What I read in between BSC volumes

While I was reminiscing about my beloved Baby-Sitters Club books, I started to think about the other book series that I read during my tween & teen years (probably while waiting for the next BSC volume to appear):

 

There was The Sleepover Friends series by Susan Saunders. This series was about four girls (Stephanie, Patti, Lauren and Kate) who took turns having sleepovers at each others' houses each Friday night. Stephanie was quite the fifth-grade fashion plate, wearing a wardrobe consisting of only red, black and white clothing. I tried to do something similar but that got the kibosh pretty quickly when my mom told me that no fifth grade daughter of hers needed to be wearing black all of the time, like an elementary school Goth-in-training. I did have a red, black and white bedroom until I went away to college, so the color combination stuck with me long after I was too old for the books.

 

The Sunfire romance series, by multiple authors. I read these a bit later than the BSC and Sleepover Friends--I'd say when I was in middle school. Each book in this series had a girl's name as the title and was set during some significant event or time period in U.S. history. The plot invariably featured a plucky heroine, who was torn between the two hunky guys illustrated on the cover. Veronica was about the Pearl Harbor attack, and I remember reading Jennie (about the Johnstown Flood) and Caroline (who dressed like a boy and went to California during the Gold Rush) as well. I read as many as I could get my hands on, which wasn't many because my library only had a few and I had a hard time finding them at bookstores. My favorite was Amanda, which was set during pioneer times. Amanda was a spoiled Eastern girl who went West with a wagon train wearing a beautiful and highly impractical gray-green silk dress. I've never seen these books while thrifting but I'll keep an eye out for them from now on, since apparently lots of them do pretty well on eBay.

Another series I read post-BSC was the Satin Slippers series by Elizabeth Bernard. Even though I quit taking ballet lessons in sixth grade when I moved from Nevada to Utah, I never lost my love for it (still haven't, actually). This series was about  Leah, a dancer who got the chance to move to San Francisco and join a professional ballet company.

 

The Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, of course! The Clue of the Broken Locket was the first one I ever read. I'm not sure if I read the entire series, but I'm sure I came pretty close. I even read some of the 80's updated Nancy Drew Files.

My dad got me hooked on the Dirk Pitt novels by Clive Cussler when I was in middle school and I read them all through high school as well. I loved the combination of history, archaeology (did you know I was originally an Archaeology major in college?) and our dashing hero, Dirk Pitt. Sahara was my favorite of the series, but I thought the movie version that came out a couple of years ago was a total disappointment (despite the frequent appearance of Matthew McConaughey's shirtless abs).

I read some of the Sweet Valley Twins books and a few of the Sweet Valley High series as well, but I was never enamored of those as I was The Baby-Sitters Club or any of the others. What books did you read as a tween/teen?