YA Suspense Debut from Gia Cribbs, THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SLOANE SULLIVAN

Sometimes first books can be outrageously good -- because the author is brilliant, or grabbed a clever idea, or has been working on that debut novel for years, making it better with every revision.

Don't know which of those reasons applies to THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SLOANE SULLIVAN by Gia Cribbs, a Maryland author. But with this YA crossover, she's definitely on target with finely tuned suspense, fast plot twists, and that special aspect that makes a "young adult" thriller so particularly haunting: a teenage protagonist whose knowledge of the situation, by definition, is incomplete -- she's just too inexperienced to seriously doubt the explanations of people close to her.

Sloane Sullivan is smart, though. Moving into a new school district just a few months before graduation, she's psyched to complete her senior year of high school and get on with college (depending, of course, on where she gets accepted). She's got an extra incentive to keep cool and make sure her friendships in this new location are responsible and calm: She's in witness protection, and the guy taking care of her says if she completes high school, she can actually NOT disappear for a change -- keep this latest "new name" and go out into the world without being controlled, monitored, watched over. At last!

Sloane's an expert in knowing when a situation might be closing in on her, putting her into danger. She's drilled for years in how to handle that, and she's used to needing to leave an identity behind at the drop of a hat (or textbook). And she's made a lot of sacrifices to stay safe:

Today was the start of a new week and my eighteenth birthday. ... I wanted to wear something to celebrate the occasion. The problem was my wardrobe, which consisted only of basics: jeans and T-shirts and hoodies in plain, solid colors. It made it easier every time we moved. Anything too distinctive wasn't allowed to travel with me, and I learned really quickly not to waste money on pretty things that got left behind.

She hides her cell phone, too, because it's only for emergencies. BIG emergencies.

So when the new school turns out to include her best friend from before she had to go into hiding, and she really ought to report that and brace for moving AGAIN (and changing names) -- Sloane decides to gamble on not being recognized. Her eye color hides under contacts; she's way older; she's got a new set of moves, from sports to music. Nobody will know, right?

When the scene goes wrong, Sloane needs to make fast choices on who to trust and how to survive. Count on some moments of intense danger, even deadly kinds -- and watch Sloane work out her next plan.

Great book for teens, and equally good for adults. It won't change your life -- but it will give you time off, wrapped up in adventure with a great teenager. What more could you want?

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Is It a YA Mystery? BLOODLINES, Lynn Lipinski

The cover design, the promotions, the snippets I saw about this book all had me wanting to read it. Then, before I got around to buying a copy, the publisher sent one here for consideration. So I plunged into BLOODLINES, an irresistible mystery by Lynn Lipinski. And ended up with burning question.

Zane Clearwater, age 26, is a suspect in his mother's death by presumed arson at the trailer where she and his younger sister live -- and so does he, although he's paid a deposit on his first apartment based on his job at the Tulsa (Oklahoma) Zoo. The trouble is, Zane got fired on suspicion of selling turtle eggs; lost his sobriety that day and got drunk with his mom; and left the trailer park just about 15 minutes before the trailer erupted in flames. There are a lot of reasons to consider him a suspect. Worse yet, Zane's a blackout drinker: He has no idea what happened that evening.

Soon Zane and his sister Lettie, 14, find the outlines of their lives irretrievably blurred, as they discover their mother's life was very different from what they'd thought -- basically she had a name change and is in hiding from a possible spree killer who'd threatened her life. The siblings, especially Zane, have to know more, and soon they're in touch with the man who surely was Zane's biological dad, who'd been released by the courts for lack of evidence. The discovery of a couple of grandmothers and half-brothers doesn't make this any easier.

Zane wondered if his blackouts were inherited from his father. And he also wondered what other traits he might have inherited. Maybe that dark rage that overtook him sometimes when he drank? The part of him that itched for a fight or welcomed violence? The part he tried to keep clamped down.

Learning that his life was based on a set of lies was like someone had opened a locked door, but instead of revealing a brightly lit path forward, all he saw was another closed door. He wasn't even sure he had the energy right now to open it. The adrenalin of the day had evaporated and he slump in the chair. There was no fight in him now; all he wanted was a nap.

Meanwhile Zane's hoped-for girlfriend turns out unreliable, and the police are increasingly interested in Zane -- which his newly discovered relatives are only exacerbating.

This is a well-written mystery, with plenty of energy and good plot twists. Zane and Lettie are indeed engaging, and memorable. I'm really glad to have read the book, and I'd recommend it to .... well, there's that burning issue I mentioned. Zane is the protagonist who's viewing the action, and his issues are coming-of-age issues: naive belief that a parent will solve a situation, that a first girlfriend will become a wife, that the warmth of his newly discovered father means he has a "real family" to depend on -- and, of course, that he can somehow drink like his father and not screw up his life.

So this is a "young adult" (YA) mystery. Even the language in it, the sentence structures, the dialogue, say young adult. In fact, I don't buy Zane as 26: He acts and thinks like 18 or so.

