Nancy Drew Movie, School For Psychics by K.C.Archer, The Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spalding,Honor Among Thieves by Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre and Soundless by Richelle Mead

I read Nancy Drew mysteries when I was 6 through 8 years old, and I remember thinking that they were simplistic, but fun. I think this movie should be fascinating, considering these books are 88 years old, and still being read today.

Movies: Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase

Sophia Lillis will play the title character in Nancy Drew and the

Hidden Staircase

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz36792654,

based on the popular book series. Deadline reported that the Warner

Bros. project, which has Ellen DeGeneres, Jeff Kleeman and Chip Diggins

on board to produce, is expected to begin filming soon. Wendy Williams

will serve as executive producer.

The Hidden Staircase, initially released in 1930 as the second volume in

the Nancy Drew series, was written by Mildred Wirt Benson under the

pseudonym Carolyn Keene. WB made a film adaptation of the book in 1939.  

I have four good books to review this time around, so I will get right to them.

School for Psychics by K.C.Archer is a new series of paranormal mystery that reads like a YA novel, though there is some adult hook ups going on. The prose if clear and clean (with the exception of a couple of typos) and the plot a real page-turner that moves at lightening speed. Here's the blurb:

An entrancing new series starring a funny, impulsive, and sometimes self-congratulatory young woman who discovers she has psychic abilities—and then must decide whether she will use her skills for good or...not.
Teddy Cannon isn’t your typical twenty-something woman. She’s resourceful. She’s bright. She’s scrappy. She can also read people with uncanny precision. What she doesn’t realize: she’s actually psychic.
When a series of bad decisions leads Teddy to a run-in with the police, a mysterious stranger intervenes. He invites her to apply to the School for Psychics, a facility hidden off the coast of San Francisco where students are trained like Delta Force operatives: it’s competitive, cutthroat, and highly secretive. They’ll learn telepathy, telekinesis, investigative skills, and SWAT tactics. And if students survive their training, they go on to serve at the highest levels of government, using their skills to protect America, and the world.
In class, Teddy befriends Lucas, a rebel without a cause who can start and manipulate fire; Jillian, a hipster who can mediate communication between animals and humans; and Molly, a hacker who can apprehend the emotional state of another individual. But just as Teddy feels like she’s found where she might belong, strange things begin to happen: break-ins, missing students, and more. It leads Teddy to accept a dangerous mission that will ultimately cause her to question everything—her teachers, her friends, her family, and even herself.
Set in a world very much like our own, School for Psychics is the first book in a stay-up-all night series. Publisher's Weekly:In this earnest, naive paranormal thriller, a group of psychics in training slowly learn that misdirection can be as dangerous as mind control. Teddy Cannon, unsuccessful card shark, is recruited to study at a secretive foundation’s academy intended to prepare people with mental gifts for careers in security and law enforcement. It’s hard to believe that Teddy and her fellow young adults—some of whom have done police work or had run-ins with the law—would so blithely sign up for a militaristic training program without some skepticism about its motives. After a series of mysterious thefts and disappearances at the academy and a sabotaged obstacle course Teddy barely survives, she decides she wants answers. She convinces some of her fellow students to break into an FBI facility to uncover just who is out to get them, egged on by a jailed psychic connected to Teddy’s birth parents. The book has the brio of a first novel, with sudden swings of emotion and outrage that would do a hormonal teenager proud. The pages turn at a rapid pace, but it takes a bit longer than necessary for a veteran poker player to realize that, if she can’t spot the sucker at the table, it’s her.

I agree with PW that these students, who are old enough to know better, seem rather blind or willfully naive when they start at the school, and they also have motivations that seem particular to teenagers, ie identity, finding one's 'real' parents, having affairs with each other and their teachers, and dealing with jealousy and competitive scenarios that pit their talents against each other, or one group against another (the popular kids against the misfits/nerds). Still, the characters are well drawn and the action non stop. I'd give this book a B+ and recommend it to anyone who is interested in psychics of all varieties. 

