A BIT ABOUT ME
Called "a master storyteller" by Kirkus Reviews, Chantel Acevedo is the author of the novels Love and Ghost Letters, A Falling Star, The Distant Marvels, which was a finalist for the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and , The Living Infinite, hailed by Booklist as a "vivid and enthralling tale of love and redemption." Muse Squad: The Cassandra Curse and Muse Squad: The Mystery of the Tenth, Acevedo's middle grade duology (called "Riveting and suspenseful" by School Library Journal) was published by Balzer + Bray. Her latest middle grade novel, THE CURSE ON SPECTACLE KEY, is a lightly spooky story set in the Florida Keys, is a 2023-2024 SSYRA Award nominee. She is Professor of English at the University of Miami, where she directs the MFA program.
Photography by Belkis Lora
Published by BALZER +BRAY, MY DEBUT MIDDLE GRADE NOVEL is here!
MUSE SQUAD: THE CASSANDRA CURSE
You can order today from your favorite bookstore, Amazon, or wherever books are sold.
Mine happens to be Books & Books in Miami!
THE CURSE ON
SPECTACLE KEY
A sweetly spooky ghost story about a Cuban American boy who befriends a pair of spirits and tries to break the curse on his island home . . . only to discover a seemingly lost piece of his family’s history in the process. This new middle grade standalone mystery from the author of the Muse Squad series is perfect for fans of Doll Bones and The Girl and the Ghost!
Frank Fernandez’s family never stays in one place for long. His parents renovate unusual buildings and turn them into homes, which means the family moves—a lot. This makes it hard for bookish Frank to make friends. So when his parents announce they’re moving to Spectacle Key, Florida, to live in a lighthouse—this time for good!—Frank is thrilled.
But Spectacle Key isn’t the perfect forever home they'd imagined. The lighthouse is falling apart. There are knocks on the door—but no one is there—and mysterious sighs and sniffles from nowhere. There’s even a creepy doll that seems to move on its own. Could Spectacle Key be haunted?
Then one day while exploring, Frank meets a girl in old-fashioned clothes, with no memory of who she is. What she does know, though, is that the island is under a curse—and she needs Frank’s help to figure out how to lift it. But what if learning the truth about Spectacle Key means losing the first real friend he’s ever had?
Order here, or wherever books are sold!
Callie Martinez-Silva didn’t mean to turn her best friend into a pop star. But when a simple pep talk leads to miraculous results, Callie learns she’s the newest muse of epic poetry, one ofthe nine muses of Greek mythology, tasked with protecting humanity’s fate in secret.