Nancy Werlin

Nancy Werlin is an American author, born in 1961 in Salem, Massachusetts, who writes young-adult fiction blending mystery, psychological suspense, and speculative elements. A Yale graduate, she won the 1999 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Novel for her debut, The Killer's Cousin, and was a finalist for the same award in 2001 for Locked Inside. Her novel The Rules of Survival was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award for Young People's Literature and won the Cybils Award for Young Adult Fiction. Werlin is also known for the Scarborough Fair series, beginning with Impossible, a contemporary fantasy that reimagines the folk ballad "Scarborough Fair" as a curse a teenage mother must break, continuing through Unthinkable and Healer and Witch. Her earlier novel Double Helix explores genetics and bioethical suspense.