into the woods alone like some kind of macho man and she doesn’t want him anymore.

While all this has been going on, Lila and Bo have gotten lost in the woods. It’s kind of hilarious because they’re walking along talking about how they don’t even mind being lost together because they’re so in love. They end up sleeping on a gravel road, and they wake up the next morning to a crop dusting plane landing nearby. The pilot calls his boss to see if he can take Lila and Bo back to camp, but the boss says no way. The guy starts grumbling about how he only needs a thousand more dollars to buy the plane and go into business with his brother. Lila and Bo decide to invest in the company and they each give him five hundred dollars. They get back to camp, where nobody has really even noticed they were gone. I guess if you’re not a Wakefield or a cute eight-year-old, nobody cares about you.

Quotes:

She shoveled a forkful of dry, tasteless scrambled eggs into her mouth.

Ew. Please stop with the forkfuls of food being shoveled into people’s mouths.

Will I be able to stop loving Joey when I return to Sweet Valley?

I predict you will forget all about him.

The Cover: This cover cracks me up. Just look at that madman back there. Ha ha.

Read part one of this miniseries here.

The Moral of the Story: Summer camp sucks unless you can fall in love and/or cheat on your boyfriend.

The Big Deal: Big play at the summer camp

Synopsis:

Todd has apparently not noticed that Liz was holding another guy’s hand and gives her a great big hug. I guess he has a break from basketball camp and is going to stay in Winston’s cabin as a visitor because he’s so co-dependent he can’t even let his girlfriend go to summer camp for a month. Liz is not pleased. She wishes Todd would go home and acts like she’s totally bored with him.

Jessica gets the lead in the play and she’s all happy until she gets a letter from Paul. He doesn’t want her to try to see him again because he doesn’t like dumb blondes. Jessica is pissed and totally determined to make him fall in love with her. What? Guy’s an ass who made out with you and then called you stupid. Forget about him. But no. She cooks up a scheme with Tanya, Paul’s sister, and manages to get him alone so they can talk. She’s found out he dated a camp counselor last summer and she hurt him really bad so now he doesn’t want anything to do with the camp or its counselors. What a drama queen. Jessica tells him she knows everything and calls him a coward. He says he’ll see her, just to prove he’s not afraid of women.

Winston is getting letters from his girlfriend, white Maria, who is staying at her grandmother’s ranch. She keeps talking about some cowboy named Hank. Winston gets jealous and tells Aaron and Todd all about it. They get Winston some cowboy boots and sign him up for horseback riding lessons, figuring that if Maria wants a cowboy, Winston will be the best damned cowboy on the planet. Who wants to bet that Hank is some old man Maria has no interest in whatsoever? Some fifteen-year-old camper named Lara starts flirting with Winston and he tells her his concerns about Maria. He acts like they’re already broken up and lets Lara make out with him a little. Well, hell. If you can’t trust Winston, who the fuck can you trust? Then one day Winston gets a letter and a picture of Maria and Hank. To my complete and utter shock, Hank turns out to be an old man Maria has no interest in whatsoever.

Joey gets Liz alone and tells her he’s seen her with Todd and can tell she’s not in love with him. He wants her to break things off with him, and Liz says she will. Todd’s leaving the next morning, and Liz wakes up early to say goodbye and break his heart. Of course she can’t do it. She knows it’s the right thing to do, but you know how much Liz loves cheating. She figures she’ll just keep her summer fling a secret from Todd. But then Nicole, that bitch, tells Liz to break things off with Joey or she’ll write Todd a letter and tell him everything. Liz does as she’s told and is heartbroken when Joey immediately starts hanging all over Nicole. Jerk.

Jessica steals the camp owner’s car so she can sneak into town and visit Paul at his family’s restaurant. She ends up flipping burgers and closing the kitchen down with him. She doesn’t get back to camp until after two in the morning. She plans to meet him again the next night, but Lacey, the camp owner, finds out Jessica took her car and is furious. She’s watching Jessica like a hawk, so Jessica can’t see Paul. She writes him a letter telling him she has to cancel their plans for the day and invites him to see the play on Wednesday. For some reason she thinks her letter will get there that day and she’s shocked when two days go by and she hasn’t heard from him. The day of the play, she takes a bike and rides to the restaurant, but a cook there says it’s Paul’s day off. He gives her a ride to Paul’s house and she ends up missing the play. She and Paul go outside and fall asleep under the stars.

Liz pretends to be Jessica and stars in the play. When it’s over, Joey comes up to her and gives her a great big old kiss. Liz is sad because she thinks that he thinks she’s Jessica, but he says he knew it was her all along. Yeah, right. So now I guess they’re flinging it again.

Quotes:

Jessica let out her breath in a rush. She couldn’t believe it. She had really done it. She had landed the lead role in the summer production.

Yeah, I bet she feels really good, having beaten all the twelve- and thirteen-year-olds who tried out.

She was attracted to somebody else. She had to break up with Todd. Just the thought made her feel like the most disloyal girlfriend on earth.

No, the fact that you constantly cheat on your boyfriend makes you the most disloyal girlfriend on earth.

The Cover: I don’t know who anyone on this cover is supposed to be. I can’t tell which twin is which. That guy in the canoe is making a face that makes me wonder where his other hand is.

The Moral of the Story: Your old BFF’s new BFF is probably a bitch.

The Big Deal: Jessica throws a dance to celebrate the end of the first week of camp. Nothing much happens there.

Synopsis:

The gang is off to be junior counselors at Camp Echo Mountain in Montana. This summer camp focuses on drama type stuff, so Jessica is psyched to go because she’s sure she’ll be discovered somehow, and Liz is sure she’ll be chosen to write the play the camp will put on. Liz is also excited because her friend Maria Slater (not Maria Santelli, as I misread it a few times) is going to be there. I believe Maria was in the Sweet Valley Twins books. She was a child actor and was good friends with Liz because she wanted to get out of acting and start writing. She can’t wait to see Liz again and introduce her to her new best friend, Nicole Banes. Liz arrives at camp first and decides she’ll just take the cabin’s only desk so she can work on the play. Then Nicole arrives and starts throwing Liz’s crap on her bed, saying she needs the desk to write the play. Liz, not accustomed to having competition, hates Nicole immediately.

Jessica is assigned to the youngest kids and she’s a little worried since she’s not very good with kids. She can’t believe it when the girls love her and listen to everything she says. They’re actually a little creepy. One of them tries to bleach her hair blond so she can look just like Jessica. Another girl, Maggie, carries a video camera with her everywhere and records everything Jessica does. Jessica still isn’t over Christian or Ken, so she’s decided to make her summer boy-free. This works out well until she meets the teenage brother of one of her campers. His name is Paul and he of course falls in love with Jessica the second he lays eyes on her.

