Diana Rodriguez Wallach Books In Order

Publication Order of Amor and Summer Secrets Books

Publication Order of Anastasia Phoenix Books

Publication Order of Mythology High Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Diana Rodriguez Wallach is a Latina author from the United States that writes Young Adult Fiction. Wallach is best known for the Anastasia Phoenix Series.

+Biography
Diana Rodriguez Wallach’s ‘Proof of Lies’ was a finalist for the International Thriller Awards in the Best Young Adult novel category.

She was also cited as one of the ten best Latina Authors to watch in 2017. But by the time ‘Proof of Lies’ began to make waves on the literary landscape, Wallach had already made quite the name for herself with ‘Amor and Summer Secrets’, a YA novel that won her a litany of accolades.

And by the time she brought her first trilogy of novels to an end, Wallach had also garnered considerable attention for ‘Dear Bully’, an essay she contributed to an anthology which critics not only praised but Scholastic saw fit to add to its classroom materials.

Considering the interest Diana Rodriguez Wallach attracted in the late 2000s and early to late 2010s, it might come as a surprise to learn that the author was already thirty when she first set out to write fiction.

Wallach grew up loving the YA genre, in particular thrillers. As a child of the nineties, she was one of several avid readers that couldn’t get enough of Christopher Pike. She fervently looked forward to consuming his works and vividly remembers obsessing over the likes of ‘Chain Letter’ and ‘Remember Me’.

But for all the books she read, Wallach never imagined pursuing a career in publishing. She knew she had a passion for writing and she eventually set her sights on journalism, but it took her much longer than she would have liked to identify her talent for fiction.

In fact, even Diana Rodriguez Wallach admitted that the events which led her to pursue fiction writing and publishing were rather strange. It all began with a dream. Diana and her husband had journeyed through New England during their vacation years earlier.

They had stopped in Salem, MA, the purpose being to tour the witches’ houses. But Wallach never gave that particular experience much thought until she dreamed that she was a YA author who had just conceived an idea for a whole series of novels.

The dream didn’t mean anything to Wallach. But then she woke up and told her husband and he reminded her of their time in Salem. He was specifically interested in an experience the author had with a psychic.

Wallach had visited the woman purely out of curiosity. And the moment she laid eyes on Wallach, she immediately identified her as a writer. The revelation was somewhat impressive seeing as Wallach was still a reporter at the time.

But then the psychic asked Wallach what she wrote about. When she said she dealt with business, the woman shut her down immediately and told her that she was going to write books, fiction to be more specific.

Diana Rodriguez Wallach had never, in her life, considered writing a novel. And it didn’t take much effort for her to completely dismiss the psychic’s words of wisdom. But when she had the dream, Wallach found that she couldn’t stop thinking about the notion.

It took her a little while to put her first novel together. She had a position at a nonprofit organization that worked with inner-city public schools. It was a full-time job but Wallach found a way of completing her manuscript.

‘Amor and Summer Secrets’ might have eventually become her first novel but Wallach worked hard to get it published. Diana Rodriguez Wallach’s first two manuscripts told coming-of-age stories featuring white teenagers.

When Wallach’s agent tried and failed to sell the manuscripts, he encouraged the author to write a new YA story, one that featured a multicultural cast of characters. The result was ‘Amor and Summer Secrets’ which featured a half-Puerto Rican teen from the suburbs of Philadelphia who felt disconnected from her Latina heritage.

The book sold in merely days. And Wallach believed that it would change her fortunes, putting her on a much easier path to publishing success. But then she wrote another YA novel featuring a white girl that had no multicultural connections and publishers turned it down.

It was only then that Wallach realized that her first novel had put her in a YA Latina Box of sorts. Her sales and marketing team wouldn’t take a chance on any manuscripts that failed to explore her Latina heritage.

Those who thought her work had merit encouraged her to use a pen name for her non-multicultural stories but she refused. It took a while but Wallach stuck to her guns, refused to be confined to the YA Latina box and eventually published the Anastasia Phoenix series.

It is worth mentioning that Diana Rodriguez Wallach grew up in a Polish-speaking household. While her father was Puerto Rican, her mother was Polish. Wallach has vivid memories of attending mass in Polish.

So she couldn’t stand the fact that the publishing industry wanted to confine her within the Latina literary box.

+Proof of Lies
Anastasia Phoenix’s parents are scientists who have spent her childhood dragging her around from city to city, country to country. So she has always felt like the odd girl out. The fact that she knew karate and could speak multiple languages did not help matters.

But then a horrible accident made Anastasia and her older sister Keira orphans. When Keira went missing, everyone was quick to presume her dead but Anastasia wasn’t so sure.

And when new evidence surfaced and justified her faith, she leaped into action, joined in her efforts to unravel a massive conspiracy by a bad boy with a sexy accent.

+Amor and Summer Secrets
Mariana Ruiz is a 15-year-old girl with Puerto Rican roots. When her father decides that she must discover her heritage, he sends her on a vacation to their home country. Things in Puerto Rico are hardly rosy, though.

Not only is the weather mercilessly hot and the food distressingly spicy but of all the relatives at her aunt and uncle’s house, only one person speaks English, her cousin Lily.

Mariana was ready to hate Puerto Rico. But then she started helping Lily plan her Quinceanera, made new friends, encountered romance and realized that she had finally found the home she didn’t know she longed for.