Joan Thompson

The Mudpack and Me
Susan Hubbard thinks she's fat. She's not. She persuades her parents to let her go to a health spa where all kinds of adventures ensue. Just what is the handsome yoga instructor doing in the woods? How can she help the unhappy daughter of a soap opera queen come to believe in her own talent? Who knew you could turn an entire spa upside down with a mudpack? Susan learns many things, some of them funny, some of them sad and all of them entertaining and worthwhile.

The Terrible Turnoff and Me
No television for a month? How will Susan Hubbard survive? And what about her friends Joey and Kristin? They don't even like TV but have to watch four hours a day. Why did her school agree to this terrible research experiment? Even the chance to go on a popular TV show hardly seems worth it. But then, reading and romance enter Susan's life and things will never be the same.

This novel has been reprinted abroad.

Marblehead
When Abigail Curtis is sent away from her strict upperclass home in Boston to spend the summer with her relatives in Marblehead she is appalled, but life has many surprises in store for her. Travel back in time with her as she discovers new values, friendships and romance. Written with a sure sense of time and place that recreates the Boston and Marblehead of the Henry James era, Marblehead is the story of a young girl's coming-of-age, a magical inevitable happening that is not so much dictated by time or place as by destiny

Parker's Island
Lovely Gwyn Connell has spent all of her young life working as a chambermaid at the Spraycliffe Inn on Parker's Island. Although warned about mixing with the rich summer guests she falls under the spell of Tom Warner. The results of their passion force her to make hasty decisions, never dreaming what fate has in store for her.

Interesting Times
The young people of a New England town go off to seek their destinies during the Great War of 1914-1918.These are interesting times indeed, both at home in Massachusetts and at the battlefront in France. A nurse, a reporter and a soldier and the people who love them are all tested by the Great War Some of the characters are old friends from previous novels. Duty, love, survival, friendship and even baseball make up a rich fabric of the times.

Lucy Russell Centerstage: Lucy in the Wings
Lucy Russell Centerstage is a trilogy of novels about a group of friends who are involved with acting and the theater. In volume one, Lucy Russell Centerstage, the middle schoolers are putting on the play Snow White and Lucy definitely does not get the part she wants. Added to this dilemma is a jealous friend, a professional actor who is very cute and a series of surprises that will keep the reader guessing how Lucy will ever make things come out right.

Lucy Russell Centerstage: Stardom and Stinkwater*
Lucy and her friends are chosen for a drama competition in Saratoga Springs, New York. Watch the fun as they face up to some very nasty rivals and see them plot revenge with a very "stinky trick. Can it be that her friend Ben is turning into something else?

*This novel won the "Phantom's Choice Award" for the best Middle Grade General Fiction book of 1995 chosen by the Whispered Watchword, the newsletter of the Society of Phantom Friends.

Lucy Russell Centerstage: The Starstruck Summer
Lucy finds herself working in a Summer Theater and learns that life backstage is more exciting than she ever hoped. But what does Ben think about this and how will her friend Sarah handle "Little Ambrose"? Add a large actor and a wiggly beanstalk to the mix and anything can happen.