Cynthia C. DeFelice Books In Order

Publication Order of Devil's Bridge Books

Publication Order of Ghost Mysteries Books

Publication Order of Nathan Fowler Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Children's Books

Publication Order of Avon Camelot Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Cynthia Defelice / Cynthia C. Defelice
Cynthia Defelice’s work has been nominated for an Edgar Allen Poe Award, and listed as Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year and American Library Association Notable Children’s Books, among many other honors.

She was born in 1951 in Philadelphia. When she was a child, she was always reading something. Summer break always started with a trip to the bookstore, where she and her brothers and sister were allowed to select books for their summer reading. For her, these trips to the bookstore were even better than those rare occasions when they were handed a quarter and turned loose at the penny-candy store on the boardwalk. Cynthia has worked as a school librarian, bookseller, a storyteller, and a barn painter.

When she gets asked what she loves the most about being an author, she cannot pick just a single answer. She loves the feeling of getting caught up in the lives of the characters that she is writing about. She enjoys the challenge of attempting to write as honestly as possible, and she finds enormous satisfaction in hearing from readers that something she’s written has delighted them, touched them, made them shiver with fear or shake with laughter, or think about things in a new way.

Cynthia also enjoys the thrill of creating a character out of thin air, and of feeling this character come to life beneath her fingers on the computer keyboard. She enjoys working at two in the morning if she wants to, and wearing comfy clothes or pajamas to work.

Cynthia has gotten book ideas in dreams, while she was in the bathtub, traveling, in her dreams, reading the newspaper, running, fishing, and eavesdropping on conversations in restaurants. Or she might even be doing something as ordinary as peeling potatoes.

She tries writing books which she would have loved to read when she was a child. It’s incredibly gratifying to hear from kids that something she wrote touched them, making them cry or laugh, or think and feel something new.

“Weasel” is the first novel in the “Nathan Fowler” series and was released in 1991. The name has been haunting Nathan’s sleep and made his waking hours uneasy for him for as long as he’s able to recall. Other kids whisper that he’s part animal and part man, bloodthirsty and wild. However Nathan knows that Weasel is real: a man, an Indian fighter that the government sent in to drive off the Indians. To “remove them”. Weasel has got ideas of his own about removal.

Now that the Shawnees are all dead or left, Weasel’s turned on these settlers. Like his namesake, the weasel, he hunts at night and sleeps during the day, but kills not because he’s hungry, but just for the sport of it. Nathan knows what he has to do. This Weasel’s out there. He could come and hurt them. It’s possible that Pa can wait for the day that they will have the law to take care of guys like Weasel, but Nathan cannot.

“The Ghost of Fossil Glen” is the first novel in the “Ghost Mysteries” series and was released in 1998. Allie Nichols is getting pursued by a ghost. Karen, her friend, calls Allie a liar and does not want to hear about “stuff like that”.

However her good buddy Dub listens eagerly as Allie tells him all about the voice that guides her down the steep cliff side, the girl that she imagines that begs her for help, and a horrible nightmare in which that same girl plummets to her death. What does thing ghost want from Allie?

“Signal” is a stand alone novel that was released in 2009. Owen McGuire (12 years old) is having a pretty lonely summer. His mom died just a year and a half ago, and after moving to this new town at the school year’s end, he and his workaholic dad live together like these two planets spinning in their separate orbits.

Owen spends his days with Josie, his dog and best friend, running on this trail through the woods in upstate New York, and thinks about what his mom taught him about the universe and nature.

Then he finds this bloodstained and torn T shirt, which leads him to Campion, this girl with startling green eyes, cuts all over her body, and this plan to signal her parents on another planet to return to Earth to rescue her. And she needs Owen’s help with that.

“Wild Life” is a stand alone novel that was released in 2011. Erik Carlson has just passed the New York Hunter Safety class, and is prepared to go on his first ever pheasant hunting trip, when his life gets turned upside down. His Army reservist parents are each getting deployed to Iraq unexpectedly. Instead of going hunting with Patrick (his friend), Erik gets shipped off to North Dakota to live with Oma and Big Darrell (grandparents he hardly knows).

Oma seems nice enough, however Erik finds Big Darrell to be unwelcoming and just downright mean. Erik rescues this dog that has been stuck by a porcupine, Big Darrell tells him that he cannot keep her. However Erik’s already named the doggie Quill and cannot bear to give her up.

After locating his Uncle Dan’s shotgun and camping equipment, he takes Quill and runs off, certain that they can make it on their own out on the prairie. Old secrets and family relationships complicate this wilderness survival story.

“Fort” is a stand alone novel that was released in 2015. In this boys-will-be-boys summer story about revenge and friendship, Wyatt (age 11) and Augie (his buddy) are not looking to fight. They are having the best summer of their entire lives just hanging out in the fort that they built together in the woods, cooking over a campfire, hunting and fishing, and sleeping outside.

However once two older boys mess with their fort, and with another kid that cannot fight back, the friends are forced to launch Operation Doom, with some unexpected results, for everybody concerned, in a novel about two very real and funny young heroes.