The Steps - by Wendelin Van Draanen (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Fourteen-year-old chess whiz Ruby Vossen plays a deadly game to keep her stepfamily from stealing her wealthy (but dysfunctional) family's fortune"--

Book Synopsis

Riverdale meets The Queen's Gambit in this fun, twisty thriller by an Edgar Award-winning author, featuring a deliciously dysfunctional family with dark secrets and shifting alliances.

Fourteen-year-old chess whiz Ruby Vossen tries to keep to herself. She refuses to be a pawn in her wealthy family's web of deception.

But ever since Ruby's mother and aunt died in a car wreck, the battle lines drawn within the Vossen clan have ruled her life. Ruby's father and uncle became irreparably estranged, and within months, Ruby's cousin/BFF was banished from her life, her father remarried, and she wound up with a gold-digging stepmom who has two teens of her own--The Steps.

So when strange and dangerous things begin happening on the Vossen estate, Ruby sees only one logical explanation: The Steps are scheming to inherit the Vossen fortune. And as things get more and more intense, it seems like killing is in their playbook.

Luckily, Ruby has her own playbook, and she's not about to go down without a fight. She'll even break her dad's rules to get her cousin back on her side of the chessboard . . . It's time to check-mate The Steps before they can finish the Vossens off.

Secrets, lies, and lethal threats abound in this clever, quirky thriller by the award-winning, bestselling author of Flipped and the Sammy Keyes mysteries.

Review Quotes

Van Draanen (Mr. Whiskers and the Shenanigan Sisters) skillfully employs chess metaphors while piling on the twists in this campy caper. The cousins' friendship--both with each other and the connections they make throughout their investigation --is a heartfelt counter-point to the Vossens' despicable familial relationships and tumultuous history.
--Publishers Weekly

Plenty of welcome heart is built into this whodunit that imagines a wealthy, backstabbing family that's so stereotypically horrible that they tip toward the darkly comic. A fun, twisty mystery with a likeable narrator.
--Kirkus Reviews

This work finds its groove as a cross between a cozy mystery and a YA thriller with a dash of quirkiness in the form of its chess-obsessed protagonist, making for a somewhat lighter, but nevertheless engrossing, read. Ruby is a plucky, resilient protagonist who is easy to root for when surrounded by a family of ne'er-do-wells.
--Booklist

A heart-pounding final chase scene, replete with exposed pregnancies, a poisoned dog, a hatchet-wielding psychotic stepsister, and a father-crushing tree, is thrillingly written.
--Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

A riveting, heart-pounding mystery. . . .Van Draanen has had a long and illustrious career in writing books about breaking rules, solving mysteries, and being brave. Many of her titles are funny. But every book she writes is, above all else, full of heart. The Steps incorporates all these qualities, blended into one humdinger of a mystery. Readers--especially those who enjoy Jennifer Lynn Barnes's Inheritance Game series or Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson's The Agathas -- willlikely find Ruby irresistible.
--Shelf Awareness

About the Author

Wendelin Van Draanen is the award-winning, bestselling author of more than thirty novels for kids and teens. Her books include Flipped, which was named a Top 100 Children's Novel for the 21st Century by SLJ and became a Warner Brothers feature film, the Edgar Award-winning Sammy Keyes mystery series, and The Running Dream, which won ALA's Schneider Family Book award. A high school teacher for fifteen years, Wendelin is now a full time writer who enjoys staying active in the school author-visit space.