The game is afoot, and a 13-year-old YouTube star is on the case. Hayley LeBlanc, who rose to prominence alongside other members of her family on the Bratayley channel, is the author behind The Hayley Mysteries, a series of YA novels inspired by Nancy Drew.
The first installment in The Hayley Mysteries, titled The Haunted Studio, is due out on July 19. Booklist’s blurb for the book describes it as “perfect for fans of Nancy Drew,” which makes sense, since LeBlanc channeled the iconic teen sleuth as part of her writing process. “I love reading books and thought it would be a lot of fun to create a mystery series, since I am a big fan of crime, mystery, and horror films and TV series,” LeBlanc said in a statement. “I like Nancy Drew novels and I thought it would be fun to create a modernized version that is relatable to teens in today’s world.”
To modernize the teen mystery genre, LeBlanc drew upon her own experiences in showbiz. After breaking out on YouTube, where she currently has about 1.5 million subscribers, she appeared alongside her older sister Jules (previously credited as Annie LeBlanc) in the hit Brat TV series Chicken Girls. Jules and Hayley also went toe-to-toe (or should I say toque-to-toque) in a cooking competition series distributed by Nickelodeon.
The protagonist of The Hayley Mysteries is a fictionalized version of the author who must crack cases in Hollywood. An old adage instructs authors to “write what you know,” and LeBlanc did exactly that. Many of the characters in her book are based on her real-life friends, and she noted that some events in her story are “pretty similar to what happens on real sets and backlots.”
The Haunted Studio is currently available for preorder via Amazon. The physical version of the book retails for $7.99. After the first book in the series comes out, it won’t be long before the Hayley Mysteries saga reaches its conclusion. LeBlanc’s literary project is planned as a trilogy, with additional volumes due out in September and November of this year.
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