Time for some mini-reviews! What are mini-reviews, you ask? As the title suggests, these are short reviews, consisting of one paragraph tops, about a book. It’s a way to catch up on the books I’ve read a while ago, but never got around to reviewing.

Freaks of Nature

Tite: Freaks of Nature

Author: Wendy Brotherlin

Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction

Rating: 4 stars

Purchase: Amazon

The global Ebola-X pandemic of 2022 lasted five months, two weeks, and six days before a cure could be found. In its wake, it left a generation of psionic freaks, who can turn a single thought into a weapon…or worse. Fifteen-year-old Devon McWilliams is one of those freaks, but Devon rates a big fat zero on the scale of cool psychic abilities. Days after escaping from his psionic detainment facility, the military intercepts him. Regaining consciousness, Devon finds himself restrained aboard a military airship headed toward certain death. Aboard this one-way flight to doom are six other psions. One of them, a telepath named Bai Lee Chen, claims to have the means to escape. All the others have to do is convince her that they’re worthy of freedom by allowing her to telepathically replay their memories. The last thing Devon wants to do is reveal his useless plant-talking prowess to this destroy-you-with-a-thought crew. To complicate matters further, he’s crushing hard on Alya, the group’s lovely healer. Devon knows he must keep his wits about him if he’s going to survive this wild ride. And that’s going to be a tricky thing to do around a telepath who seems to have a diabolical agenda all her own.

Review: A great YA superhero / scifi novel. Devon was my favorite of all the characters, and I loved his quirky sense of humor. The plot was unique and entertaining, and not predictable at all. I’d like to read another psion adventure soon, so I’m looking forward to the next book.

She’s Not There

Title: She’s Not There

Author: P.J. Parrish

Genre: Thriller, Mystery

Rating: 4 stars

Purchase: Amazon

They say it’s better to battle the devil you know. But what if you don’t recognize him before it’s too late?

She knows her name is Amelia, but after waking up in a hospital battered and bruised with just the clothes on her back, it’s all she knows. Unable to piece together her shattered memory, she’s haunted by a vision: menacing faces and voices implying her nightmare is far from over.

Relying only on her wits and her will to live, Amelia becomes a fugitive from a mysterious man, and a life she can’t even remember. But the past she’s fleeing has no intention of letting her go.

Review: Amelia doesn’t remember anything, after she wakes up in the hospital. She barely remembers her name. But she does recall being afraid of her husband. She goes on the run while Alex hires a PI to look for her. The good: Amelia’s amnesia added an additional angle to this book, and made the story more original. Amelia’s memory slowly returning and pieces of her past being exposed was the most intense part of this book for me. I had to change my opinion about the characters a couple of times. The bad: rushed ending, and some parts of the book were unbelievable.

Dead Investigation

Title: Dead Investigation

Author: Charlie Price

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal

Rating: 2,5 stars

Purchase: Amazon

Dead Investigation is a mesmerizing stand-alone companion to Charlie Price’s acclaimed debut mystery, Dead Connection.

Murray Kiefer—friend to the dead—is happy to be living in an old shed on the grounds of the local cemetery. It’s a better home than the one he ran away from. Yes, he’d rather no one knew he can communicate with those buried beneath the tombstones, but word got out last fall when he unearthed the solution to a fellow student’s murder. Now people think he’s some kind of freak show, or want to use his ability for their own ends, or don’t care that he might not want to get tangled up with another investigation. But there’s been a brutal killing—maybe more than one. And Murray can’t pretend he isn’t hearing strange things beyond the graveyard that may help police unravel the crime. Yet even he doesn’t know that getting involved will ensnare him and the two people he cares about most in a deadly scenario that could bury them all.