Queer Middle Grade has seriously been picking up the past couple of years, and I’m especially excited to see expanding into different genres! Pepper’s Rules for Secret Sleuthing by Briana McDonald is an MG mystery starring amateur detective Pepper Blouse, who’s got a case to solve and a crush on a girl, and it releases from Simon & Schuster BFYR on September 29, 2020. Here’s the story:

Amateur detective Pepper Blouse has always held true to this rule, even if it meant pushing people away. But when the results of Pepper’s latest case cost her any hope of the girl she likes returning her feelings, she decides that maybe she should lay low for a while.

That is, until her Great Aunt Florence passes away under mysterious circumstances. And even though her dad insists there’s nothing to investigate, Pepper can’t just ignore rule fourteen: Trust your gut.

But there’s nothing in the rulebook that could’ve prepared her for this.

Maybe it’s time to stop playing by the rules.

And here’s the cover, designed by Krista Vossen and illustrated by Aveline Stokart!

Buy it:  Amazon | IndieBound

Briana McDonald’s debut middle grade novel, Pepper’s Rules for Secret Sleuthing, will be available through Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers in Fall 2020. Her fiction has appeared in several university presses and journals. She reviews prose at The Literary Review and a reader for CLMP’s Firecracker Awards.

When she’s not writing, Briana works as an Academic Advisor at Columbia University.