LanternLantern author
How it was earned: Published work that helped Lantern reach its first one million story words.
How it was earned: Participated in Lantern’s September 2026 Back to School event.
I write across several genres because my head is always crowded with stories and characters waiting to be written.
Behind the byline
Valerie Claussen is a California native and an author who publishes under her own name. Her stories span several genres, including fantasy, science fiction, dystopian, suspense, and general fiction. She discovered her passion for storytelling early in life and was already filling pages with stories when her granduncle gave her a typewriter as an eighth-grade graduation gift. He loved listening to her stories and wanted to encourage her to keep writing.
Valerie continues to draw on her background in the performing arts and her own emotional experiences when creating her novels. She writes for teens, young adults, new adults, and readers who are young at heart.
Valerie is doing her best to get all the stories out of her head and onto the page. Unfortunately, she suspects one lifetime may not be enough. Maybe that's why vampires find their way into her stories every so often. She's hoping one will eventually crawl off the page, turn her, and give her an eternity to get them all into books.
⌖ California
Visit the author’s website →Author marginalia
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On Lantern
Young Adult Science Fiction
The Schoolhouse Whispers series continues in Book Three, The Lighthouse.
Anika wakes with a life-changing truth: her mind now holds all of Anne’s memories. With her newborn son and Gideon at her side, she tries to settle back into the rhythm of her small island community and mend old wounds.
In a town where whispers travel, Anika must decide how to live the truth of who she is and how much of her identity she is willing to share with the outside world. Though her discovery thrills most who love Anika, her adopted family fears what her revelation could mean for their place in her life.
As word of her astonishing claim spreads beyond the island’s red cliffs, curious, unwelcome attention begins to circle. Through it all, the age-accelerated clone is reminded again that she belongs to a community that shares in each other’s joys and carries one another through life’s challenges.
(This is the third book in the series. Books One and Two, Schoolhouse Whispers: Almost Anne and Schoolhouse Whispers: Anika and Gideon, are available on Amazon.)
Paranormal Young Adult
Lacey and her childhood friends made a promise to stay inseparable forever. But when her father loses his job and she can no longer afford cheerleading, her friends decide she's not pretty enough to be part of their perfect little circle.
By the time senior year rolls around, Lacey is no longer the plain girl everyone remembers. She's suddenly the most beautiful girl in school. But the secret behind her beauty is far more dangerous than makeup or plastic surgery. Her stunning new stepmother has given Lacey eternal youth, supernatural beauty, and a thirst for human blood.
With the help of her dangerously charming familiar, Jordan, Lacey comes up with the perfect revenge: Forever Young Beauty Cream. It promises flawless beauty, but stop using it, and the real consequences begin.
Lacey has a choice. Forgive the friends who made her feel worthless, or show them what their obsession with beauty has cost them.
With eternity on her side, revenge has never tasted so sweet.
Beyond Lantern
Finished books, full-length worlds, and other stories waiting wherever you buy books.
Published book
A wealthy man funds the creation of a clone to replace the girl his young son accidentally killed. When the grieving parents reject his “gift,” he sends Anika, the naive and kindhearted seventeen-year-old clone, to live with his sister. Unknown to him, the original girl, Anne, admired for her fearlessness and popularity, once lived in the same town and attended the same well-preserved schoolhouse. Anika finds herself instantly drawn to the boy Anne once loved—though he never saw Anne as more than a friend. Schoolhouse Whispers: Almost Anne follows the world’s first successful age-accelerated human clone as she searches for love and acceptance in a community steeped in tradition and haunted by loss.
Buy or learn more →Published book
Valerie Claussen’s Schoolhouse Whispers is a young adult sci-fi series about the world’s first age-accelerated teenage clone. It’s perfect for fans of sweet romance and emotional journeys.
Book Two, Anika and Gideon, picks up after the farm wedding that takes place in Book One, Almost Anne. Along with their friends, Anika and Gideon continue attending the island’s only in-person classroom, held in a well-preserved schoolhouse supported by the town’s Historical Preservation Society. Life feels full of promise as the young couple takes their first steps into the future together.
Everything begins to change for the close-knit community when Mardi discovers Anne’s hidden diary. Its pages reveal secrets about Anika no one expected, forever changing how those closest to her see her.
This moving story explores second chances, faith, and a hope that endures. In a place where the past still lingers, miracles find their way forward.
“True love can make the impossible happen.”
Buy or learn more →Published book
Amid a sudden surge in population, select US citizens are presented with a daunting choice – nominate one adult family member for humane termination in exchange for a substantial sum of money or face the consequences of non-participation. ‘Culling the Herd’ delivers a gripping account through the eyes of the youngest nominee, revealing the profound repercussions of her family’s decision.
Buy or learn more →Published book
At fifteen, Evie only wants the love of her kind-hearted next-door neighbor, Sam. Just as their hearts begin to connect, everything falls apart when she is accused of a crime she did not commit. Years behind bars steal the life she imagined, leaving her grieving everything she has lost.
Her world shifts again when a mysterious man appears, claiming to be her uncle, and pulls her into a hidden world of powerful witches. Reuniting with Sam sparks hope, but a rival coven threatens to destroy everything she is trying to build. Evie soon discovers that the line between good and evil is dangerously gray, often blurred by love and loyalty in an uncharted magical world.
Buy or learn more →Found a new favorite?