Lila is in love with Bo, one of the male counselors. Bo is an adventure seeker and is always telling stories about the mountains he’s climbed and rivers he’s rafted. Lila tries to make herself seem braver and more adventurous than she really is and it’s clear to us that Bo is a phony, but Lila has no idea and gets upset when Bo won’t sneak over to the girls’ cabin after dark to see her. He finally comes clean and tells Lila he’s really a coward and the son of a millionaire. Lila tells Bo the truth about herself and they make out for a while. Hey, whatever happened to Robby?

Liz is having a rough time at camp. She’s been staying up really late every night to write her play, her campers hate her, Nicole is horrible and Joey, the drama counselor Liz has fallen in love with (Todd’s not around, so you know Liz is about to cheat), seems to like Nicole better than her. Liz finishes writing her play, but the disk disappears before she can show it to Joey. Then she finds out Nicole has stolen it and is passing off the work as her own. She makes a scene, but nobody believes her and she ends up looking like an ass. Neither Maria nor Joey wants anything to do with her and Nicole just gloats about it.

Jessica is pining for Paul. She remembers that Maggie caught them on tape when he came up to the camp one day to pick up his sister. She finds Maggie’s tape and watches that scene over and over again. Then she watches the rest of the tape and sees Nicole taunting Liz about the stolen play. Jessica calls everyone to the main lodge and shows them the tape. Liz is vindicated, Maria is her friend again and Joey goes ahead and falls in love with her. He’s heard about Todd so he asks Liz what the deal is. She lies and says they’re free to date other people. Then Todd shows up just as Liz and Joey are walking around holding hands and laughing. Liz immediately drops Joey’s hand and starts to panic.

Quotes:

“I’ve always felt like something’s been missing from my life since she moved away,” Elizabeth continued in a pensive tone, gazing out of the car’s windshield at the night sky.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more like Maria,” Todd said in a flat voice.

That’s right, folks. Todd is jealous of Maria. This is such a dysfunctional couple.

Jessica watched her sister lie down and close her eyes. The world’s most faithful girlfriend, Elizabeth usually wasn’t so easily flustered by another guy.

Yeah, right.

The Cover: Ooh, look at those bitchfaces on Nicole and Liz as they stare each other down over Maria. I recognize Jessica and her fucked up looking kids, but I don’t know who those boys are and I don’t care.

The Moral of the Story: If you send criminals to jail, they’ll come back to kill your family.

The Big Deal: Summer vacation

Synopsis:

So, this book has a prologue, which is weird. A man named John Marin sits in a prison cell staring at the newspaper clippings he’s gathered over the last few months. Each one contains something about the Wakefield twins. They sure are in the paper a lot. Anyway…

It’s the first day of summer vacation again, and this time the twins are for once NOT going to work at a newspaper. They’ve taken jobs as waitresses at the Marina Café. Alice will be spending the summer working on a new job at a mansion that’s being remodeled, Steve will be working at Ned’s law firm and Ned will be fretting about the twins because John Marin just got out of jail. Marin, who is now twenty-eight but still looks like he’s twenty, killed a mother and daughter ten years ago and Ned was the attorney that put him away. Marin didn’t like that much and threatened Ned’s family and now here we are.

The twins’ boss, Mr. Jenkins, can’t get tell them apart. Rather, he obviously can since he’s pretty consistent in calling Liz Jess and Jess Liz. Whatever, I don’t even care. Liz is awed by another waitress, Jane, who’s on her fourth summer at the Marina Café. Jane tells Liz she just graduated from college and Liz just can’t believe it because Jane doesn’t look twenty-two. Jane laughs and confirms that she’s really twenty-six. Oh, shut up. Jessica flirts with a customer named Scott Maderlake who looks about twenty and has blue eyes. He says he’s an intern scouting out locations for his boss’s next film, which will take place at a high school. Of course, Jessica offers to show him Sweet Valley High. He’s like Jessica’s dream man. When Ned gets home from work that night, he finds that John Marin has broken into the house and left him a threatening note.

This book sucks already.

Liz is tired of her boring life (again) and wants to do something adventurous (again). After she and Todd see some movie for the fourth time, they go to the Dairi Burger, where Liz looks across the room and sees her soulmate, some guy who looks about twenty with blue eyes. She doesn’t speak to him or anything, but she knows he was meant for her. He shows up at the café the next day, sailing up on his boat, The Emily Dickinson. Both twins notice a creepy old man watching them all day, and Liz actually runs into him in the storage room. She runs out and straight into the arms of soulmate guy. His name is actually Ben Morgan and he seems like Liz’s dream man. Neither twin wants to tell the other about her new boyfriend.

After showing Scott the high school and then having dinner with him, Jessica goes home and discovers her lavaliere is missing. Ned later finds the lavaliere, along with a note that says “Such a lovely young neck,” in an envelope with his name on it. He calls the private investigator he’s had watching the twins. His name is Jim Battaglia and he tells Ned that Jessica has been seeing a guy, but he doesn’t look anything like the mug shot Jim received (Marin intercepted the real mug shot and replaced it with someone else’s). Jim offers to investigate the boyfriend, but Ned says not to bother since he’s “no different from the other hundred or so that she’s been out with in the last year.”

The days go by and nothing much happens. Jessica secretly goes out with Scott, Liz secretly goes out with Ben, Marin sends Ned threatening notes, Ned freaks out. The twins are being followed and watched by at least two men, one having been hired by Marin and one by Ned’s P.I. We’re not supposed to know which is which. Then one day Jim calls and tells Ned that Marin’s been taken into custody. He had a lavaliere on him. Yeah, right. You know it’s the wrong guy.

The twins are locking up the café the next night. Jessica sees a man with a knife in the storage room. She screams and the guy runs away. They call the police and then go down to the station. The cops have them pick the guy out of a lineup, but the guy they pick is “Marin,” who’s been in jail since the night before. The cops finally figure out the guy they have isn’t Marin, but some guy named Pilchard. Marin hired him to watch the twins and gave him Jessica’s necklace as part of his payment. Ned, intending to demand how the mugshot got mixed up, drives to Jim’s house and finds the P.I. dead. There’s a note from Marin next to the body.

