The Star Shack

The summer before their senior year, Annabelle and Pete are looking forward to reuniting on rainy Gingerbread Beach and continuing their summer romance—they're not yet an official couple. However, Annabelle's new obsession with astrology, stemming from the success it brought her fantasy baseball team, drives pragmatic Pete nuts ("I just sat there on my bed listening to Annabelle go on and on about how Jeter had Saturn in his sixth house or something equally insane"). Annabelle is hurt, but determined to prove that her faith in the stars isn't a joke, so she dares him to run a boardwalk astrology business with her, predicting people's love lives and offering advice. It's a huge success and Pete turns out to be a natural, but the tension between Pete and Annabelle moves beyond their Yankees vs. Red Sox rivalry when he begins dating a tattooed college girl. Castle's debut is fluffy, but the characters' alternating perspectives provide convincing teenage voices. The preface to each chapter employs a horoscope to describe new characters (who are otherwise only lightly developed), but the interpretation of astrological principles is intelligent and absorbing. Ages 12–17. (June)