Amazon.com (ISBN 0312859708, Paperback)

In Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary, Pamela Dean explores the life of 15-year-old Gentian (the middle of the three titular sisters)--the homework, the Halloween parties with her best friends, the spats with elder sister Juniper. Gentian is a student at an "open" high school, and her telescope and astronomical observations are her paramount interests. Then her well-ordered days are disturbed by traces of a mystery. A house suddenly appears next door, complete with a darkly handsome boy who speaks only in quotations. Is he interested in Gentian, or Juniper, or even Rosemary? The final conflict of the book involves a time machine in the attic and unfurls with a hallucinogenic intensity. In her first series, which started with Secret Country, Dean depicted an absorbing fantasy world with an old-fashioned flavor. Here, she shows herself to be a careful, highly controlled writer with a thorough knowledge of the heart of a gifted teenager. --Blaise Selby