Katey Lovell

I was really excited to get stuck into the second Sweet Valley High book, Secrets, because it's one of the books that springs to mind when I think of the series.  The cover is one of my personal favourites, showing Jessica gossiping on a bubble-gum pink telephone as Elizabeth watches on aghast, even though this doesn't represent the story inside at all. *Spoilers ahead* Secrets follows on immediately after Double Love , with the main plotline focussing on Elizabeth's best friend Enid's dark, rebellious past.  Enid, who is in a relationship with possessive Ronnie Edwards, has been secretly writing to her old friend George Warren, a former joy-riding drug-using delinquent (there's talk of them using bennies.  In my youthful innocence I never used to know what they were referring to - it's actually benzadrine, a pharmaceutical that contains amphetamine).  When Enid shares this with Elizabeth, and accidentally leaves a letter in her friend's bedroom, it i...

The time has come - 2018 is the year I'm rereading the Sweet Valley High books! This series of books is hugely important to me.  Although I was a voracious reader prior to discovering Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield (with mainly Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl satiating my appetite), once I started the Sweet Valley books I was a goner.  I don't even remember how I first came across them, because I thought it was through my slightly-older cousin, but she says she got into them through me.  One thing I am sure of is that I was reading both the Sweet Valley Twins and Sweet Valley High books by the time I was eleven and was still reading them when I was fifteen.  Mostly I bought second hand copies from charity shops and car boot sales, but any money I had for birthdays or Christmases went on these books.  I also spent a lot of my summer holidays hiding in a corner of Monmouth's WHSmiths craftily reading any instalment I'...