Elaine M. Alphin


Elaine Marie Alphin was an American author of more than thirty books for children and young adults. Although she specializes in fiction, she has published many non-fiction titles, including biographies of Davy Crockett, Louis Pasteur, Dwight Eisenhower, and John Paul Jones, which she co-wrote with her husband Arthur Alphin.
She is noted for writing historical fiction and psychological thrillers. Several of her novels dealt with controversial topics such as serial killers, pedophiles, child abuse, homosexuality, murder, and suicide. At the same time those titles have proven extremely popular with both critics and young readers.
Elaine Marie Alphin is one of the subjects of the Contemporary Authors series, a collection of biographies published by Thomson Gale in 2007.
In August 2011 Alphin suffered a stroke, which essentially ended her writing career. Her last book was An Unspeakable Crime: The Prosecution and Persecution of Leo Frank.
Alphin died at home in Glenrock, Wyoming on August19, 2014.

Themes

Ghosts

Several of Alphin's novels are ghost stories. Two, Ghost Cadet and Ghost Soldier, deal with ghosts of child-soldiers from the American Civil War who require help from present-day children to achieve their final rest. Ghost Cadet has been Mrs. Alphin's most successful book to date, going through several editions in both hardback and paperback. The book's popularity with young readers prompted her publishers to ask for a companion novel – Ghost Soldier. In Tournament of Time, one of her early novels, an American school girl living in England befriends the ghosts of two medieval princes, allegedly murdered by Richard III in the Tower of London, and battles the 500-year-old ghost of their murderer. The story has been much praised for its historical accuracy and attention to detail, as well as its thrilling denouement.

Gay characters

The Perfect Shot, Picture Perfect, and Simon Says feature main or secondary characters who happen to be homosexuals. Their sexuality is not central to the plots.

Child abuse

Child abuse and its aftermath is a major theme of Counterfeit Son. It also features pornography in Picture Perfect and, to a lesser extent, The Perfect Shot.

Books

Alphin's novels have been placed on many state-sponsored reading lists, as well as receiving nominations for various writing awards. In 2001 her novel Counterfeit Son won the Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Novel. Other major awards include: