The Naturals

The Naturals
by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
New York: Hyperion
2013
308 pages



This book will remove many of you of Spirit and Dust by Rosemary Clement-Moore, reviewed in this blog. This story is also about a sassy psychic teen girl who is asked to assist the FBI with their investigations. This book also has cute boy protagonists who are also helping the FBI in various ways. This book, however, has a very real, versus supernatural, criminal.

This red-headed psychic is seventeen-year-old Cassie. She can read people by observing even the minutest details and can tell all sorts of things about that person's life, personality, and behavior. Cassie lives with her grandmother on her father's side. Her father works for the government and is often gone, and her mother, a "psychic" performer was mysteriously murdered in her dressing room several years before this story takes place. Cassie was the one to discover the crime scene and has been haunted by the experience. Her mother's body was never found, and the case never solved.

 One day at work, she meets a young man who tells her about the special program run by the FBI for people like her. Cassie is interested in the program, especially as it might help her figure out what happened to her mother. She decides to  join the other "naturals" in Washington, D.C. to help solve cold cases. Needless to say, her grandmother is not happy with her moving away, but Agent Briggs, who is in charge of the program, convinces them that it would be a great opportunity for Cassie.

In D.C., Cassie meets other young people involved in the program. She is attracted to Michael, the young man who first approached her about it, and Dean, a young man with a tragic back story. She starts her work with Agent Lacey Locke,  a determined and ambitious woman who heads up the profiler section of the special program.

Soon after Cassie settles in, she and the other teens learn about a horrible case that Agents Locke and Briggs are working on. Cassie begins to see similarities between the victims and then it becomes evident that there is some connection to her own mother's death.

This story was fairly entertaining. I enjoyed the dynamics between the young teens involved in the program. The ending was a bit of a surprise and I thought there should have been more clues. I wont' give it away, but I thought it was a little unrealistic. There would have been signs to point us and Cassie, who is very good at reading people, to the actual criminal in the case. It also seemed a bit coincidental, but I won't tell you more because that would give too much away.

I think those of you who enjoy watching Psych, The Mentalist, and CSI will enjoy this book. There is a little bit of everything in this book for you: romance, mystery, horror, and even humor.

Uncrashable Dakota

Uncrashable Dakota
by Andy Marino
New York: Henry Holt and Co.
2013
320 pages





For those of you who loved disaster books, as I do, and especially stories about the Titanic, here is an interesting twist. What if the huge ship wasn't a sea-going vessel but rather a gigantic dirigible?

The author, Andy Marino, was very influenced by the Walter Lord story, A Night To Remember, so readers of that famous book will see elements of it in this book. But this isn't just a retelling of the Titanic sinking.

Hollis Dakota is the heir to a vast empire of airships, circa 1912. He, his mother Lucy Dakota, stepfather Jefferson Castor, and stepbrother Ron, are embarking on the maiden voyage of the Wesley Dakota, an unprecedentedly large airship named for Hollis's deceased father. Everything is going well until Hollis's mother, Lucy, is kidnapped by hijackers from their cabin and Hollis has to flee into the bowels of the ship to save himself. With the help of his stepbrother and some interesting steerage characters, Hollis manages to escape detection and work on the rescue of his mother and ultimately the ship. But who are the hijackers? That is part of the surprise of the story.

The ship encounters some of the same fate as the Titanic, hitting another airship and splitting in half. We know that not all of the passengers make it, but we are not told how many go down with the ship.

The technology used to float the massive vessel is described well and is quite unique, I think. I won't give it away since I hope you will read the story yourself. There is some back story given about the Hollis's grandfather and inventor of airship travel, Samuel Dakota, which is relevant to the present day. The mistakes we make in the past can sometimes catch up to us again in the future.

Hollis is a brave and clever boy, but he also has the help of a very clever girl, Delia. I think this is a story that boys or girls can enjoy and find characters with which they can connect.

I recommend this book for teens 14 and up. It is a story full of details, so it might seem longer than the average story. If you stick with it, you will be happy you did.