<DIV><p>Louis Duncan's 1958 young adult classic tells the story of what happens when the debutante tradition comes to one small town: the parties, the ball gowns, as well as one girl's growing sense of right and wrong.</p><p>Lynn Chambers is popular, wealthy, and going (almost) steady with a handsome college boy. But when she decides not to be a debutante, Lynn finds herself on the outside, which leads her to a side of her town she barely knew existed. There she meets Anna, an artist overlooked by the debutante crowd, and bad boy Dirk Masters, who has a fast car, a quick temper, and a dark secret involving Lynn.</p><p><B>Lois Duncan</B> was a young wife and mother of two when she decided to write a novel to pay the bills. The result was <I>Debutante Hill</I>. The novel was originally rejected for consideration in the Dodd, Mead and Company's Seventeenth Summer Literary contest due to one character drinking a beer, but after Duncan swapped in a soft drink, she won the prize, which paid the down payment on her first house.</p><p>Since then, Duncan has written over fifty novels, receiving worldwide acclaim for her young adult fiction. She pioneered the teen suspense novel, and is a regular nominee for the Edgar Allen Poe award. In 1992, Duncan was awarded the Margaret A. Edwards Award For a Distinguished Body of Work for Young Adults. Her novels <I>I Know What You Did Last Summer</I> and <I>Hotel for Dogs</I> have been adapted into popular films.</p></div>