Practically Twins — Viola Rowe

Fifteen year old Mary Ann Rand must learn how to deal with life in the suburbs of Chicago after her father decides to re-marry after the death of her mother. Her new stepmother Phyllis is from California and has a daughter named Janice who is the same age as Mary Ann. At first Mary Ann is excited to have a sister her own age but only time will tell if she will stay excited once Phyllis and Janice arrive.

Mary Ann wanted to run and hide, to be alone to nurse the deep ache in her heart -- but her room was no longer her own. She was a stranger in her own home.

Mary Ann Rand had always wanted a sister. Now it happened. Her father's unexpected second marriage had brought her a new mother and a sister, Janice, from California. And Janice was a blond, assured beauty who turned everything around her golden with charm. Mary Ann's grandmother called the girls practically twins, but it wasn't true. Sister, perhaps -- but one pretty and the other plain!

With the arrival of Janice came a whole series of changes, some pleasant, some painful. Boys suddenly began to stop at the Rand house -- boys who had never noticed Mary Ann before. Polly, Mary Ann's closest friend, put aside her tomboy ways in favor of Janice's dainty femininity. And suddenly Mary Ann found herself competing fiercely for a place in her family and with her best friends. She and Janice were to come terribly close to real tragedy before they discovered a richly revealing truth -- that each of them had to learn how to give as well as to receive, before they could begin to be practically twins.