

Seb doesn't know where the reality of Lydia ends and the fantasy begins, but automatically distrusts her because her father is a judge. Lydia provocatively writes outlandish whims to her new pen pal, Seb. The Pen Pal Project gets off to a bumpy start, with each girl unsure of how much to reveal about herself to the strangers at Brookfield.

In addition to this assignment, as part of their long-lived friendship, Lydia periodically assigns Cassie and Emily secret missions (or "secret assignments") ranging from baking to shoplifting. As part of an English class assignment they must write letters to students at neighboring high school Brookfield, which has a terrible reputation. Lydia, Emily and Cassie are three tenth grade girls at Ashbury High, a private high school in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia. Throughout this experience, all the students learn about expectations, honesty, and themselves.

A Year of Secret Assignments tells the story of three private school girls who are forced to write letters to boys at a public high school with a bad reputation.
