Carrie Mac

Carrie Mac is a Canadian writer whose books for teenagers frequently explore identity, belonging, and queer experience. Crush follows Hope, a teenager sent to New York while her parents travel abroad. Far from home, she meets Nat and begins questioning assumptions about herself when their friendship becomes an intense attraction. Orca Book Publishers released the short novel in 2006 as part of Orca Soundings, a series designed to offer accessible, fast-moving stories for teen readers. The compact form keeps attention on Hope’s uncertainty, the unfamiliar city, and her effort to distinguish fear from genuine feeling. Crush belongs to a wider group of Mac’s novels for teenagers featuring gay, queer, or questioning characters, while later work such as Last Winter moves into literary fiction for older readers. Publisher and library records consistently identify the title, author, series, and original date. Through Hope’s summer, Mac presents self-recognition as a gradual process shaped by distance from family, a new relationship, alongside a chance for acceptance.