Acevedo, Chantel

Chantel Acevedo is the author of adult novels, including The Distant Marvels, a finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and the middle-grade novel Muse Squad: The Cassandra Curse. She was born in Miami to Cuban parents. In the middle-grade mystery The Curse on Spectacle Key (Balzer + Bray), Frank Fernandez never stays in one place for long. His parents renovate unusual buildings and turn them into homes, so the family moves a lot – which makes it hard for bookish Frank to make friends. So when his parents announce they’re moving to Florida’s Spectacle Key to live in a lighthouse, and for good, he’s thrilled. But the place isn’t the perfect forever home they’d imagined. The lighthouse is falling apart, and there are knocks on the door and mysterious sighs and sniffles, but no one is ever there. There’s even a creepy doll that seems to move on its own. Is Spectacle Key haunted? Then Frank meets a girl in old-fashioned clothes. She has no memory of who she is. But she does know that the island is under a curse – and she needs Frank’s help to figure out how to lift it.