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Mysteries
Enter the world of thrillers, suspense and crime!
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Awakening: Chasing Yesterday
By Robin Wasserman
Reviewed by: S. H., 11th Grade
***** Great! I would recommend it to my friends.
Chasing Yesterday: Awakening is one the most amazing books I have read in awhile. J.D. is a 13 year old girl without a past. She obviously has a past, but she does not remember a single bit of it-not even her name. Slowly she realizes that she can not trust anyone. There is something wrong with her., something different. But what is it? She will have to bear the daily nightmares and slowly put the puzzle of her life together. The main question is whether or not her past wants to be remembered. |
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When Lightning Strikes
By Meg Cabot
Reviewed by: R. T., 10th Grade
***** I would recommend it to my friends.
Jess Mastriani has a penchant for getting in trouble, but when she is struck by lightning, she wakes up the next morning and discovers that she has psychic powers that give her the supernatural talent for finding lost or missing children. After the lightning strike, Jess has to deal with people at her school, being a teen, and solving crimes. This book is part of the 1-800-WHERE–R-YOU series. |
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Paint it Black
By P. J. Parrish
Reviewed by: B. D., 11th Grade
***** I would recommend it to my friends.
Paint It Black is another novel from the Louis Kincaid mysteries, but if you have never read one of Parrish's books, like me, you will be able to follow along perfectly fine. The overall theme is that of a mystery, it is suspenseful, exciting, and at some points a little frightening. Detective Louis Kincaid flies to Sereno Key, Florida to help out a friend in a case of his. A man was murdered and their only suspect is his wife, who claims she is innocent. As time goes by more and more people are being murdered in the same way. The reader gets to be in the mind of the killer while this is happening. With further investigation there are more suspects making it harder to pinpoint the real killer. By the end of this book you'll be shocked as to who the actual killer is. I found this book to fast-paced and entertaining, the perfect quick read. |
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Predator
By Patricia Cornwell
Reviewed by: B. D., 11th Grade
***** Great! I would recommend it to my friends.
Predator, by Patricia Cornwell, is a great suspenseful thriller. Though the plot is sort of hard to follow because it keeps switching between stories I really enjoyed it. Detectives are working on a study of the mind of a criminal in the project called 'Predator'. If at first the title does not seem relevant, by the end of the book it will all come together. This book is suspenseful, interesting, and surprising and ends with a big twist. |
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No Place Like Home
By Mary Higgins Clark
Reviewed by: S. H., 10th Grade
***** Great! I would recommend it to my friends.
Ten-year-old Liza Barton shoots her mother while trying to protect her from her violent husband — Liza's stepfather. While the death is ruled accidental, the tabloids still compare Liza to the child murderess Lizzie Borden. Liza's adoptive parents change her name to Celia and try to erase all traces of her past. Widowed after a brief marriage in which she had a son, Jack, she remarries a young lawyer. Celia is happy until, on her birthday, he presents her with a gift — the house where she killed her mother. On moving in, they find the words LITTLE LIZZIE'S PLACE - BEWARE painted in red letters on the lawn. When the real estate agent who sold the house to her husband is murdered, she becomes a suspect. As she struggles to prove her innocence, Celia and her son are being stalked by the killer. Giving a summary to this book is too hard. This book was amazing. It is a real page turner. It was very interesting. It is much better than it sounds after reading the summary.
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Angels Fall
By Nora Roberts
Reviewed by: B.A., 11th Grade
***** Great! I would recommend it to my friends.
The author Nora Roberts successfully creates a novel that is thought-provoking and enjoyable to read. This novel can be classified as romantic suspense and it successfully balances the two genres. This novel combines love and murder. Reece starts to fall in love with the town residents of Angel's Fist, including Brody, an exasperatingly stubborn yet compassionate writer. Reece begins to believe that for the first time in an extremely long time, she may have found a place she might actually desire to call home. However her hard-won happiness and sense of security is endangered when she becomes not only the lone witness to a murder but also the next target of the killer. This killer is determined to drive her back to the psychiatric hospital to cast doubt on her claims. Nora Roberts nimbly instills a subtle sense of menace into a frightening and exhilarating plot, thus creating a gratifying novel of romantic suspense. This book can be easily enjoyable to a wide variety of people. |