And that means I'm recommending this for teens -- and for the many adults who enjoy YA mysteries. Share it across generations for extra pleasure. It won't make you double-check the door locks as you read, although Zane's dad is one nasty character. (Native American issues do rise up here, since the villain of the book is Cherokee. I leave that for others to probe, but please be aware of it.)

This is Lipinski's debut novel, and I look forward to reading more of her work. Her website is intriguing -- check it out here. The book is a paperback original, published by Majestic Content Los Angeles, and also available as an ebook.

Not Just YA -- EDGEWATER, Courtney Sheinmel, Long Island Mystery

The photo here is borrowed from a friend's Twitter feed, and I'm pretty sure it shows a countertop reminder at Vermont's noted general bookstore in Manchester Center, Northshire. The point is clear, and it's one that readers have known "forever": Books labeled "young adult" (YA) because of the ages of their protagonists are also often really good reading for adults.

Few titles prove this as powerfully as EDGEWATER, the newest from seasoned adventure author Courtney Sheinmel. Caught by a nasty, snooty friend's machinations at an expensive summer camp in North Carolina, "advanced" equestrian Lorrie Hollander bets her last twenty-dollar bill on a competition involving her horse -- and loses, followed immediately by the camp director calling her into the office and sending her home, for nonpayment of fees.

Lorrie's sure it's all a highly embarrassing mistake. There's no dad in her life, and her mother deserted her early on, but her quirky aunt Gigi administers the trust fund that keeps Lorrie living a high-end lifestyle that fits with any long-distance view of her family's mansion on Long Island, in the beachfront resort development of Idlewild. But behind the mansion's first view is a crumbling house infested with rescued cats, Lorrie's animal-loving sister's answer to needing something to love -- and Aunt Gigi and her "Blue Periods," serious depressions that make her useless as a guardian to the sisters.

This time, though, Lorrie's old enough -- having just finished her junior year of high school -- to drop the pretenses and go looking for her trust fund, to get it transferred to her own control and stop the cascade of humiliations. After all, her beloved horse is waiting for her in North Carolina.

But the more she investigates, the more Lorrie realizes things are way out of hand. A chance meeting with the handsome and wealthy son of a nationally active political family in the same resort offers her a potent new friendship that she's too embarrassed to accept. Charlie's the son of an esteemed senator, and his mother's about to launch her own campaign. How could Lorrie guess that important answers to the mysteries of her own family could be tangled up with Charlie's prestigious household?

Astute adult readers may recall that Idlewild was the earlier name of Kennedy Airport, and some may even know it as the vanished name of a high-end development on Long Island's Jamaica Bay. And almost all adult readers will leap ahead of Lorrie to guess at what's been hidden, as Sheinmel's novel reveals parallels to the Kennedy family history, especially the segment that took place at Chappaquiddick.

Enough said. I promise I haven't given a spoiler -- you would have seen the parallel in how Charlie and his family are introduced. And, as with the best YA fiction, EDGEWATER depends for its depth on Lorrie's struggles, insights, and conflicted choices. But there's a neatly twisted bit of crime fiction involved too, and Sheinmel's writing is smooth, taut, well-paced, and blessed with the simultaneous tensions that a gifted storyteller must manage to pull closer and closer to each other.

Blurbs for the book come from bestselling YA authors and, in an unusual twist, urban booksellers. Sure, go ahead an buy the book "for the young adult in your life." But don't give it away until you've read it yourself. In fact ... it might be better to just pick up two copies, so you won't have to feel deprived of this very good tale that author Lauren Oliver described with "past and present become mysteriously, and sometimes dangerously, intertwined. "

That could definitely describe a good work of crime fiction for adults -- and in EDGEWATER, that's exactly what it does. After all, you were a high school junior yourself once, weren't you?

Brief Mention: FOUND, Harlan Coben, Third "Mickey Bolitar" Mystery

Harlan Coben's "young adult" series featuring high school basketball player Mickey Bolitar now has three titles: Shelter and Seconds Away and the newly released Found.

Mickey's refusal to resign himself to the death of his dad, his mother's drug addiction, and being walled out of a child rescue operation that involves a survivor from the Holocaust takes him into danger and a lot of heartache, for him and his eccentric friends Ema and Spoon. Good thing the book is a swift and tightly-paced read, because I couldn't put it down, and the work schedule was at risk.

Get all three titles -- it's an ongoing and very good set of adventures, good against evil, highly satisfying. Pretend you're buying them for a friend in his or her early teens; my husband Dave pointed out that even the austere New York Times is now putting books like these into a "Young Adult Crossover" genre. The plot for Found is solid, the characters unforgettable, and I do believe I've spotted a few loose ends that promise another book in the series.

MARY: THE SUMMONING, YA Horror from Hillary Monahan

Campfire season lingers here in Vermont, through the crisp fall evenings. But the summer is over, and most of the sleepovers are, too.

But aren't those great memories? I still relish the story of the girl with the green ribbon around her neck, learned at an overnight with neighborhood kids. And there's the one with the voice that calls out, "Mary, I'm on the second step ..." Ooooh!

I wish I'd had a copy of MARY: THE SUMMONING at the start of the summer (or back in the days of those teen get-togethers). It took me a couple of days to shake off the shivers from this deftly written and quick-paced horror story featuring four teenage girls and a mirror -- and a malevolent spirit who won't leave them alone. And then, of course, I wanted to tell the story to anyone else who wanted to feel really scared.

