In a family graced by great beauty, Elisa sees herself as the odd one out. A teenager drawn to reading and writing poetry, she is the odd one out at school, too, or would be were it not for the quirky niche she has carved out, penning love notes for boys to give to the girls they like. Elisa has a keen, observant eye and extraordinary grace as a writer. She thought she was comfortable being invisible, an undercover observer of the world, but now she finds a bitterness to that reality. A boy for whom she has written love notes has become a friend, but he can’t seem to imagine her as anything more. Her father—always traveling—wants her to record what he is missing while he’s away, but all Elisa and her mother and sister really want is for him to come home. Elisa’s parents’ troubled marriage is an undercurrent in the first part of this lyrical, deeply felt novel, and becomes a raging torrent of emotion in the second. It is in acknowledging her pain and unahppiness that Elisa begins to assert her claim on the world, taking a step into the spotlight without apology for who she is, and with the love and support of those who see the beauty that shines from her. (Age 13 and older)

Like a modern-day Cyrano de Bergerac, Elisa ghostwrites love notes for the boys in her school. But when Elisa falls for Theo Moses, things change fast. Theo asks for verses to court the lovely Lila—a girl known for her beauty, her popularity, and a cutting ability to remind Elisa that she has none of these. At home, Elisa's father, the one person she feels understands her, has left on an extended business trip. As the days grow shorter, Elisa worries that the increasingly urgent letters she sends her father won't bring him home. Like the undercover agent she feels she has become, Elisa retreats to a pond in the woods, where her talent for ice-skating gives her the confidence to come out from under cover and take center stage. But when Lila becomes jealous of Theo's friendship with Elisa, her revenge nearly destroys Elisa's ice-skating dreams and her plan to reunite her family.

National Book Award nominee Beth Kephart's first young adult novel is a stunning debut.