The Poison Apples

Archer makes a wickedly funny debut with this contemporary tale of three evil stepmothers and their banished daughters who cross paths at boarding school. Molly Miller is the only one of the girls who wants to be at Putnam Mount McKinsey, which offers her an escape from both her mundane small town and Candy Lamb, the former homecoming queen who broke up her parents’ marriage and now reigns as queen of the household (Molly’s mom, meanwhile, reels from the shock in a psychiatric hospital). Alice Bingley-Beckerman’s father has moved into his Broadway-actress bride’s tiny Manhattan apartment; there is no room for Alice. And Reena Paruchuri, along with her brother Pradeep, get sent east when their formerly dignified father marries a yoga instructor half his age. Drawn together by their common dysfunctional backgrounds and a keen desire to seek revenge, Molly, Alice and Reena form the Poison Apples Club. Alternating among their perspectives with considerable wit, the author traces the girls’ adjustments to the new school, their search for friends, and their romantic trials and tribulations as they plot to destroy their parents’ marriages. The teens’ initial misjudgments of one another fuel much of the initial comedy, while Archer’s knowing prose gives even the old-fashioned moral a hip ring. Ages 12-up. (Sept.)