Looking for some great new reading in 2010? Portrait has you covered! Each week we'll spotlight a new author, either contemporary or classical. So keep your eyes on Portrait!

Writer: Robin Palmer

Genre: Young Adult Fiction

Online: She has her own official site which includes access to her blog.

Work: So far, only three books to her name in the YA genre, but she has worked on dozens of Hollywood screenplays as well.

Why You Should Read: Robin Palmer started off her writing career in Hollywood. She worked for a couple different talent agencies, worked as a television executive for the Lifetime Network, and even wrote a few screen plays. She left the glitz and glamour of the Los Angeles way behind so she could pursue a writing career full time, and one that belonged completely to her. She now is an executive at MTV and has made a successful career out of retooling classic fairy tales in novel form. She makes her stories original and up to date for the modern reader, while still giving a nod and a wink to the original source material, and she does a great job. She takes the world she worked in, LA, and uses it as her fairy tale kingdom. Instead of balls and princes there are school dances and popular high school boys. The social dynamics aren’t the royalty and the peasants, but the cheerleaders and the geeks. So far, Robin‘s done her own versions of Cinderella, Little Red Rising Hood and The Frog Prince.

What’s great about her novels as well is that her character’s are multi-layered, not just caricatures of their fairy tale counterparts. Cindy Ella might be a feminist who thinks the prom is sexist and outdated, but she’s also a girl crushing on the most popular boy in school, so she‘s free to have a teenage meltdown every once in a while. Her popular “princess” making a deal with a frog is really a spoiled brat who actually has a softer side when she finally gets to know the film geek who rescues her purse from a fountain. She proves that stereotypes are outdated and that no one character fits into an identifiable slot, making the stories even more interesting to read.

My Pick: Geek Charming is based on The Frog Prince, and it manages to keep the spirit of the original story alive while not giving a typical fairy tale ending. Plus it‘s got a ton of movie references to boot.