Vivian Vande Velde (born 1951) is an American writer of fiction, primarily horror, fantasy, and humor, for children and young adults.
Her works include:
- Once Upon A Test: Three Light Tales of Love (1984) —
- A Hidden Magic (1985) —
- A Well-Timed Enchantment (1990) —
- User Unfriendly (1991) — first of three books concerning Rasmussem Enterprises, which produces Virtual Reality role-playing games (of the Inside a Computer System variety) in the near future.
- Dragon's Bait (1992) —
- Tales from the Brothers Grimm and the Sisters Weird (1995) —
- Companions of the Night (1995) —
- Curses, Inc. and Other Stories (1996) —
- The Conjurer Princess (1997) — set in the same world as The Changeling Prince.
- The Changeling Prince (1998) — set in the same world as The Conjurer Princess.
- Smart Dog (1998) —
- Ghost of a Hanged Man (1998) —
- A Coming Evil (1998) —
- There's a Dead Person Following My Sister Around (1999) —
- Never Trust a Dead Man (1999) —
- Magic Can Be Murder (2000) —
- Troll Teacher (2000) —
- The Rumpelstiltskin Problem (2001) —
- Alison, Who Went Away (2001) —
- Being Dead (2001) —
- Heir Apparent (2002) — second of three books concerning Rasmussem Enterprises and its virtual reality games.
- Wizard At Work (2003) —
- Witch's Wishes (2003) —
- Now You See It... (2005) —
- Three Good Deeds (2005) —
- The Book of Mordred (2005) —
- Witch Dreams (2005) —
- All Hallows' Eve (2006) —
- Remembering Raquel (2007) —
- Stolen (2008) —
- Cloaked in Red (2010) —
- 8 Class Pets + 1 Squirrel ÷ 1 Dog = Chaos (2011) — first in the "Twitch the Squirrel" series.
- Deadly Pink (2012) — third of three books concerning Rasmussem Enterprises and its virtual reality games.
- Frogged (2013) —
- 23 Minutes (2016) —
- Squirrel in the House (2016) — second in the "Twitch the Squirrel" series.
- The Princess Imposter (2017) —
- The Prince Problem (2018) —
- Squirrel in the Museum (2019) — third in the "Twitch the Squirrel" series.
- Squirrel on Stage (2022) — fourth in the "Twitch the Squirrel" series.
Velde also contributed three short stories to the Bruce Coville's Book of... anthology series — "For Love of Him", "Past Sunset" and "Field Trip".
Velde's works without their own pages include examples of:
- Amnesiac Dissonance: In one book, a young prince wakes up in a field staring into the eyes of a witch, who tells him perhaps this will help, and leaves. He struggles to survive in the nearby city, selling everything he has on him and eventually working for a living. Finally, he comes across some people who recognize him and take him home. Due to his complete amnesia of anything before, and the fact that he now understands how difficult other people have it, he's a much nicer person. Everyone who knew him before keeps complimenting him on his niceness in a way that's not quite complimentary. Even worse, his Arranged Marriage fiancée has the same eyes as the witch who cursed him, a fact he tries hard not to think about too much.
- Animal Goes to School: 8 Class Pets + 1 Squirrel ÷ 1 Dog = Chaos revolves around Twitch, a squirrel who accidentally disturbs a dog (by running over his nose while fleeing from an owl) and ends up running into a school to try and escape him. The dog, angered by being disturbed (and thinking Twitch had done it on purpose), follows him in to try and catch him.
- The Dog Bites Back: In The Changeling Prince, the Big Bad releases The Dragon from his restraint... at which time the audience discovers that he was a literal dragon and not happy about his forced servitude.
- Everyone Is a Suspect: In Never Trust a Dead Man, Farold — the murder victim — is terribly depressed to realize just how many of the people he knew have plausible reasons for wanting him dead.
- The Glasses Gotta Go: In Now You See It..., the protagonist wears glasses and hates them with a passion, citing this trope on the second page. While the lesson of the book is essentially that looks aren't everything, she still manages to get rid of them permanently at the end of the book, making this a
Broken Aesop. The story is meant as a bit of escapist fantasy for those who hated wearing glasses since the author had the same problem and even dedicated the story to those share her distaste for bad eyewear. - Metaphorically True: In The Conjurer Princess, the morally questionable wizard whose talent is seeing the future tells one of the adventurers that if they go on a quest, he had better be prepared to die. Said character walks out of the party but later returns for a Big Damn Heroes moment — and is captured, put on his knees in front of an executioner... and ducks away at the last second. Prepared to die, indeed. Extra half-truth bonus points because it was the other adventurer who died on the quest.
- Muggle in Mage Custody: In The Changeling Prince, the protagonist Welland is a slave of the evil sorceress Daria.
- Personal Effects Reveal: A particularly sad example occurs in Remembering Raquel, a Scrapbook Story told in Anachronic Order where multiple people describe how they were affected by a teenage girl's death. At one point we get the story from the view of the ambulance driver, who says she "let Raquel go" after finding a Do Not Resuscitate form in her bag and assuming it's what she would have wanted. As the story progresses, more of the same forms are found in her notebook, her locker, and her room, and her father eventually realizes that she'd been stealing them from her mother's hospital room so her mother wouldn't let herself die.
- Recycled Script: Dragon Bait and Companions of the Night tell virtually the same story: a teenage female protagonist with a Missing Mom suffers a false accusation due to coincidental circumstances, and subsequently both her and her father's lives are endangered. Enter a Tall, Dark, and Snarky Really 700 Years Old supernatural male lead who offers to guide the heroine in her quest for vindication. Despite the man's general dangerousness and untrustworthiness, the heroine accepts because she has no one else to turn to, and she quickly finds herself growing attached to him as he leads her around. This culminates in the capture of both the male lead and the heroine by the main villain. The villain is killed in such a way that the heroine is not (fully) responsible. The heroine then saves the male lead from his one weakness — daylight — and the books end on an ambiguously positive note. The difference? The male lead in Dragon's Bait is a dragon; in Companions of the Night, he's a much more marketable vampire.
- Stigmatic Pregnancy Euphemism: In Never Trust a Dead Man, the protagonist ends up magically disguising himself as Kendra, a girl from his village who recently left to join a convent (supposedly). To his great surprise, as soon as Kendra's friends and family see the disguised protagonist, they start asking what happened to her baby.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Book of Mordred has one of Mordred's half-brothers throw his sword at a man about to cleave Nimue's head in half. The projectile kills the man, but doesn't stop his sword's momentum...
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Not a traditional example but still in the spirit of the trope, in Never Trust a Dead Man. The protagonist obtains aid from a witch in clearing his name of murder by promising her years of servitude after he finishes his mission. He initially offers just a single year, but as the story progresses he needs to request additional spells multiple times at steep prices, and consequently racks up around a decade of indentured servitude. However, after he clears his name, the witch releases him from his debt, claiming that he'd be so miserable to be stuck for so long that he'd just be unpleasant for her to keep around! In return, the surprised protagonist gratefully offers her a single year of willing service, saying he couldn't begrudge her that much after all of her help.
