What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

In the late 90s early 2000s I read a book series about a group of 5 or 6 high school friends in a small town. Two, a girl and boy, were rich. One was a blond(maybe named Beth) who dated a football player. The rich boy had a thing for Beth and plotted with another friend to come up with a plan to break up Beth and her boyfriend; somehow they stage or fake photos of Beth with the rich guy and the boyfriend freaks out. Also there’s a male teacher who blackmails one of the girls; he manipulates her to sleep with him for a recommendation to her dream school. Another character is introduced and befriends the rich girl and they end up in a car accident and one of them does as a result of their injuries. Another girl, Beth’s best friend, pines for Beth’s boyfriend as they’ve grown up together and live next door to one another. If you can help me with the name of this series, I’d appreciate it!

Aisha is still looking for this and wrote:

"In the late 90s/early 2000s I read a book series about a group of 5 or 6 high school friends in a small town; one was the popular football player, two (one boy and one girl) were rich, one was the all American blond female (maybe named Beth), and another was her brunette best friend who had a crush on Beth's boyfriend. The rich boy has a thing for Beth and plots with the brunette neighbor to break up Beth and her boyfriend by staging photos of Beth in compromising positions with the rich guy. They send the photos to the boyfriend and he freaks out. Another character is the English teacher who is obsessed with one of the friends and blackmails her to sleep with him in exchange for a recommendation to her dream college. A little later in the series a new girl moves to down (maybe named Raven) and she befriends the rich girl; they end up joyriding in a sports car and one of them dies. If you can help me find the name of this series, I'd appreciate it."

Aisha, please bookmark this thread so you don't lose it.

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I did. Thanks.

I read tons of these series in the 80s and early 90s and this sounds soooooo familiar but it's not quite clicking into place. Aisha, do you happen to remember what the gimmick might have been? (ie: they're on an island / the books are all set at major school events / everything is told in diaries / etc) A lot of series of the period had something like that tying them together.

Bryn, all I remember is that they lived in a small town. Don’t remember the state but the town was in an area similar to New Mexico, desert-ish.

Still looking, Aisha?

Yes I am. I don’t remember much else about the series. It was good and I never got to finish it.

It sounds really familiar!

Can you remember how many books were in the series?

Maybe 5 to 8 books in the series.

Aisha, that's a good start. You need to add more plot details to the topic header. This will help the moderators and searchers in this very large group.

Click the small "edit" link after the header to update it. This only works on the full Desktop website - not the Mobile website or app. (On the Mobile website, there's a "Desktop version" link at the bottom of the page.)

Zoey Fools Around?

But it's not a desert setting.

They lived in a small town or suburb, either way all teen characters mentioned how boring it was. The desert area was where the rich girl in the book lived in a mansion with her parents who were pretty absentee, which is why she held many parties and there was underage drinking.

I'm sure we can track this down!

Do you have any idea what state, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, etc?

No idea. It never really mentioned a state, just that the rich girl lived in a mansion in a desert outside of the town.

Beth was a meek, beautiful blond who was dating the star football player. The star football player lived next door to another of the friends, a girl who had a big crush on him but couldn’t work up the nerve to tell him. Beth is the only name I can remember.

Aisha, I copied book details to the topic header. Feel free to edit it.

Do you recall the images on the book covers?

Someone found it! It’s a series called Seven Deadly Sins by Robin Wasserman.

Great! Glad you found your book series, Aisha. Thanks for the update.

Seven Deadly Sins series Robin Wasserman. The first book is Lust.

Yay, glad it's solved!