Tickets do not include a copy of The Steps, but there will be plenty of copies of The Steps and a selection of Van Draanen’s older titles for sale.

Event Format

We will begin checking you in approximately 30 minutes before the start time. After a presentation and Q&A with the author, the line will form in numbered order with the following guidelines:

• Posed photo with your camera taken by our staff
• There is a limit of 2 books from home to be signed (unless otherwise stated)
• There is a limit of 1 personalization (unless otherwise stated)

All events have open seating. The “Order Line Number” on your pdf ticket is your reserved place in the signing line. You will line up to meet the author based on that number.

If you cannot attend, you must pick up your book (if included with ticket) at the hosting store within 30 days of the event.  We can ship that book to you for an additional charge of $9.99; please call the store to arrange that.

Pre-registration is required for this event because space is limited.

More about The Steps:  

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.

A Kirkus Reviews Best Young Adult Book of the Year

About the Author:

Wendelin Van Draanen is an international-award-winning, bestselling author of more than thirty titles that range from picture books to YA novels and are enjoyed by readers around the world. She is the author of the popular Edgar-winning Sammy Keyes mystery series, the novel FLIPPED which became a Warner Brothers feature film, SHREDDERMAN which became a Nickelodeon TV movie, the ALA Schneider award-winning THE RUNNING DREAM, and the Beatty award-winning YA novel THE PEACH REBELLION. Her latest title, THE STEPS, is twisty YA thriller featuring a deliciously dysfunctional family with dark secrets and shifting alliances, sure to keep you up into the wee hours.