Lois Duncan books

Killing Mr Griffin creeped me out. I could never get over that Mr Griffin made his students write Renaissance style songs Opehlia might sin when he taught Hamlet--that seemed not only very imaginative but also very challenging.

I knew her. Her daughter’s death pushed her over the edge.

Loved these books and read them all! Thank you OP for this thread.

R2 I remember hearing about that in 92 when she released the book about her daughter's disappearance and death. How absolutely tragic. I hope Lois has been able to find peace.

Oh, man, R2, I imagine she was destroyed. Did you know her daughter?

I absolutely loved her books, even though they mostly had female characters. There was one called "Down A Dark Hall Way" that I loved, where the girls in a boarding school were forced to channel great composers/painters/geniuses to create "new" Master works. The "Daughters of Eve" freaked me out, and I was convinced some girls at my high school were into something like that. "Locked in Time"- I've always been a sucker for a time-travel/time overlap love story (Somewhere in Time, Age of Adeline), and, of course, "I Know What You Did Last Summer".

The summer of fear made for TV movie also featured a young Fran Drescher. Fran sure was beautiful and always had THAT accent.

She passed away a few years ago, r4.

R7 oh how sad. I hope she died knowing her books brought joy to so many. I hope she has found peace in the afterlife with her daughter

My older sister had all her books and I would borrow them and get nightmares. The witch in Summer of Fear was terrifying! And the body hijacker in "Stranger with my face."

I remember the Unsolved Mysteries segment on Duncan's daughter. Very sad.

The TV movie adaptation of Killing Mr. Griffin was campy fun.

Lois Duncan daughter was murdered

Yup. Her murder was featured in an episode of Unsolved Mysteries in 1993, which is when I first heard about it.

I loved her books when I was young. I might go on a Lous Duncan binge to revisit them.

Who is with Fran Drescher in r6's pic. She kind of looks like Amy Schumer.

Summer Of Fear is a classic but I recall my thirteen year old self was disappointed in the tv movie. Loved her books and read quite a few of them back in the late 70s/80s when I was in junior high.

I only read Summer of Fear and Killing Mr. Griffin. I remember them both vividly, including when I read them and how I got them. I checked Summer of Fear out of the library and I bought Killing Mr. Griffin in one of those quarterly Scholastic Book ordering things where they passed out these little booklets and you could order books for (I'm assuming) a lower price. I used to order books all the time and I would get so excited when they would be delivered to the classroom. There was nothing like the smell and feel of a crisp new book.

I read a lot of Richard Peck (Secrets of the Shopping Mall was a favorite) and of course Judy Blume. But I graduated pretty early into full on adult books and left YA behind by 7th grade.

Read Killing Mr. Griffin, Stranger with my Face, and IKWYDLS. I remember being shocked at how different that last one was to the movie, but to be fair, a totally faithful adaptation would have been extremely difficult to pull off given the killer, whose identity is revealed until the end, is involved in a major subplot. I enjoy the movie version mostly for the act that it helped restart the renaissance in teen slashers while not being too comedic like the Scream films. Freddie Prinze Jr. and Ryan Phillipe were also at the prime of their careers and made for some good eye candy.

I still collect YA thrillers (most of the ones I grew up can be hard to find these days) and even as an adult have the urge to read them from time to time when I'm nostalgic or just looking for a quick read.

Summer of Fear was fair and away her best novel, but I confess to a real fondness for Down a Dark Hall. She was a much stronger writer than Christoper Pike.

OP, it's a very strange coincidence (to me) that you posted this topic.

I'd read Down a Dark Hall in high school while volunteering at the library. I didn't remember the name or author but over the last couple of weeks the plot themes (possession by some genius artist) became a recurring thought, and I knew I'd read a book about something like that but it was so long ago I'd no idea how to find out the specific book. Now I know, so thank you!

I can't believe there's a thread about Lois Duncan on DL, and that she has so many fans here!

I also loved Down a Dark Hall (it was probably my favorite of all her books that I read, and I read plenty of them).

There's one of her books called The Gift of Magic that I read and liked in, maybe, third grade, and didn't remember the author. A couple of years later when I started reading all her books, I realized that she had written that too.

Good memories.