Shannon Schuren Books in Order

Shannon Schuren is a Wisconsin writer of young adult fiction whose books pair uneasy places with teenagers trying to decide what they believe, who they can trust, and how much of their future belongs to them. Her work is for readers who like mysteries and supernatural unease alongside questions about power, family, faith, and independence. She lives in Sheboygan Falls with her husband and their three adult children.

She was an avid reader as a child and says she once wanted to be Trixie Belden. Schuren attended Catholic school through eighth grade, an experience that helped feed a lasting curiosity about both mainstream and fringe religious belief.

Writing was always part of the picture, though she did not initially see it as a career. She began with short fiction, learning by completing stories, revising them, and submitting them to magazines. She has described those shorter pieces as her practical writing education, especially while raising young children. Her stories have appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Big Pulp, Toasted Cheese Literary Journal, The Flash Fiction Offensive, and The Binnacle Ultra-Short Edition.

Near her thirtieth birthday, she decided to attempt the novel that had stayed on her bucket list.

That first manuscript took two years to draft and, by her own account, will remain unpublished. It did something more useful: it made her want to keep going. Schuren later spent years revising, querying, and rethinking the project that became The Virtue of Sin, eventually recognizing that its core was a coming-of-age story rather than simply a romance. The process included revision requests from agents and another round of edits after she found representation.

Published in 2019, The Virtue of Sin follows Miriam, a teenager raised in New Jerusalem, a closed desert community ruled by a religious leader. An arranged marriage forces her to examine the rules around her and find her own voice. Schuren has said the book began with a visit to Koreshan State Park in Florida, then gained momentum from a vivid dream about two young people separated by a marriage arrangement.

Place matters just as much in Where Echoes Lie (2021), a rural Kentucky ghost story built around the moonbow at Cumberland Falls and a local legend. Its teenage photographer, Rena Faye, wants room to make her own choices while family history keeps pressing in. The book was named an honorable mention for the Edna Ferber Award by the Council of Wisconsin Writers.

In Water in Her Veins (2025), Schuren moves to rural Colorado, where sixteen-year-old Lola Boyd arrives at her late father's family home while coping with a hard-to-explain illness. Strange inherited memories lead Lola into the history of Claret Creek, its supposed healing water, and secrets that have lasted for generations. Family, belonging, chronic illness, control, and the stories communities tell themselves all sit close to the surface.

Her novels tend to make the setting feel like another character.

Outside fiction, Schuren previously worked as a youth services librarian, a job that put her in the middle of books and young readers every day. She writes from a backyard shed and has a soft spot for road trips, B-movies, and a serious game of Clue. She also has a long-running personal challenge to read books from every country. That mix of research, eerie local history, and everyday curiosity runs through her work.