Samantha van Leer

Samantha van Leer is the daughter of bestselling novelist Jodi Picoult, with whom she co-wrote a young-adult fairy-tale duology, Between the Lines and its sequel Off the Page, marking a notable shift in tone for a mother otherwise known almost entirely for issue-driven, multiple-perspective adult fiction built around courtroom drama and family crisis. The duology follows Delilah, a lonely teenage girl who discovers that Oliver, the prince in her favorite fairy-tale book, is aware he is trapped inside the story and wants to find a way out into the real world. Where most of Picoult's catalog is standalone adult fiction addressing hot-button social and ethical dilemmas, the collaboration with van Leer moves into lighter, more overtly romantic and fantastical territory aimed at younger readers, blending metafictional playfulness (a character aware of and frustrated by being fictional) with a coming-of-age story about a teenager's own sense of not belonging. The mother-daughter partnership was widely noted as an unusual pairing given the tonal distance between it and Picoult's solo work, and it remains one of only two collaborative exceptions — alongside Mad Honey, co-written with Jennifer Finney Boylan — to Picoult's otherwise entirely solo bibliography.