The Summer of Jordi Perez (and the best burger in Los Angeles) by Amy Spalding is a gay YA story that virtually sings off the page with enthusiasm and spunk. The protagonist is a chubby fashion blogger named Abby whose mother wishes she were not a lesbian or fat, as her mother is building an empire on "healthy eating" (ie no carb raw food diet) cookery and is disdainful of her daughters lifestyle and self esteem. Abby gets a summer internship at Lemonberry, a local clothing store, and discovers that she's sharing her internship duties with Jordi Perez, a fashion photographer who also happens to be gay. There ensues an immediate crush on Abby's part, and a lot of fumbling attempts to discern Jordi's interest in dating. Meanwhile, a friend of a friend, Jax, has a father who has asked him to help launch an ap that rates the best burgers in LA,and he's tapped his son and Abby to cruise all over LA and taste and rate all the burgers in town. Here's the blurb:

Seventeen, fashion-obsessed, and gay, Abby Ives has always been content playing the sidekick in other people’s lives. While her friends and sister have plunged headfirst into the world of dating and romances, Abby’s been happy to focus on her plus-size style blog and her dreams of taking the fashion industry by storm. When she lands a great internship at her favorite boutique, she’s thrilled to take the first step toward her dream career. Then she falls for her fellow intern, Jordi Perez. Hard. And now she’s competing against the girl she’s kissing to win the coveted paid job at the end of the internship.
But really, nothing this summer is going as planned. She also unwittingly becomes friends with Jax, a lacrosseplaying bro-type who wants her help finding the best burger in Los Angeles, and she’s struggling to prove to her mother—the city’s celebrity health nut—that she’s perfectly content with who she is.
Just as Abby starts to feel like she’s no longer the sidekick in her own life, Jordi’s photography surprisingly puts her in the spotlight. Instead of feeling like she’s landed a starring role, Abby feels betrayed. Can Abby find a way to reconcile her positive yet private sense of self with the image others have of her?

There's a great deal of humor and fun in this book, which comes off as a rom com romp, until the serious issues of dealing with betrayal and ambition come into play. I loved Abby's voice and was glad that the story was told from her POV. I was also engaged in the search for the perfect hamburger in a town the size of LA, where the choices are endless.This is a book that would make a fantastic beach read, and I'd give it an A, and recommend it to anyone who loves stories about quirky young women who are at home in their bodies, no matter the size, and yet still struggle against parental expectations.

Honor Among Thieves by Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre is a truly innovative science fiction/romance/YA novel. I've read other books by both authors, so I was excited to read this first book in a series they're collaborating on. Here's the blurb:

Petty criminal Zara Cole has a painful past that’s made her stronger than most, which is why she chose life in New Detroit instead moving with her family to Mars. In her eyes, living inside a dome isn’t much better than a prison cell.
Still, when Zara commits a crime that has her running scared, jail might be exactly where she’s headed. Instead Zara is recruited into the Honors, an elite team of humans selected by the Leviathan—a race of sentient alien ships—to explore the outer reaches of the universe as their passengers.
Zara seizes the chance to flee Earth’s dangers, but when she meets Nadim, the alien ship she’s assigned, Zara starts to feel at home for the first time. But nothing could have prepared her for the dark, ominous truths that lurk behind the alluring glitter of starlight. Publisher's Weekly: In 2042, sentient spaceships called the Leviathan saved Earth from ruin by sharing their technology. In return, humans agreed to provide crew to assist with research and maintenance while imparting their knowledge and culture. A century later, it has become customary for the Leviathan to tap 100 skilled individuals, known as Honors, every 12 months for yearlong deployments. Homeless teenager Zara Cole isn’t good at anything but fighting and stealing, so she’s shocked when she’s selected to tour the stars with a Leviathan named Nadim. The experience proves transformative: the previously hard-bitten Zara befriends Beatriz Teixeira, the other human on board, and forms an ineffable bond with Nadim. Still, Zara can’t shake the feeling that the Leviathan are hiding something. This series opener from Caine (the Great Library series) and Aguirre (the Immortal Game trilogy) is both a thrilling SF novel and a deeply philosophical examination of the nature of love. Keenly wrought characters, imaginative world-building, and an inventive plot engage and gratify while urging readers to stay curious, question authority, and fight injustice.