On the way home from the police station, Liz tells Jessica about Ben and asks her to cover for her while she goes sailing with him. Later that night, Jessica is confronted by Ned and a couple cops. They tell her about Marin and show her Marin’s picture and she’s all, “Don’t be silly, that’s my new boyfriend!” It finally sinks in that her new boyfriend is a murderer, but she still insists that Liz’s secret boyfriend is someone different altogether. Jane the waitress is the only one who’s seen Ben, so they find her at the Beach Disco and she confirms that the guy in the mugshot is Ben.

Liz and Marin are about to make out on “Ben’s” boat when a Coast Guard boat carrying Ned, Jessica and some cops shows up. Marin threatens Liz with a knife and there’s a struggle. Liz gets away from him and somehow falls overboard. Jessica seems to be the only one who notices, so she jumps off the Coast Guard boat to rescue her. In the end, Marin manages to escape in a dinghy and later the cops find evidence that he’s been eaten by sharks. But of course he wasn’t. He’s hiding in the Wakefields’ basement. After the twins go to sleep, Marin goes to their room to kill them, but Ned comes along and knocks him out the window. The cop outside says Marin is going back to jail. Yeah, right. If he was, I wouldn’t have a whole second book to read in this miniseries.

Quotes:

Elizabeth tried to listen, but she found herself focusing on Todd’s neat, conservative haircut, his wholesome good looks, and his mall-store rugby shirt. He was so ordinary…For the first time, Elizabeth realized just how unsophisticated her boyfriend really was.

Ugh, you are such a snob.

Jessica: The money isn’t what’s important!

Lila: Bite your tongue!

Your daily dose of Lila.

The Cover: Awesome floppy nineties hair, John! Love it. The best part of this cover is the clippings on the wall. Most of them are whatever, but you can clearly see the covers of Jessica Quits the Squad and Murder in Paradise. Up at the top you can see Marin in his twin-tailored personalities – the poet sailor with Liz and the movie guy with Jessica.

The Moral of the Story: Being pretty is a dangerous thing.

Synopsis:

Alice Wakefield has won a trip to the luxurious Paradise Spa. She takes along the twins and their best friends, Lila and Enid. Their mothers are invited too, but only Grace Fowler can make it. Adele Rollins can’t get the time off work, so already we know we’re supposed to feel sorry for Enid, who walks around feeling ugly and fat because Hugh just dumped her.

When the gang gets to the spa, Jessica immediately forgets about Ken Matthews and falls in love with Chris, the good-looking golf instructor. It appears that everyone who works at Paradise Spa is freaking gorgeous except the owner, Tatiana Mueller. She surprises everyone when she turns out to be ugly and disfigured. Alice feels like she and Tatiana have met before, but then shrugs the feeling off. Clearly, Alice doesn’t know she’s in a Super Thriller.

Jessica and Lila are freaked out and horrified when they realize there are no mirrors anywhere in the cottage. At breakfast the next morning, Jessica asks for one and Tatiana gets all creepy and says no, only inner beauty matters. Then breakfast comes and Liz notices their beautiful waitress, Katya, seems sad. After the meal, Jessica goes for her golf lesson with Chris. She gets annoyed when Chris starts asking about her sister, and when he asks if Jessica thinks Liz would go out with him, she throws her golf club on the ground and walks away.

Tatiana takes a special interest in Enid and gives her a special hair treatment “just for redheads.” While Tatiana works on her hair, Enid tells her how envious she is of Liz because she has straight blond hair and a boyfriend and a loving mother who was able to take time off work. Tatiana is all weird and eggs Enid on, trying to make her feel like nobody cares about her.

Chris finds Liz later and asks her to play tennis with him after dinner. Liz wants Enid to join them so she asks Chris to bring a friend. Enid gets pissy for some reason. But she goes and is instantly attracted to Chris’ roommate Alex, who works as a groundskeeper at the spa. Alex seems to like Enid, too, until Jessica shows up and starts putting on a cheerleading show. Chris and Alex invite the girls to their room for ice cream, and Lila and Enid watch while the twins monopolize the boys. Enid is miserable, but Lila’s just disgusted that they’re so interested in the hired help.

The next day, Liz asks Katya about her family. Katya bursts into tears and says she ran away and will never see her mother again. Then she runs off. Later, Liz and Chris have a picnic and start making out. It’s totally okay because when she’s with Chris, Liz forgets all about Todd so I guess it’s not like she’s cheating or anything.

Enid meets Tatiana for another hair treatment. Tatiana hypnotizes Enid and plants a suggestion that Enid’s mother doesn’t love her and wishes she’d never been born. Enid starts spending lots of time with Tatiana, who keeps hypnotizing her. Enid’s mom calls the cottage one day and Liz is shocked when Enid says she doesn’t feel like talking to her.

Katya, Chris and Alex take Lila and the twins out for a game of Frisbee golf and accidentally lead them into the woods where they all stumble upon a big white building with no windows in the middle of a clearing. The spa employees freak out and run off, yelling at everyone to follow them. Later, Liz overhears Tatiana yelling at Katya for bringing the guests into the woods.

Liz can tell that Katya has taken a liking to Alice, so she asks her to talk to her. Katya tells Alice she wishes she could go home, but she can’t. That night, Jessica finds Katya dead in the steam room. Tatiana says Katya had a heart condition, but Liz is suspicious. She snoops in Katya’s room that night and finds out she was a runaway. On her next date with Chris, Liz asks if he’s also a runaway. It turns out he and Alex both ran away from home to work at Paradise. Then she finds out all the other teenage employees are runaways, too, and they all work at the spa for no money, just room and board. Liz thinks they all seem brainwashed.

Alice, Grace, Lila and the twins go to a waterfall as a sort of remembrance thing for Katya. Liz is explaining to Jessica that something strange is going on when Grace suddenly starts shouting for Alice, who has apparently disappeared. The twins run back to the spa and tell Tatiana what happened, but Tatiana tries to placate them by saying Alice probably just wanted some alone time.

The twins go back to their room to try to call their father, but the phone is dead. Jessica goes to Tatiana’s office to tell her the phones are down. Before she can knock on the door, Jessica hears Tatiana talking on the phone. But when Jessica enters the office a few minutes later and asks to use the phone, Tatiana tells her all the phones are down, including hers. Jessica leaves the office and then sees Tatiana run down the hallway. She sneaks back into the office and finds a Sweet Valley University yearbook from Alice’s senior year. Alice’s picture has been cut out.

