Fogleman chose the pen name "Ally Carter" to distinguish the books she would write under that name from her other literary work. The last name "Carter" was specifically selected so that her novels would be near those of her fellow adult fiction novelist Jenny Crusie on bookstore and library shelves.
Career
Ally Carter graduated from Oklahoma State University and Cornell University. She began her work as an author of two adult novels, Cheating at Solitaire and Learning to Play Gin. She then introduced her career to young-adult novels with the Gallagher Girls series and later developed the Heist Society series with a novella of the two series's characters called Double Crossed. Carter's first young-adult novel was I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You, the story of a girl who goes to a prestigious spy school and falls for a normal boy who has no idea who she really is. It was selected as a Texas Lone Starreading list book for 2007-2008. The sequel to I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You, titled Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy was released in 2007 in the USA. This was the second book of the Gallagher Girls Series and was released on October 2, 2007. It chronicles the second semester of Cammie Morgan's sophomore year and her self-assigned mission against the boys who have moved into her school. Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy was on The New York Times Best Seller list for ten weeks. The first two books in the series were released in the UK with different covers and website. The third book of the Gallagher Girls series, Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover, is about Cammie's junior year where a mysterious organization seems to be trying to kidnap or kill Cammie's friend Macey. Ally's first young-adult book separate from the Gallagher Girls is the start of a new young-adult series about a girl named Kat, with the title Heist Society, whose family business is thievery. Kat's father is suspected to have stolen a mafia group boss's paintings. The only way Kat can save her father is by finding who stole them and stealing them back. It was released February 9, 2010. The fourth book of the Gallagher Girls series, Only the Good Spy Young, is about the aftermath of Cammie discovering that the Circle of Cavan is after her, and the discovery of her father's journal in Sublevel Two. Ally has published a second Heist Society book called Uncommon Criminals and the fifth Gallagher Girls book, Out of Sight, Out of Time; which was released on March 13, 2012. The third book in the Heist Society series, Perfect Scoundrels, was released on February 5, 2013. The 6th and final Gallagher Girls book, United We Spy, was published on September 24, 2013, detailing Cammie's final semester at the Gallagher Academy as she takes down the Circle of Cavan.
