The books in the series:
- Wild Orchid (2005)
- Waiting for No One (2011)
- The White Bicycle (2012)
Wild Orchid contains examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Past: The books are set in 2002 and 2003.
- A Birthday, Not a Break: Taylor hated loud, chaotic, unpredictable birthday parties when she was a kid. Her eighth birthday was the worst. She hid under her bed, and her dad dragged her downstairs by the ankles. The guests called her "the freaker." That night her parents got into one of their worst arguments yet, and then her dad left. On the positive side, she didn't have to have any more birthday parties after that.
- Break-Up Bonfire: After Taylor's father Garth left, her mother Penny burned all their honeymoon photos on the concrete basement floor. Now the only thing left from their honeymoon is an audio recording of monkeys at the San Diego zoo.
- Bridal Carry: In the first book, Taylor and Penny go to spend the summer at a resort on Waskesiu Lake, where Penny's boyfriend Danny Marsh works. Danny tries to carry Penny into their room at the resort, but they're the same size, so it's more of a bridal drag.
- Celeb Crush: Penny tells Taylor that Matt Damon is her idea of a man who's 10/10. Taylor thinks he can't be a 10 because he smokes.
- Celebrity Resemblance: Taylor often compares people she meets to celebrities.
- Danny looks like Danny DeVito. Taylor hopes he isn't a murderer like the one in Throw Momma from the Train.
- In the first book, Taylor notes that June looks like Gwyneth Paltrow in Emma.
- Taylor applies for a job at a bookstore. Mrs. Timmons, the woman who interviews her, looks like Danny DeVito from behind and Helen Mirren from the front.
- In Waiting for No One, Taylor meets Garth's new girlfriend, Sadie Richards, who looks like Julia Roberts.
- Garth looks so much like Cat Stevens that when she meets him at the bus stop in Cody in Waiting for No One, she thinks he's Stevens for a moment before she recognizes him.
- Alan Phoenix looks like Kevin Costner.
- Character Tics: Danny keeps running his hands through his hair. Taylor hates it because he has slimy hair and she pictures him getting oil on everything he touches. Danny also tends to say exactly nine words at a time, but no one notices that except Taylor, even when she points it out.
- Death by Childbirth: Luke Phoenix, a guy Taylor meets at university in Waiting for No One, lost his mom to death by childbirth when he was seven. His brother Martin survived, but was deprived of oxygen and developed cerebral palsy.
- Diagnosed by the Audience: In-universe example. Taylor thinks Stanley from The Birthday Party has Asperger's because he's scared of things other people aren't and behaves in ways others don't understand. Stanley becomes an Anti-Role Model for Taylor because she's determined not to let fear rule her life the way it does his.
- Disappeared Dad: Taylor's dad moved from Saskatoon to Cody, Wyoming when she was eight, which she thinks is because of her then-undiagnosed Asperger's. Taylor coped so badly with his absence that she was put on medication, but she eventually realized it was for the better because her parents used to fight so much. She barely heard from her father for the next few years, but when she was eleven, she started getting good grades in English and math, and he started inviting her to stay with him. Taylor resents that he only wants to be her father when she's doing well.
- Disgusting Public Toilet: In the first book, Taylor goes into an outhouse near the entrance gate of Prince Albert National Park. Instead of a toilet, she finds a horrible-smelling hole in the ground with a wooden seat. She runs out in disgust, but she's desperate, so she holds her breath and goes back in.
- Full-Name Ultimatum: When Penny is angry, she yells, "Taylor Jane Simon!"
- Has a Type: All of Penny's boyfriends have been extremely similar. They have dark hair and big lips, wear golf shirts, polyester pants, dark socks, and loafers, are about Penny's height or slightly taller, smell like aftershave, have annoying Character Tics and nasally voices, laugh a lot, and own sets of matching golf clubs. Taylor wonders why Penny even bothers switching boyfriends.
- Held Back in School:
- Taylor spent an extra year in kindergarten to work on her social skills.
- Luke and his father Alan spent the year after Martin's birth going to different hospitals. Luke missed so much school that he had to repeat a year.
- Mouthful of Pi: In The White Bicycle, Taylor becomes upset and starts to deal with it in her usual way: by obsessively cleaning. She's been trying to break that habit, so instead she writes in her journal to distract herself. The only thing that works is typing dozens of digits of pi.
- Narrative Profanity Filter: In the first book, Taylor writes her diary on a school laptop that has a lock on it to prevent her from typing swear words, so she types "!!&%$%@@@" instead. She writes the next two books on her own computer, so she can swear as much as she wants.
- Nature Tinkling: In the first book, Taylor runs away into the woods because she's so upset at having to leave her new job and go back to Saskatoon before the summer is up, as well as the destruction of her favorite alarm clock. She sleeps in a hollow she dug in the ground. The next morning, she pees in the bushes while trying not to think about how disgusting it is.
- Pet's Homage Name: In Waiting for No One, Taylor names her new gerbil Harold Pinter after her favorite playwright. After Harold Pinter gives birth, Taylor keeps one of the babies and names him Samuel Beckett.
- Put Off Their Food: In The White Bicycle, Penny takes a cooking class in France and prepares a large meal for herself and Taylor. Taylor starts eating the foie gras, but when Penny tells her that it's the liver of a goose that was force-fed through a tube, Taylor stops eating and feels queasy.
- Scatterbrained Senior: In The White Bicycle, Taylor visits Adelaide, a very elderly woman she saved from drowning. Adelaide tells Taylor the same anecdotes from her childhood over and over, and a few hours into their visit, she forgets who Taylor is and asks her if they met in Art School. Despite Adelaide's memory problems, Taylor admires the way she stands up for herself when her daughter Francine tries to boss her around.
- Singing in the Shower: At the end of the first book, after Penny and Danny have broken up, Taylor overhears Penny singing in the bath. She notes that Penny always takes a lot of baths after a breakup.
- The Speechless: A subplot in Waiting for No One involves twelve-year-old Martin Phoenix, who mainly communicates through body language that only people close to him can understand. He has a Voice Output Communication Aid, but he doesn't use it as often as his family would like, and he spends a lot of time screaming. Taylor guesses that he doesn't like to use his VOCA because it uses the voices of Luke and Alan, and Martin would rather sound like a twelve-year-old than a teenager or a grown man. She also guesses that Martin would scream less if he had a healthier outlet for his emotions, like swearing. Luke and Taylor recruit Sam, a neighbor boy about Martin's age, to record new words and phrases for the VOCA, including profanity. At first Alan is furious at Luke and Taylor for programming swear words into the device, but it turns out Taylor was right — Martin is a lot calmer and uses his VOCA more often.
- Taught by Television: Taylor has learned some of her social skills, like answering a question with another question when she isn't sure how to answer, from the plays of Harold Pinter.
- What Are Records?: In Waiting for No One, Sadie tells Taylor about buying records. Taylor doesn't know what records are, so Sadie explains that they're large CDs.
- Working Out Their Emotions: When Taylor was in grade six, an occupational therapist taught her to walk around the school when she felt agitated and run on the track during recess. It made her feel a lot calmer. When Taylor is an adult, her psychiatrist advises her to take up running again for the same reason.
- Your Tomcat Is Pregnant: Taylor thinks Harold Pinter is a male until he gives birth to seven babies. Even after that, she keeps calling him by male pronouns.