While Jessica is doing that, Liz checks out the phone cord in the cottage and realizes it’s been cut. Luckily, she has her trusty laptop and she plugs it into the phone line. If she’s got her own cord, I don’t know why she doesn’t just plug in the phone. Anyway, there’s a convoluted explanation of how Liz gets on the internet and emails her dad. Then she gets on “INFOMAX,” where she does a search for the skin and hair treatments Enid’s been undergoing. The result is “plastic surgery.” Liz can’t believe Enid would ever consider plastic surgery.

Back in Tatiana’s office, Jessica looks through a folder marked “Staff.” There are two files for each employee, a  Before and an After. There’s a photograph in each one, and it’s clear that all the employees have undergone plastic surgery. There’s a Before file for Enid, and it contains a computer generated image of what Enid would look like after having surgery. Jessica is freaking out over this when suddenly the door opens and the lights come on. Don’t worry, it’s just Enid. Jessica waves the file around and says Tatiana has a plan for her, but Enid just gets all happy and tells Jessica how excited she is to look like a supermodel.

Liz is freaking out and she decides to go outside to look for Alice again. She thinks she’ll go back to the waterfall. It doesn’t occur to her to check out the creepy building everyone was afraid of. Right after she leaves, Jessica comes back to the cottage and tells Lila and Grace what she found. Liz’s computer beeps, which means she has a message. Jessica opens the email from Ned, who wants Liz to tell Alice that they did know Tatiana Mueller in college. She lived down the hall from Alice’s dorm room and worshipped Alice. Everyone called her Tatty Mule because she was ugly. Last he heard, Tatiana went to medical school. Jessica realizes Tatiana wants to be just like Alice and that Alice is in trouble.

Liz is at the waterfall when she suddenly feels something close around her wrist. She gets pulled into a cave behind the waterfall and is surprised to see Chris standing there in a white lab coat and looking all mean. He takes her arm and tells her Tatiana is expecting her. Here’s what we learn:

• Tatiana wants to look like Alice.
• She went under the knife at twenty-three, but the surgeon sucked. That’s why she’s disfigured.
• She became the best plastic surgeon ever so that she could train someone to do it right.
• That someone is Marguerite, Tatiana’s assistant who’s only been mentioned once before at the beginning of the book.
• Marguerite is going to make Tatiana look just like Alice.
• Tatiana is going to kill Alice, because there can’t be two of them.

Just when Liz thinks Tatiana is going to kill her, Jessica, Lila and Enid show up to save the day. Well, Enid is sort of along for the ride, but during all the Evil Villain and Pleading Protagonist speeches, Enid’s brainwashing comes undone and she helps take Tatiana down. Then the cops show up. The next morning, all the spa employees run around yelling, “Mrs. Mueller is gone! We don’t have to work here anymore!”

Quotes:

Jessica: These portions are half of what we get for dinner at home, Mom. I’m going to wither away!

Liz: It feels good not to be stuffed, to eat just as much as you need and no more.

Is there some reason you can’t eat that way at home? Does someone force you to eat past the point where you’re comfortable?

“Fifteen love,” [Chris] said in a strong, clear voice as he set up for his next serve, and Elizabeth sensed that in addition to announcing the score, he was sending her a special message. A message about love…

Ugh, can Liz just get laid already? Maybe then she’d stop being so obsessed with “love.”

The Cover: I will never understand what Lila is doing, but Jessica seems to think it’s pretty funny. Liz (Alice? No, probably Liz.) is wearing an ugly swimsuit and has really bad hair.

Read part one of this miniseries here.

The Moral of the Story: One week of cheerleading and Liz’s life is ruined.

The Big Deal: Regional cheerleading competition, party at Lila’s

Synopsis:

Jessica is still upset about not being a cheerleader anymore, so Ken suggests she start her own squad. She gets Maria, Sandy and Lila on board, and then Patty Gilbert and Jade Wu because they can dance. Jessica really wants Liz on the squad, even though cheerleading goes against all her feministic ideals. Lila bets Jessica that she won’t be able to get Liz to join, and then has to buy the new squad’s uniforms when Jessica blackmails Liz, saying she’ll tell Todd about Liz’s fling with Ken if she doesn’t pick up some pom-poms and get to cheering.

Jessica gets a pretty good turnout at her first practice, but she kind of freaks out when she tells the girls to work on herkies and nobody knows what she’s talking about. She’s all worked up because Heather’s squad is going to regionals and Jessica only has a week to make her squad good enough to qualify. Liz hates everything about it, but after an argument with Heather, she decides to give it her all and help Jessica out. A few days later, Jessica tries to sit with Amy, Annie and Jean (Helen seems to have disappeared again) at lunch, but they tell her Heather doesn’t want them to be friends with Jessica, and might even kick them off the squad if they’re seen talking to her.

George Herkie

Liz gets pages and pages of inner dialogue. “Blah, blah, Ken. Blah, blah, Todd.” She’s so confused about her feelings, and the only way she can make out with Todd one night is to pretend he’s Ken. Then she feels terribly guilty for doing that and cries some more and wonders if she’s still in love with Ken and more blah blah blah and for the fuck of shit (™), would you just stop your whining already? Jeez. At a cheerleading practice, Liz is so upset that Ken is there to see Jessica and not her that she suddenly runs and does a round-off and two back handsprings. Seriously? Okay. I used to dance and tumble and all that good stuff and I know there’s just no way that this chick who sits around writing for the newspaper, never doing anything more physical than swimming at the occasional pool party, can possibly pull this kind of tumbling run out of her ass like this. Fucking Wakefield twins. They have to be good at everything. Sorry. The damned Wakefield twins get my Irish up sometimes.

A week goes by. Heather watches Jessica’s squad practice and is surprised to see they’re actually good. She tells Amy it’s too bad that only one squad from each school can go to regionals and the original squad was already chosen. When Jessica finds out, she calls the scout, Mr. Jenkins, to try to get him to reconsider. He says no, so Jessica gets her squad together and they all drive out to Mr. Jenkins’ house in Bridgewater and perform their routine on his front yard. He’s very impressed, but still won’t send them to regionals since he already gave the spot to Heather. Dejected, the girls drive back to Sweet Valley. They hear on the radio that Sweet Valley is losing the football game currently going on. Jessica figures that since they’re already in uniform, they should stop by and put on a show. Jessica goes to the sound booth and gives the girl there the tape with her routine’s music on it and says to play it at halftime. They perform better than ever while Heather, Amy, Annie and Jean stand on the sidelines looking like idiots. Of course, Sweet Valley goes on to win the game.

The whole school ends up at the Dairi Burger after the game. After Amy screams at Jessica for embarrassing her and then leaves, everyone else tells Jessica how awesome her squad was. Everyone thinks hers should be the official Sweet Valley squad, so Jessica goes to talk to Mr. Cooper about it on Monday. Old Chrome Dome says the two squads can hold a cheer-off the next day.

