Clair Blank

Blank wrote four novels in addition to the Beverly Gray books. The first three, comprising the Adventure Girls Series, were published in 1936 by A. L. Burt, Blank's then publisher for the Beverly Gray series. Though later reprinted by Saalfield, no new Adventure Girls works were ever published. In 1940, Gramercy published Blank's one and only adult novel, Lover Come Back.

At least two manuscripts written by Blank went unpublished. In December 1941 she sent an unsolicited manuscript, Linda Ross at Hamilton, to Grosset & Dunlap. It was rejected for publication four months later, for "there seems to be a strong prejudice against starting a new mystery series with a school background."[18] Blank also wrote an unpublished Beverly Gray novel to follow the final volume, Beverly Gray's Surprise.[18] This work was never printed, as the series was cancelled in 1955. It is possible that a fourth Adventure Girls book was also written, to be titled The Adventure Girls on Vacation. This book was advertised at the end of the third and final book in the series; it is unclear whether Blank actually wrote it, or merely intended it, before the series was cancelled.

A trilogy by default, The Adventure Girls series was published by A. L. Burt in 1936 and never continued. All works were copyrighted on April 27, 1936, the same day as Beverly Gray on a World Cruise.[19] Although a fourth work was advertised at the end of the third, it was never published; where the Beverly Gray series survived and prospered following the publication of its four part "breeder set,"[20] The Adventure Girls series was unable to catch on. Purchased by Saalfield in 1937, the series was entirely shelved until being reissued in the fall of 1942.[18] None of the books had their copyright renewed, and all have thus passed into the public domain.

* Errantly referred to as "K-Bar-O" on the dust jacket

^† Advertised by name at the end of the third book, but never published

Lover Come Back dust jacket (Gramercy, 1940)

Representing Blank's short-lived foray into adult literature, Lover Come Back was published in 1940 by Gramercy. It does not appear to have ever been reprinted in novel form, although notifications in The Pittsburgh Press suggest that it was printed in a "Complete Novel Section" therein on April 13, 1941.[21][22] As a result of this limited print run, Lover Come Back is Blank's scarcest published novel.

Lover Come Back echoes the Beverly Gray series in both plot and writing style. Just as Beverly Gray is a successful screenwriter, playwright, novelist and reporter for the Herald Tribune, Beverly Norcot shares the same vocations (and success) and reports for "the Times" (likely The New York Times). Lover Come Back features a plot driven by events and coincidence. "In its series of mini-climaxes strung together, the book is a soap opera." The book's "major ingredients" consist of:

"3 auto accidents (2 human, 1 canine)
2 shootings
1 emergency appendectomy
3 witnessing[s] by jealous suitor of girlfriend embracing another man
3 reversals of fortune (1 downward, 2 upward)
2 sudden disappearances of boyfriends out of the country
4 unexpected reunions of same with girls
numerous reversals of feeling between lovers
frequent dashing around by characters in cars, ships, and a plane
multiple rendezvous at society parties [and] swanky nightclubs"[23]

Beverly Gray, too, leads "such a life of adventure as would tax the resources of any soap opera heroine." Across the series, Beverly is "kidnapped no less than twenty-six times, attacked by wild animals seven times, trapped in three violent storms, imperiled by three earthquakes, shot at twice (wounded once)." She also suffers "a car crash, flowing lava, a flood, a drugging, a rampaging fire, a plane crash and other assorted tribulations."[24]