Friday, April 19, 2019

Wildfire Teen Romance Series

The Wildfire teen romance series was published by Scholastic from 1979 through 1986.  Each book features a photo cover of a teen model.

The stories were packaged as romance novels, although some of the books have minimal romance and are more about the girl growing up.  Some of the summaries on the back covers are rather misleading as to content.

The stories range from excellent to completely boring.  The range in quality is due to the series having many different authors who completed their own stand-alone stories.  Some of the authors were quite excellent, and others were not good at all.

The set is quite hard to complete easily, although it is much easier to complete than its rival, the Sweet Dreams series.  It seems that many of the teen books from the 1980s must have been discarded or recycled.  The books don't often show up in stores and must be acquired online.  Even online, acquisition of every single title is difficult.

I used Thriftbooks' Wildfire series page to begin building my set.  I went straight down the list, adding to my cart all of the books priced at under $4.00 each.  I purchased those books, and then purchased a few that I could find on other sites for under $4.00 each.

As those books began to arrive, I went down the list on Thriftbooks again, purchasing the books that were priced slightly higher.  Also, I was able to pick up a few books priced under $4.00 that had not previously been available.  I specifically looked at Thriftbooks' stock on other sites and used their promotions on those sites to get slight discounts.  All told, most of my set came from Thriftbooks.  The below photo shows some of the books that came from Thriftbooks.


It was not fun getting all of those Thriftbooks stickers off of the spines.

I did have to pay around $10.00 or so for a few books.  I paid $25.00 for one book, because it was the only copy online that was published by Wildfire and not some other publisher.  I specifically wanted the books as packaged for Wildfire so that the books in my set would match.

This next photo shows my completed set of Wildfire books.


This is a list of the Wildfire Romance books.

 1. Love Comes to Anne, Lucille S. Warner, 1979
 2. I'm Christy (also Christy), Maud Johnson, 1979
 3. That’s My Girl, Jill Ross Klevin, 1980
 4. Beautiful Girl, Elisabeth Ogilvie, 1980
 5. Superflirt, Helen Cavanah, 1980
 6. A Funny Girl Like Me, Jan O’Donnell, 1980
 7. Just Sixteen, Terry Morris, 1980
 8. Suzy Who, Winifred Madison, 1979
 9. Dreams Can Come True, Jane Claypool Miner, 1981
10. I've Got a Crush on You, Carol Stanley, 1980
11. An April Love Story, Caroline B. Cooney, 1981
12. Dance With Me, Winifred Madison, 1981
13. One Day You'll Go, Sheila Schwartz, 1981
14. Yours Truly, Love, Janie, Ann Reit, 1981
15. The Summer of the Sky-Blue Bikini, Jill Ross Klevin, 1978
16. I Want to be Me, Dorothy Bastien, 1978
17. The Best of Friends, Jill Ross Klevin, 1981
18. The Voices of Julie, Joan Oppenheimer, 1979
19. Second Best, Helen Cavanagh, 1979
20. A Kiss for Tomorrow, Maud Johnson, 1981
21. A Place for Me, Helen Cavanagh, 1981
22. Sixteen Can Be Sweet, Maud Johnson, 1978
23. Take Care of my Girl, Carol Stanley, 1978
24. Lisa, Arlene Hale, 1981
25. Secret Love, Barbara Steiner, 1982
26. Nancy and Nick, Caroline B. Cooney, 1982
27. Tori/The Best Summer, Diane McClure, 1982
28. Senior Class, Jane Claypool Miner, 1982
29. Cindy, Deborah Kent, 1982
30. Too Young to Know, Elizabeth Ogilvie, 1982
31. Saturday Night Date, Maud Johnson, 1982
32. Junior Prom, Patricia Aks, 1982
33. He Loves Me Not, Caroline B. Cooney, 1982
34. Goodbye, Pretty One – Lucille S. Warner, 1982
35. Just a Summer Girl, Helen Cavanagh, 1982
36. The Impossible Love, Arlene Hale, 1982
37. Sing About Us, Winifred Madison, 1982
38. Searching Heart, Barbara Steiner, 1982
39. Write Every Day, Janet Quin-Harkin, 1982
40. Christy’s Choice, Maud Johnson
41. The Wrong Boy, Carol Stanley, 1982
42. Make A Wish, Nancy Smiler Levinson, 1983
43. The Boy for Me, Jane Claypool Miner, 1983
44. Class Ring, Josephine Wunsch, 1983
45. Phone Calls, Ann Reit, 1983
46. Just You and Me, Ann Martin, 1983
47. Homecoming Queen, Winifred Madison, 1983
48. Holly in Love, Caroline B. Cooney, 1983
49. Spring Love, Jennifer Sarasin, 1983
50. No Boys?, McClure Jones, 1983
51. Blind Date, Priscilla Maynard, 1983
52. That Other Girl, Conrad Nowels, 1983
53. Little Lies, Audrey Johnson, 1984
54. Broken Dreams, Susan Mendonca, 1984
55. Love Games, Deborah Aydt, 1984
56. Call Me, Jane Claypool Miner, 1984
57. Miss Perfect, Jill Ross Klevin, 1984
58. On Your Toes, Terry Morris, 1984
59. Christy’s Love, Maud Johnson, 1984
60. Nice Girls Don’t, Caroline B. Cooney, 1984
61. Christy’s Senior Year,  Maud Johnson, 1984
62. Kiss and Tell, Helen Cavanagh, 1984
63. The Boy Next Door, Vicky Martin, 1984
64. Angel, Helen Cavanagh, 1984
65. Out of Bounds, Eileen Hehl, 1985
66. Senior Dreams Can Come True, Jane Claypool Miner, 1985
67. Loving That O'Conner Boy, Diane Hoh, 1985
68. Love Signs, M. L. Kennedy, 1985
69. My Summer Love, Elisabeth Ogilvie, 1985
70. Once Upon a Kiss, Susan Mendonca, 1985
71. Kisses For Sale, Judith Enderle, 1985
72. Crazy Crush, Stephanie Gordon Tessler, 1985
73. The Boy Barrier, Jesse DuKore, 1985
74. The Yes Girl, Kathryn Makris, 1985
75. Love to the Rescue, Deborah Kent, 1985
76. Senior Prom, Patricia Aks, 1985
77. Dating Blues, Maud Johnson, 1986
78. Brian's Girl, Diane Hoh, 1986
79. A Girl Named Summer, Julie Garwood, 1986
80. Recipe For Romance, Terri Fields, 1986
81. The Ten Cupcake Romance, M. L. Kennedy, 1986
82. The Wrong Love, Kathryn Makris, 1986

2 comments:

Dave said...

Have you had good luck with ThriftBooks? I very much dislike the thin, un-padded vinyl envelopes they use for shipping. I avoid buying from them except if the price is so cheap I can consider it a throw-away book if it gets (inevitably) damaged in the mail.

Jennifer White said...

For books like the ones mentioned in this post, Thriftbooks is ideal. They are the cheapest, and they ship really fast. The packaging is flimsy, but the books are generally reading copies, so it works out fine.

Thriftbooks does sell some vintage books at higher prices. Those listings are easy to spot since Thriftbooks has photographed the actual book for sale. I have purchased a few of those books, and the packaging is usually better.

Aside from the obvious vintage listings, I would never try to purchase a collectible book from Thriftbooks at a cheap price in a listing that has a stock photo. There is no telling what would arrive.