More of Liz worrying about Ken. She decides she has to tell Todd about her fling, but before she can do it, Todd starts going on about how happy Jessica and Ken seem to be and what a good friend Ken is. Liz decides she simply can’t tell Todd about her and Ken.

The day of the cheer-off, Amy apologizes to Jessica for everything and says she still wants to be friends, no matter which squad wins. The cheer-off results in a tie, but Mr. Jenkins is there and he says Sweet Valley can go to regionals if the two squads merge. Both Jessica and Heather hate that idea and they decide nobody is going to regionals.

The rest of the cheerleaders really want to go so they come up with a plan. They go to Jessica and Heather separately and tell each that the other has stepped down as captain so the squads can merge. They get to practicing, but the two captains can’t stop fighting. When they get to the competition and start warming up, Heather and Jessica have another argument and start to walk off, but Amy and Liz tell them to shut the fuck up or go home, the rest of the squad is performing either way. Jessica and Heather call a truce. Just before the squad is about to go on, Ken puts his arms around Liz, thinking she’s Jessica, and wishes her luck. Heather sees them, but doesn’t say anything.

Sweet Valley wins the competition. Are you totally surprised? I know I am. When the judges announce “co-captains Heather Mallone and Jessica Wakefield,” both girls get all pissed off again and try to quit (because they hadn’t already figured out they were tricked). Once again, Liz and Amy step in and tell them to shut the fuck up and go get the fucking trophy.

That night, Liz pretends to be Jessica so she can go out with Ken. As soon as they start making out, though, Liz realizes she really wants Todd and Ken realizes he’s kissing Liz. They have a long talk about their feelings. Ken says he was drawn to Jessica at first because she looked like Liz, but he really is in love with her. Liz and Ken decide to go to Todd’s house together and explain everything.

Lila is throwing a party to celebrate winning regionals. Heather comes up to Jessica and says she saw Ken and Liz getting pretty friendly at the competition earlier. Jessica races home and notices her brand new outfit is missing. She calls Todd, but he says Liz decided to stay home that night. Jessica figures out that Liz is out with Ken and she’s super pissed. When Liz and Ken get to Todd’s house to tell him the truth, Jessica is already there with Liz’s diary. Neither Todd nor Jessica wants to speak to Liz or Ken.

Quotes:

“Girls should play sports on their own, not just sit on the sidelines cheering on the guys!”

Shut up, Liz. Cheerleading is a sport, yabitch.

“What drew me to Jessica at first was the fact that she was your identical twin sister. I could almost pretend she was you.”

My god, this whole fucking town is so unhealthy. The twins really need to stop making out with the same boys.

The Cover: Liz (I think) looks like she’s having an awful lot of fun jumping around with her pom-poms while all the brunettes are shoved into the background. That must be Heather and possibly Amy spying on Jessica’s squad and pointing at them.

Liz is studying in Todd’s room and finds a letter from a girl named Michelle back in Vermont. It’s really cutesy and bubbly and looks like it’s from a girlfriend. Liz checks the date and sees it was written a week ago. Without giving Todd a chance to explain, Liz gets really melodramatic and tells Todd to go back to Vermont “to the girl you really love.” She goes to the Beach Disco that night and makes out with Jeffrey. When she gets home, she decides to read a random volume of her diary:

We get to hear Liz’s version of what happened in #23, Say Goodbye, when Todd moved away. It’s basically everything you already know but with more Nicholas-kissing. Oh, and at the end, after they make up, Todd climbs a ladder and crawls through Liz’s bedroom window. They’re too lame to do anything fun, though.

Then a recap of #24, Memories, which is really more about Steve, Cara and Betsy than it is about Liz hooking up with a Todd lookalike.

Then we get to hear about how awesome Liz is when she reunites a family in #25, Nowhere to Run and how she can stop terrorists in #26, Hostage! (There’s another Nicholas kiss in this one.) There’s also a recap of her short story writing skills being too much for a dumb jock to resist stealing in #27, Lovestruck.

By the time we get to Liz’s awesome matchmaking abilities in #28, Alone in the Crowd, Liz is referring to herself as single, and by #29, Bitter Rivals, Todd and Liz are casually talking on the phone about the dates he’s gone on in Vermont and Liz is hanging out with Ken Matthews quite a bit. Liz and Ken go to movies and restaurants together, and in #30, Jealous Lies, they go to the Friday the Thirteenth dance together. At a party for Steve, Ken and Liz end up making out, but they keep their relationship a secret because it looks bad for Todd’s girlfriend and best friend to be hooking up. Liz finally breaks things off with Ken while she’s trying to get Enid and Jeffrey together in #31, Taking Sides. That’s when she realizes she really loves Jeffrey.

Back to the present: After reading her awesome diary, Liz realizes she’s had a really full life. The next morning, Todd comes over and they make up.

What.

Ever.

The Cover: As you can see above, my copy of this book is pretty messed up. This image comes from The Closet.

[The Closet is no longer active. Please bear with me while I try to track down another copy of this pic.]

Look at this horrible mash-up of ugly. We’ve seen all these covers before, so I don’t really have anything new to say except that I think it’s funny that they threw Steve and Cara in there all small like an afterthought, and Ken looks weird. He’s clearly from the cover of Lovestruck, but he’s been shopped to look a little less creepy.

Read part one of this miniseries here. Read part two here.

The Moral of the Story: I … I got nothing.

Synopsis:

The twins aren’t speaking to each other because Jessica thinks it’s Liz’s fault that everyone thinks her boyfriend is a murdering werewolf. They’re both out to find the truth, but neither wants the other to know what she’s doing. Jessica sneaks into the house of Dr. Neville, the first murder victim. She finds a file labeled “S., Annabelle.” The only thing in the file is a report that Annabelle died from pneumonia nine years ago. Jessica thinks it’s weird that there’s nothing else in the file and she puts it in her bag. She hears someone else in the house and crawls out the window just before Liz comes in. Liz decides to take the file on Robert Pembroke, then goes through the doctor’s Rolodex. She comes across a business card for Mildred Price, Robert’s childhood nanny, and is certain Robert is hiding out at her house. She starts to write down Mildred’s information, but then a noise scares her. She just takes the card and leaves just before the murderer comes in. The unnamed werewolf searches through Dr. Neville’s filing cabinet, goes into a rage about one of the twins having stolen something, and then sees Mildred Price’s name written down next to the Rolodex. He thinks, “Nanny Millie,” and leaves.