I was thrilled to read that Zara was a person of color, and that her coworker Bea is Hispanic, because there needs to be more diversity in YA and Science Fiction genres. But the scintillating prose and beautifully-rendered plot, along with these marvelous characters, are what kept this reader up until the wee hours, reading just one more chapter! The living ship Nadim is reminiscent of Moya, the ship from TV's Farscape, and he also reminded me somewhat of Orac, the annoying computer from the 70s British science fiction TV series Blake's 7. There are also echoes of Anne McCaffrey's "Ship Who Sang" series, which I loved reading back when I was in my late teens and early 20s. Nadim is a fully realized character and Zara's relationship with him is tender and beautiful. I loved watching Zara transform and blossom with Nadim. I'm was so enamored of this novel that I'm hotly anticipating the next book in the series. I'd give it an A, and recommend it to anyone who enjoys well-written social science fiction.

Soundless by Richelle Mead is an amazing folktale/fantasy based in feudal China. The prose is elegant and evocative, and the plot flows like watered silk. The characters are well drawn and their environment, a village at the top of a mountain, fascinates. I read this book in one sitting because I could not put it down. I was riveted by Fei's heroic journey to save her village, and uncover the secrets of the people who have a stranglehold on their food supply who live down at the bottom of the mountain, where none of the villagers dared go, until now, when Fei's people are in danger of starvation. Here's the blurb:  

For as long as Fei can remember, there has been no sound in her village, where rocky terrain and frequent avalanches prevent residents from self-sustaining. Fei and her people are at the mercy of a zipline that carries food up the treacherous cliffs from Beiguo, a mysterious faraway kingdom.
When villagers begin to lose their sight, deliveries from the zipline shrink and many go hungry. Fei’s home, the people she loves, and her entire existence is plunged into crisis, under threat of darkness and starvation. But soon Fei is awoken in the night by a searing noise, and sound becomes her weapon.
Richelle Mead takes readers on a triumphant journey from the peak of Fei’s jagged mountain village to the valley of Beiguo, where a startling truth and an unlikely romance will change her life forever. Publisher's Weekly:
Fei lives in a mountain village whose inhabitants have been deaf for generations, relying on artists like her for their daily news. Isolated by rockslides and unable to descend the mountain, the villagers depend on food supplied via a pulley system from the kingdom below. The price of survival is the mountain's gold and silver, and the majority of the population works in the mines. But now Fei's people, including her beloved sister, are starting to go blind, which will mean their extinction. After a vivid dream, Fei wakes with the gift of hearing and struggles to comprehend the new sensation of sound. She and her childhood friend Li Wei embark on a desperate effort to avert her people's horrifying fate. Like her heroine, Mead paints with a delicate brush (when Fei sees brightly colored silk for the first time, readers feel it as an explosion of the senses), creating a fablelike story that melds folktale, sacrifice, romance, and the stark realization of humanity's capacity to exploit others for profit.

To actually find a book with disabled characters who are also Asian is a rare treat,and one that I cherished for it's diversity. I also felt echos of some of my favorite "wire-fu" movies of the past, such as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "The Heroic Trio" (with Michelle Yeoh) that had Asian actresses portraying strong warriors who kicked rump and worked to protect their family and friends from the forces of evil. But to find a novel in which every page was a delight is also fairly rare. I cannot praise this book enough, and giving it an A and a resounding recommendation for anyone and everyone to read it still seems to fall short. Truly, if you have any interest at all in China or Asian folklore, you can't go wrong by picking up a copy of this brilliant novel. 

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