In The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, high schooler Avery Grambs is living out of her car. Her only family is her sister, Libby, and Avery has her life planned out in hopes of a better future. One day at school, she is informed that billionaire Tobias Hawthorne has died and she has been left with his entire fortune. Hawthorne’s will requires her to live in his mansion for a year to secure the fortune, but she will not be alone – she must live with Hawthorne’s family,
The Counselors by Jessica Goodman Goldie Easton attends a prestigious summer camp, not because she’s rich, but because she gets free tuition due to the benefit that her parents work there. However, Camp Alpine Lake has been dubbed as a summer camp for spoiled brats and rich kids by the local “townies” at Roxwood. When Goldie’s best friends, Ava and Imogen, arrive at summer camp, Goldie gets the feeling that they are both keeping secrets from her.
The Only One Left offers an exciting premise- Kittredge “Kit” McDeere was suspended from her job as a caregiver as many authorities, including her own father, believe she played a part in killing her sick mother who had overdosed on fentanyl which had been left in the room, a clear breach in caregiving protocol.
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is a thrilling dystopian sci-fi novel set in the year 2044, where most of humanity seeks escape from their bleak reality through a massive virtual reality universe called the OASIS. When the creator of the OASIS, James Halliday, passes away, he leaves behind a challenging Easter Egg hunt within the virtual world. The first person to find the hidden Easter Egg will inherit Halliday's vast fortune and control over the OASIS.
Cadence Sinclair is a perfect girl in a perfect family, but nothing is as it seems. During one vacation at her family's beach house Cadence gets in an accident, causing brain trauma and memory loss. She goes through a year of avoiding her family, and any reminder of her accident. However, she is called back to the beach house for another family vacation. Instead of sitting at home in denial she goes back to her perfect family for the summer to find out more about her accident and what she's forgotten.
The Smartest Kid in the Universe, Evil Genius is a riveting book about middle schooler Jake, who gained lots of intelligence through secret jellybeans. He was deemed the smartest kid in the universe, but what if the jellybeans wear off? After a new batch of smarty beans goes missing, Jake worries about not being the smartest anymore. Through a series of puzzles, his friends help him search for treasure to prove his theory wrong.
Beyond: A Ghost Story was published in 2012, and was written by Graham McNamee. The protagonist here is Jane, who lives in a dark and rainy town on Canada’s coastline. She was born dead, as the doctors found no pulse in her heart. Something eerie happened during this short time, just before the doctors managed to fix her heartbeat. The course of her life changed… for the worse. After several near-death experiences, Jane starts to suspect that her bad luck is no coincidence.
I took a deep breath after I finished the last sentence of this novel… because I was on the edge of my seat! A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is packed with many turns, twists, and traps that I, as a reader, was drawn and manipulated into. I’ll be honest, when I read the first 20 pages of this book, I felt as though I would be underwhelmed by this murder mystery. However, I was hooked when I got to the halfway point.
It’s been ten years since Laurel Mack’s daughter, Ellie, went missing. It has also taken ten years for the police force to find any evidence linked to Ellie’s disappearance which included clothing, a passport, and Ellie’s human remains that had been presumably run over by a car. Laurel decided ten years ago that Ellie had run away even though she had the perfect life. As Laurel forces herself to move on, she meets Floyd, a man she met at a diner who was divorced and had two daughters of his own.
The Woman in Cabin 10 features Laura “Lo” Blacklock who has been suffering sleepless nights due to paranoia as a result of a robbery in her house. Laura has also been offered a trip on the Aurora, a luxurious cruise ship that would survey the northern lights, which Laura’s work as a journalist focuses on. She decides to go for hope that a small vacation will soothe her paranoia. On the Aurora, there are other passengers with interests of their own, as well those who may not have right intentions.