Liz goes back to the boardinghouse that night and gets all homesick for Sweet Valley. Then she thinks how lucky she is to have found Luke. She thinks about calling him and then realizes he never gave her his number. Liz looks at the necklace Luke gave her. There’s an “A” engraved on the back of the medallion and Liz wonders if “A” was Luke’s mother, who got him interested in werewolves. Pat, I think I’d like to solve the puzzle. Liz is convinced the medallion has kept her out of danger, but she thinks her twin needs it more than she does so she puts it in Jessica’s bag. Besides, she still has the silver bullet Luke gave her.

The next morning, Jessica wakes up late for work and rushes out the door. Halfway to the tube station, she realizes she’s forgotten her bag. She goes back for it, and when she gets to her room, it’s clear someone has been there. The door is open and Jessica’s bed is made. Jessica has no doubt that Robert has been there. I don’t know why.

When Liz gets to work, Luke asks her where her necklace is. Liz explains that she gave it to Jessica, and then asks about the inscription on the pendant. Luke says the necklace did indeed belong to his mother, Ann. Then Tony Frank, who was just promoted to the crime desk, says there’s been another murder. The victim is Mildred Price. Of course. Liz and Tony leave to investigate.

Then there’s another scene of the murderer tearing the twins’ room apart. He finds the file labeled “Robert Pembroke, Jr.” and the one labeled “S., Annabelle.” That’s great, but he knows one of the twins has a silver bullet. Unfortunately, no amount of vandalism will make it appear. The murderer leaves, figuring the twins have the bullet.

When the twins get home from work that night, they each say they’re missing a file and Liz says her silver bullet is missing. Later, Jessica is looking at the medallion she found in her bag and notices the engraving. She puts the initial together with the file she found and asks Liz where Luke got the medallion. Liz says he got it from his mother, Ann. Jessica thinks, “Ann, not Annabelle. So much for that brilliant idea.” Sigh.

The next morning, the twins find out Lord Pembroke Senior himself has been attacked. Jessica goes to see him at the hospital, and the man is all kinds of doped up. He sees Jessica’s necklace and says it looks like the one he gave Annabelle, the only woman he ever really loved. Then he says he wants Jessica to tell Robert he has a brother.

Liz decides it’s a good time to go snoop around Pembroke Manor some more while the Pembrokes are in the city. Tony Frank goes with her, and she shows him the secret werewolf room. They find a box full of letters from Annabelle. The letters tell them that Lord Pembroke and Annabelle were in love, but couldn’t marry because of their different classes. Annabelle had a baby at some point. Liz and Tony figure he could be anywhere from nine to nineteen years old. They wonder if Robert’s killing spree could somehow be a result of learning he has an illegitimate brother. When Liz tells Luke about Annabelle, he gets all intense and weird and tells her not to go where the werewolf can find her.

That night, the twins have another argument because Liz is a bitch and Jessica is a drama queen. Later, Liz is feeling sad and wants to talk to someone. She goes to Rene’s room and knocks on the door, but he doesn’t answer. She tries to open the door, but it’s locked. For some reason, this sends Liz into a rage and she’s all pissed off at Rene for never being there for her. (I think this is all part of a ploy to make us think Rene is the murderer. There have been a couple scenes in which he’s “acted strangely.” Anyway, Liz is a bitch.)

Jessica goes to Pembroke Green, the family’s city residence, and makes Lady Pembroke talk to her by saying she knows about Annabelle. So Lady Pembroke starts talking and says she hated her husband for having an affair, but also for sending money and resources, including Nanny Millie, to his bastard child. Jessica starts to think the other son must be the murderer. Then Lady Pembroke says, “Lucas is an evil name,” citing that as proof that the boy is no good. Jessica jumps to her feet, shouting that Luke is the killer. I’m surprised she didn’t think, “Oh, she said Lucas, not Luke.” Anyway, she runs out of the house to a telephone box (why didn’t she use the Pembrokes’ phone?) and calls the dorm and the Journal. Liz isn’t in either place. She calls Tony Frank and finds out Liz took Luke with her to check out Annabelle’s old house. He tells Jessica the street name, and Jessica hails a taxi.

Annabelle’s house is in the ghetto, as evidenced by the homeless man outside. There’s no power, so Luke goes to the basement to try to find a fuse box. While he’s doing that, Liz goes upstairs. She finds a bedroom and seems surprised to find someone lives in it. There are newspaper clippings all over the walls, and Liz is kind of horrified to discover they all have something to do with the Pembroke family. Then she opens a diary and reads a passage about the writer waking up on his father’s estate with ripped clothes and blood all over him. Then Liz looks up to see the werewolf in the doorway. She gets scared, but then realizes the wolfman is wearing Luke’s clothes. Liz laughs and tells Luke to take off that horrible mask. He tells her it’s not a mask and Liz gets scared again because her boyfriend is clearly a psychopath.

Luke does an evil villain speech about how he and his mother were denied awesome Pembroke-ish things, and explains that when Annabelle died, Luke vowed to get back at everyone. When he’s done talking, he lunges for Liz, but just then the homeless guy from outside comes in and points a gun at Luke. Liz is relieved to see the homeless guy is really Robert in disguise. Robert says he has the silver bullet. Then Rene and Sergeant Bumpo come in. There’s a scuffle, and Luke gets shot. His mask slips off and he tells Liz they got the werewolf. Then he dies.

In conclusion:

• Luke was a psychotic wannabe werewolf who actually had no idea he was murdering people and framing his brother during his blackouts.
• Robert disguised himself as a homeless man so he could watch over Jessica.
• Rene has been following Liz around to keep an eye on her, which explains his strange behavior.
• Lord Pembroke recovers and turns ownership of the newspaper over to Robert.
• Lucy Friday and Tony Frank get married.

Quotes:

Jessica had a feeling this fight wasn’t going to blow over. It was the worst one ever.

Even worse than that time you got Liz drunk and she killed your boyfriend? Must be pretty bad.

The Cover: Stop wearing those stupid fucking trenchcoats!

And now, fair readers, I need a break. I think I’ll take next week off, at least some of it. I need to get my head on straight again after the ridiculousness of these last few books.

Read part one of this miniseries here.

The moral of the story: Werewolves are serious business.