This is Hillary Monahan's debut, but you wouldn't know from the writing, which is tight and exciting. It's based in part on the folklore of "Bloody Mary" -- which I looked up and found is every bit as shivery as this book (click here for the folklore). If you have a teen you'd like to impress or delight with a blood-curdling tale where determination and inner strength matter, pick up a copy.

Just make sure to leave time to read it yourself, first!

***

A glimpse of what Shauna discovers:

I wished Jess had known what could happen so she could have prepared us, so we would have known to run long and run far to get away from Bloody Mary.

Then it hit me. Maybe Jess had known. The pictures on the wall. She'd taken the pictures down. Why would she suspect Mary could be anywhere other than a proper mirror? She'd said safety, but that was a bizarre leap to make.

"Oh no. Come on," I whispered. "No."

And later:

Scree. Scree.

THUD!

I shot up in bed, the cuts on my back screaming. My vanity trembled. My plastic bucket of makeup tumbled over ... There was no way I could sleep in this house if she was in the mirror. I counted down from three and jerked the robe aside. There was no face there, but written backward in sludgy black tar was a single word that sent me falling to the floor and sobbing.

MINE.

"Slasher Film" Plus Courage = WELCOME TO THE DARK HOUSE

Okay, 'fess up: Don't you sometimes feel just a little nervous when you get home alone to a dark house and something feels "funny" about the door, or the streetlight being out, or the light you thought you'd left on for yourself that isn't ... Or maybe for you it's when thieves hit the neighbor's house and you see it in the paper the next day and realize it was the same night you thought something was scratching outside your downstairs window but you couldn't wake up enough to check. Or -- you in the suburbs, maybe that 2 a.m. walk back home on a street you know well, but that suddenly has an eerie side to it?

Now go back 15 years (or 30, or 45), to when you were a teen and had your own particular nightmare, one that lingered maybe from when you'd been little. Something involving the closet, or your parents disappearing? I hope you don't have the real-life horror that Ivy Jensen has lived through as WELCOME TO THE DARK HOUSE (by Laurie Faria Stolarz) opens: the murder of her parents, in which she actually met the murderer, who called her "Princess" and who could be searching for her or even watching her now.

Ivy's stepping into a reality-show-in-the-making, hosted by horror film director Justin Blake and his creepy Nightmare Elf. Her motive for taking part: She thinks the e-mails she received about the adventure out in the country have promised she'll finally be free of her nightmares. But it turns out all seven of the teens called to the very creepy film set have earned themselves a place through their graphic descriptions of their own nightmares, and ... they are each about to face what they fear most. Alone.

WELCOME TO THE DARK HOUSE is the first book in a horror series for teens, one that repeatedly refers to slasher films (yep, gratuitous violence, from knife to ax to flesh-eating creatures) and that tilts from one character's point of view to the next, including screenplay segments from would-be filmmaker Parker Bradley, and lustful cheer from Shayla Belmont, not to mention the goofy but dangerous exploits of Garth Vader (care to guess what his dad liked?). And more.

I'm no fan of slasher films, but ... hey, I like this book! Every voice is distinct, every teen suffers from both a "nightmare" and a deep misunderstanding of what the world is going to do for her or him, and there are as many kinds of courage and folly as there are characters. The only down side is, this is the start of a series, and the ending is absolutely a hanging one ... How long do I have to wait for the next book from the amazing Laurie Faria Stolarz? (If you're a teen or purchasing books for teens, check out her website here: http://www.lauriestolarz.com.)

The adventures in this book are NOT what you want in your "how I spent my summer vacation" essay. On the other hand, reading this lively and fast-paced horror mystery is sure to give you fresh perspective on what really happened (or might have)!

Thriller Writer CJ Lyons Goes YA: BROKEN

Well known for her Lucy Guardino FBI thrillers (like Snake Skin), CJ Lyons is also a physician -- and she brings her expertise front and center in her newest book, BROKEN, written for the young adult (YA) market.

BROKEN opens as Scarlet Killian begs for a chance to stay in school for a whole day -- it's her first day there, it's high school, and she's stunned by what the in-person version is of friends, boys, class discussions, even hallway bullies.

And it's easy to bully Scarlet, as she tugs with her a heavy machine called an AED -- an automatic external defibrillator. It's to restart her heart, as needed. Scarlet has a diagnosis of "Long QT Syndrome." To the other kids, though, she figures she is just "the girl who almost died."

In fast-paced thriller mode, Lyons provides multiple threats to student lives for her gutsy protagonist to sort out. If you're a Jodi Picoult fan, you'll know the twist pretty early. But if you haven't yet read Picoult's medico-legal thrillers, BROKEN will open new terrain for you. Racing alongside Scarlet, you can discover why she's at risk -- and why a simple day at school has pushed her chances of death way higher.

Full disclosure: I like Scarlet so much that I peeked at the ending ahead of time, just to make sure the worst wasn't finally going to happen (whatever you consider the worst to be). See if you can read it straight through, instead.