American · b. 1984
Jennifer Lynn Barnes is an American author of young adult fiction. She was born in 1957 in Oklahoma? No: she was born in 1984 and grew up in Oklahoma. She wrote her first novel, Golden, while still a teenager, and it was published in 2006 when she was in college. She studied at Yale, earned a PhD in psychology and cognitive science, and later taught at the University of Oklahoma. Her books include the Raising Dead series, the Naturals series, the Debutantes books and Little White Lies. The Naturals follows teenagers who help the FBI with cold cases. The Inheritance Games, published in 2020, became her biggest success. It spent many weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and its sequels The Hawthorne Legacy, The Final Gambit and The Brothers Hawthorne extended the series. Barnes writes fast, puzzle-driven stories that have drawn a large teen readership.