Synopsis:

Of course Jessica’s not dead. The dead blond woman lying facedown in Jessica’s bed is Joy Singleton, fiancé of Sheriff Andrew Thatcher. Joy and Andrew, like Luke and the twins, are spending the weekend at Pembroke Manor. After Liz’s screams, everyone gathers near the doorway to the bedroom. Jessica says Joy wanted to switch rooms with her because she couldn’t sleep with the full moon shining in her window. Robert Pembroke starts ordering his servants to call the constable and shit like that, and Liz can’t stand how bossy he’s being. Ugh, I hate when Liz decides she doesn’t like people. She’s so annoying about it.

For the rest of the morning, Liz follows everyone around being suspicious of them. She questions the servants, Maria and Alistair, and they say they saw someone leaving Jessica’s room around four in the morning but they won’t say who. Liz goes up to the bedroom to look for clues because you know she’s a better investigator than the actual police. She finds a tuft of animal hair and a scrap of fabric caught in the doorway. Luke and Liz, through the process of elimination, decide that one of the Pembrokes must be the werewolf.

Lord Pembroke, who owns the London Journal, has been suppressing stories about the murders, using exaggerated stories about the missing Princess Eliana as a cover. Liz is talking to Jessica and she expresses her dislike for Robert. Jessica gets mad and storms off. Eliana has overheard the argument and tells Liz that Robert, a distant cousin of hers, isn’t so bad. Liz explains what happened at Pembroke Manor and asks Eliana why Lord Pembroke would keep the murder out of the newspaper. Eliana says there was a scandal involving the Pembrokes fifteen or twenty years ago, and Lord Pembroke has been terrified of sullying the family name ever since. Liz vows to find out what that scandal was about.

The next day, Liz pretends to be Jessica and goes to talk to Lady Pembroke, ostensibly as a follow up about her mink coat that went missing last week. She asks if Lady P. has any enemies and says it could even be someone holding a grudge for, oh, say, twenty years. Lady P. gets super pissed, calls “Jessica” ill-bred and kicks her out. Robert calls Jessica later and asks her to dinner because he wants her to get along with his mother. Jessica realizes what Liz has done and wants to kill her. Of course, Jessica thinks Liz was out to sabotage her relationship with Robert.

Liz has lunch with Rene, who has finally come around and stopped being so mad at Liz for not being in love with him. She tells him that she and Luke believe the murderer might be a werewolf. Rene tells her that’s ridiculous, and suddenly Liz doesn’t believe in werewolves anymore. Then she and Luke go see The Howling and then Liz believes in werewolves again.

I hate this book.

Not satisfied that she’s completely ruined Jessica’s love life, Liz decides she’d better pull another twin switch and get back out to Pembroke Manor to talk to Robert’s father. We get a chapter inside Lord Pembroke Senior’s head and find out he, like Luke, is a werewolf scholar. The reason he’s been keeping news of these murders out of the paper is because he knows a werewolf is behind it and he wants to be the one to hunt it down and kill it. The only problem is that he’s worried the werewolf might be his son Robert. Liz-as-Jessica calls to ask if she can come talk to him about his wife’s mink. Pembroke thinks it’s really sweet that she wants to impress him by making the story seem more important than it is. He tells “Jessica” that he’s grateful for the changes she’s brought about in Robert and that Robert loves her very much.

When Liz arrives at Pembroke Manor later, the place is a madhouse. Maria the cook has been murdered in the same fashion as all the other murder victims, her throat torn out. Liz explores Robert’s room and finds a robe matching the scrap of fabric found at the scene of Joy’s murder. The robe has a tear in it. Liz goes to the library and starts to pull a book off the shelf. When she does, a secret door opens onto Lord Pembroke’s secret werewolf room. All the trophies on the wall are wolf heads and all the books are about werewolves. It’s weird. Liz opens one of the books and finds an inscription from someone named Annabelle. Liz decides Annabelle, whoever she is, has something to do with this whole thing. What? Liz snoops a little more, but is interrupted by voices from outside the library. She leaves the secret room and hides under the desk in the library. There, she overhears Sheriff Thatcher telling Pembroke to turn over his evidence and out the werewolf. Pembroke says he will, but he wants to talk to his suspect first. Thatcher gives him until ten o’clock that night. As soon as Pembroke goes away, Liz finds a phone and calls the Journal office to tell Luke what she just heard. Tony Frank tells her Luke isn’t there, and then mentions that Jessica took the day off to go to hang out with Robert. Liz freaks out about her sister spending the day alone with a werewolf.

Jessica and Robert have plans to go to Stonehenge, but they don’t actually make it out there. While Liz was calling Luke, Lord Pembroke was calling Robert to tell him to get out of town for a few days. When Robert picks up Jessica, he takes her to breakfast and tells her he has to disappear for a while. Jessica is depressed and decides to go to Harrod’s, figuring shopping will make her feel better. Meanwhile, Liz starts running all over London looking for Jessica. She goes to the newspaper office and tells Tony Frank everything and says they have to find Jessica. Then Jessica comes in all disheveled. Some hairy creature attacked her and now she’s convinced a werewolf is out to get her.

One of the other kids at the boardinghouse, David, discovers that Lina is really Princess Eliana. David is poor, and he and Eliana have been dating. After his discovery, Eliana says he should claim the million pound reward. Liz and Tony Frank arrange a press conference. After Eliana outs herself to the reporters, Sheriff Thatcher kind of takes over and says there’s a warrant out for the arrest of Sir Robert Pembroke, Junior. Jessica is distraught and decides it’s all Liz’s fault.

This book is horrible.

Quotes:

“Don’t make light of werewolves, Jessica,” Luke said in a quiet voice. “They’re very serious business.”

Best quote of the book.

“Lord Pembroke must be some kind of werewolf fanatic,” [Elizabeth] whispered, more because of the eeriness of the room than out of a fear of being discovered. “How creepy!”

Liz talks to herself a lot in this book. In this case, I can just imagine her considering speaking in a normal tone of voice and then deciding a whisper is more appropriate. I hate Liz.

The Cover: I guess that’s Lina and David being all shocked about the newspaper. I’m not sure, but I think that’s Jessica on the tube platform running away from the “hairy creature” that attacked her.

The Moral of the Story: All the cool stuff in London is within walking distance of wherever you happen to be.

The Big Deal: Summer vacation.

Synopsis:

It’s summer again, but this time, instead of interning at the Sweet Valley News, the twins are going all the way to London to be newspaper interns. Lila throws them a party the night before they leave, and shows the movie An American Werewolf in London. Now Liz is afraid of werewolves. When they arrive at the airport, they get a newspaper and find out Princess Eliana is missing. Everyone is talking about it. The twins take a cab to HIS, Housing for International Students, and Jessica screams at the cabbie that he’s driving on the wrong side of the road. *facepalm*

At HIS, the twins meet their roommates: Lina Smith, a poor but sweet girl who works at a soup kitchen, and Portia Albert, a Lila Fowler wannabe who fancies herself an actress. When Liz and Jessica go down to tea, they’re shocked to see Rene Glize from France. He’s working at the French embassy for the summer.