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Double
Helix
By
Nancy Werlin
Reviewed by A.P., 9th Grade
***** Great! I would recommend it to my friends.
Double Helix is a combination of realistic and science fiction,
without being too corny. As the story opens, Eli Samuels
mother is nearing the end with her battle with Huntington's
Disease. Eli is about to graduate from high school, but
doesn't want to go to college. Instead he wants to work
at Wyatt Transgenics Lab. Eli's father is very much against
him working there, but he does anyway. Eli meets a young
woman at the lab who could be his mother's sister. While
there he uncovers some disturbing facts that revolve around
the genetic experiments. |
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Birthright
By
Nora Roberts
Reviewed by: B.A., 10th grade
***** Great! I would recommend it to my friends.
This books is awesome and I'm not
just saying that because Nora Roberts is my favorite author.
It's set in and around rural Woodsboro, Md. A Neanderthal
settlement is discovered on the site of an unwanted housing
development, prompting archeologist Callie Dunbrook to race
to Woodsboro to take charge of the dig. When the owner of
the Antietam Creek development turns up murdered on the site,
Callie is thrown into a murder case with her hot ex-husband,
Jacob Greystone, who also happens to be the anthropologist
sharing responsibility for the dig. Meanwhile, Suzanne Cullen
tracks down the archeologist after seeing her on the evening
news. Callie, the woman claims, is the baby daughter who was
snatched from her stroller when she was just a few months
old. Callie hires a lawyer, Lana Campbell, who happens to
be involved with Doug Cullen, Callie's long-lost brother.
It's great seeing the different relationships going on. It's
not just a romance but a family drama, with all the love and
angst families carry. And it's just FUN seeing Callie and
Jake react with each other. |
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Digital
Fortress
By Dan Brown
Reviewed by: A.W., 11th Grade
**** I am glad I read it.
Dan Brown wrote Digital Fortress as a mystery/thriller novel.
The US government has a machine that can tap into any computer
program and read letters and other personal information. A
hacker comes out with a new software, which he claims will
incript itself over and over again so as to forbid any tracking
and ensure privacy. The code is downloaded into the government
computer machine which tries to decode the software before
the public gets to it. Pretty interesting read but as it was
ending, it seemed more and more far fetched. The chase for
the ring all across Europe was completely unrealistic. It
raised the issue of computer tapping and a right to privacy
versus the safety and protection of the country. |
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Birds
of a Feather
By Jacqueline Winspear
Reviewed by: Mrs. Christman, Staff
***** Great! I would recommend it to my friends.
Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear is the thrilling
sequel to the award-winning Maisie Dobbs. Although the story
is set in post WWI England, private-eye Maisie is just the
kind of person that you would like to call your friend. She
is spunky, independent, resourceful and full of intuitive
good sense! When this story opens, Maisie is hired to find
an heiress, but she is quickly thrust into a murder investigation
when 3 of the heiress' friends turn up dead. I fell in love
with Maisie as Winspear unpeeled through the layers of her
personality with every turn of the page. Without even realizing
it, the reader also learns a tremendous amount about the English
country side and people's ambiguous feelings after the end
of the "Great War." Additionally, the reader learns
the effects of the war on veterans and aide workers and the
impact it had on the families they left behind to fight for
the "cause" in Europe. The reader discovers the
food lines & soup kitchens, the desparate search for jobs
and the unwavering divide between those that had money and
those who served them without it being thrust in your face
like lines in a textbook. I highly recommend this book for
both the intriguing murder mystery as well as the interesting
details about and era soon to be forgotten. |
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Stravaganza:
City of Stars
By Mary Hoffman
Reviewed by: Mrs. Christman, Staff
**** I am glad I read it.
Stravaganza: City of Stars by Mary Hoffman is a story of an
imaginary place with duchesses, dukes, fortune tellers, magic,
mystery and intrigue. This story is a sequel to the 2005-06
Black-Eyed Susan nominated book, Stravaganza: City of Masks.
In this story, Georgia is living between contemporary London
with her conniving step-brother, Russell and 16th century
Talia, where she is reunited with a former crush, Lucien (and
she thought he was dead!) Although the story drags in places,
I was captivated enough with the plot to forge on 'till the
end. Hoffman does a good job of showing the reader that things
are not always as we presume--sometimes bad people are not
always inherently evil & sometimes good deeds do not always
have happy endings. |
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