The Author
Jeannie Davide-Rivera grew up on 19th Avenue in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn — the kind of neighborhood where everybody knew your grandmother, and your grandmother knew everybody's business. She holds an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction and has spent her life doing two things: telling stories, and figuring out how the world works when the world wasn't built for the way you think.
Her nonfiction is personal, practical, and honest. Her autism memoirs come from lived experience — not theory, not clinical distance, but the real, daily, sometimes-funny-sometimes-brutal truth of navigating a world designed for someone else's brain. Her herbal remedies books come from the same place all her best work does: a stubborn need to understand things from the roots up.
As Jeannie P. Rivera, she writes middle grade mysteries and adventures for kids who like their stories with a flashlight and a little bit of danger — monster hunters, ghost stories, Bigfoot expeditions, and the kind of mysteries that keep you reading past bedtime with the covers pulled up to your chin.
She's made her home in a lot of places — Brooklyn, the Adirondacks, Mississippi, South Carolina, Florida, Terrasini in Sicily, and now Albania — and every one of them left fingerprints on her stories: the concrete-and-cannoli energy of Bensonhurst, the salt air and stone walls of a Sicilian village, and all the mountains, back roads, and front porches in between.
These days she writes from Albania, surrounded by her husband, their four boys, three cats, and a dog — and somehow still finds time to chase the next story.
A Note from Jeannie
Here's the truth: I've never been able to stop collecting stories.
I started writing because I had kids who needed bedtime adventures, and I kept writing because somewhere along the way I figured out that the thing I'd spent my whole life doing — paying very close attention to how the world works when it wasn't built for the way my brain works — was exactly what made the stories feel real. (It took me thirty-eight years and a diagnosis to understand that. Better late than never.)
So now I write a little of everything. Memoir, because some truths are too important to dress up as fiction. Herbal remedies, because I come from women who knew the kitchen and the medicine cabinet were the same shelf. Monster-hunting middle grade, because every kid deserves a book they'd sneak under the covers with a flashlight. They look like different worlds — but to me they're all the same one: a love of history, a fascination with people, and a stubborn belief that every single life is a story worth telling.
I've written it all from Brooklyn, the Adirondacks, the South, Sicily, and now Albania — usually with kids underfoot, a cat on the keyboard, and tea going cold beside me.
Whatever brought you here — a mystery, a memoir, a remedy, or something you didn't expect — I'm so glad you found your way in. After all, every good story begins with curiosity.
Jeannie
Middle Grade · For Kids & Families
written as Jeannie P. Rivera
Ages 8–12
For readers who like their books with a mystery to solve, a creature to find, and at least one moment where someone says "we should NOT go in there" and everyone goes in there anyway.
Monster hunters who are definitely not old enough for this. Ghost stories where the ghost might not be the scariest thing in the room. Bigfoot expeditions that go exactly as wrong as you'd hope. And mysteries where the kids are smarter than every adult in the building.
No gore, no nightmares — just enough creepy to make it fun. The kind of books that turn reluctant readers into flashlight-under-the-covers readers.
"My 10-year-old hasn't voluntarily read a book in two years. He finished this one in three days — and asked for the next one."
"My daughter is OBSESSED with the monster hunters. She's now investigating suspicious noises in our backyard. Send help."
Autism · Written From the Inside
…and No One Noticed — Growing Up With Undiagnosed Autism
For thirty-eight years, Jeannie didn't have a word for why the world felt the way it did. Twirling Naked in the Streets and No One Noticed is the story of growing up — and finally being diagnosed — with autism, written entirely from the inside.
Honest, often funny, sometimes gut-wrenching — and for the women who spent their whole lives sensing they were different without knowing why, it reads like a mirror. They keep saying the same two words: me too.
What Readers Highlight
Inappropriate affect is when a person is saying one thing with their words, but their facial expression or body language is conveying a different story.
186 Kindle readers highlighted this
Proprioception refers to one's own perceptions — an unconscious perception of movement and spatial orientation, controlled by nerves within the body.
177 Kindle readers highlighted this
I spent a good chunk of reading time crying — but largely in a "me too" kind of way.
An autobiography that is well-organized, well-crafted, filled with honest, gut-wrenching drama — and reads like a good mystery.
I'm recommending this book to everyone I know who might be involved, even peripherally, with autism.
Herbalism
Herbal remedies by Jeannie Davide-Rivera & Heather Davide
Named for Jeannie's grandmother, Ella — natural medicine with a hands-on, figure-it-out-yourself spirit.
Rooted in tradition, grounded in practice, and written for people who want to understand what they're putting in their bodies, and why. Practical, honest, and refreshingly free of mystique.
"Jeannie writes about herbal remedies the way your grandmother would have — if your grandmother had an MFA. Smart, warm, and no-nonsense."
Fiction · Anthologies
Jeannie's short fiction appears alongside award-winning and emerging authors in the Crossing Genres Anthology Collection.
Featuring "Worst Vacation Ever" by Jeannie Rivera
Twisted tales of the monsters lurking beyond the usual vampires and werewolves — from gnomes to gorgons, gargoyles to El Cucuy.
Foreword by Bram Stoker Award winner Tim Waggoner
Available on Amazon →
Featuring "In the Heart of the Forest" by Jeannie Rivera
Classic fairy tales and folklore reimagined across genres — from the deadly woods of Baba Yaga to fables reborn in space and on distant planets.
Foreword by Dr. Emily Zarka, creator of PBS's Monstrum
Available on Amazon →Jeannie also publishes accessible editions of classic literature — timeless stories made available for modern readers.
No books found in this collection.
Ebooks · Paperbacks · Audiobooks — Worldwide
Find me wherever you love to read — every format, every retailer, worldwide. Buy my books anywhere you please; I'm just glad they found their way to you.
But reader to reader? When you buy direct from Ambrosia Books, far more of what you spend comes home to the author and the family-run press behind these books — instead of a faceless retailer.
Buy here and BookFunnel emails your download straight away. No fuss, no apps required.
Kindle, Kobo, your phone, your tablet — your library, your way.
Audiobooks play right on your device, or in the free BookFunnel app.
Buy wherever you please — but buy here, and you keep a whole family of storytellers going. — Jeannie