The twins go to the London Journal office the next morning to find that Henry Reeves, the editor, seems to have forgotten they were coming. A doctor named Cameron Neville has been murdered and Mr. Reeves doesn’t have time for the twins. He dumps them on Tony Frank, who writes the society page. Tony can see they’re not super excited to cover aristocratic tea parties and turns them over to Lucy Friday in Crime. The twins are all excited until Lucy assigns them to Sergeant Bumpo’s beat. Bumpo seems to be kind of a joke, and the first story the twins are assigned is Lady Wimpole’s missing Yorkshire terrier. They go to the Lady’s house and get the story, then over to Essex Street to the scene of the murder. They sneak past all the police officers and hide under a window outside. They look in and see the dead body. The reporters and officers are talking about the murder and they say the man’s throat has been ripped apart. There’s a very handsome man in the room who doesn’t seem to fit in and the twins wonder who he is.

The twins go back to the office, and Liz starts writing up the dog story while Jessica is sent back out on another of Bumpo’s cases. Liz gets asked out by a shy guy named Luke who writes poetry when he should be working on newspaper stories. Jessica gets asked out by Lord Robert Pembroke, the son of a woman who insists her mink coat was stolen. Robert happens to be the son of the very handsome man the twins saw at the murder scene. Lord Pembroke the Elder owns the Journal.

The twins’ dates go smashingly, and when Liz gets back to HIS, she finds a rose on her bed. It’s from Rene. He has also left her a note asking her to dinner the next night. Liz writes back to accept. She is still dating Todd, by the way. That night, all the kids at HIS decide to sneak out to some hip club called Mondo. It’s the happening place to be for all the young famous people. How this ragamuffin crew gets in I’ll never know. When Jessica points out Princess Eliana’s older sister, Lina goes pale and says she has to leave. Liz goes with her and they start walking home. Halfway there, they find a dead dog on the street with its throat ripped out. It’s Lady Wimpole’s Yorkie. Liz notices that the moon is almost full and gets totally freaked out.

When the twins get to the Journal office the next morning, they find Lucy Friday having an argument with Mr. Reeves because her story about the murdered doctor was butchered and moved to the back of the paper. She quits and storms out, so the twins are dumped back on Tony Frank and the society page. Tony has Liz write the update on Lady Wimpole’s dog, and then Luke asks her if she can take the afternoon off to hang out with him. Tony tells her to go, so Luke takes Liz to a wax museum, where she gets freaked out by a wax dummy of a werewolf. Luke gets a little creepy and starts going on about werewolves as if they’re real. Liz doesn’t mind at all and starts thinking she’s been terribly close-minded until this point to not believe in werewolves.

Liz and Luke go to dinner and she tells him all about the dog and the murdered doctor. Luke thinks it sounds like the work of a werewolf. Luke takes Liz home and kisses her goodnight, and then Liz goes inside to find Rene waiting for her. She apologizes for forgetting their date, but Rene is really upset and walks away. Liz is all indignant and acts like Rene is overreacting.

Liz and Jessica go through the newspaper archives and find a story from the previous month about a dead nurse. They think it reads like the snipped version of Lucy’s story about the doctor’s murder. Luke and the twins go to Tony Frank and tell him everything they know about Mr. Reeves suppressing the murder stories. They all go to Lucy’s house and talk to her. Lucy thinks Lord Pembroke Senior has something to do with it all. It just so happens that Lord Pembroke Junior has invited the twins to spend the weekend at Pembroke Manor. Liz invites Luke to come along. They agree it will be an excellent way to find out what the Pembrokes are up to.

In other news, Jessica and one of the other boarders at HIS find a really sparkly and expensive dress in Lina’s closet. Lina is supposed to be poor, so they worry she’s stolen the dress. Liz is fiddling with Lina’s glasses one day. She puts them on and realizes the lenses are just glass with no prescription. Then Liz is telling Jessica she thinks Robert Pembroke sounds like an arrogant jerk (I have no idea why she thinks this), and Lina says Robert’s not so bad. (“I mean, I’ve heard he’s not so bad.”) Meanwhile, all anyone can talk about is this missing princess thing. Hmm…

Portia the snobby roommate has given everyone at HIS tickets to see her play on opening night. Liz goes upstairs to get Lina, but Lina says she can’t be seen going to a fashionable West End theater on opening night of an important play. Liz is confused and Lina has to spell it out for her. Liz finally figures out Lina is really Princess Eliana. The princess wanted to get out and see her city and give something back to the world without the paparazzi watching her. Liz promises to keep her secret.

Everyone else goes to the play, and Portia performs beautifully. Her character is exactly like herself, and Liz realizes the snobby way Portia’s been acting has just been rehearsal for the play. Portia confirms this after the show and now everyone is friends with her.

Luke and the twins go off to Pembroke Manor. Liz takes an immediate dislike to Robert because she’s a judgmental bitch. When Luke introduces himself to Lord Pembroke Senior, the old man gets weird for a second and looks like he recognizes Luke. Later, Luke and Liz go exploring the grounds together and come across some wolfsbane growing near a stream. Liz gets scared and Luke gives her a pendant, saying it will protect her from werewolves. Then they make out. Later, the constable comes to the manor to tell Lord Pembroke that four of his sheep were found with their throats ripped out. Liz and Luke are more convinced than ever that they’re looking at the work of a werewolf. Liz has a nightmare that night about being chased by a werewolf. When she wakes up around dawn, she runs to Jessica’s room and finds her facedown on the bed, dead. Yeah, right.

Quotes:

“I almost forgot about Rene,” [Elizabeth] mused out loud. “We never really got to explore our feelings for each other in France.”

Liz, you have a boyfriend. You always have a boyfriend. If you want to explore your feelings for other guys, you need to stop having a boyfriend all the time.

Either way, [Rene] overreacted. It was a simple mistake, and it’s not like he’s my boyfriend. He doesn’t have any claim on me.

Oh, shut up, Liz.

The Cover: That must be Liz in the blue coat, since she’s the one who spends the whole book being afraid of everything. I guess they’re wearing trenchcoats because that’s what you wear when you’re solving mysteries in London. That wolfman is so unscary. Liz is a wuss.