Lois Ruby is the author of 18 books for middle graders and teens, including Steal Away Home, Miriam’s Well, The Secret of Laurel Oaks, Rebel Spirits, Skin Deep, and The Doll Graveyard. Her fiction runs the gamut from contemporary to historical and from realistic to paranormal. An ex-librarian, Ruby now writes full-time, in addition to speaking to bookish groups, presenting at writing workshops, and touting literacy and the joys of nourishing, thought-provoking reading in schools across the country. Ruby and her husband live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains.