REVIEW: The Inheritance Games (book) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

The Inheritance Games is a YA mystery/thriller. I checked my copy out from the library.

Review:

Avery Grambs is a smart teen who's determined to build a better life for herself. That means getting out of high school, winning a scholarship, entering a good actuarial science program, and hopefully starting a well-paying career. And then billionaire Tobias Hawthorne dies and changes all of Avery's plans in an instant when his will reveals that he left her nearly his entire fortune. The only catch is that she must live in his mansion with the family members who were just disinherited.

Avery has no idea why a billionaire with no connection to her would have left her his fortune, and most of Tobias' surviving family members are understandably less than friendly. However, there are indications that Tobias left answers behind, hidden behind a series of riddles, codes, and secret passages. Unfortunately, the ones best suited to solving the puzzles Tobias left behind are his grandsons, who are definitely keeping secrets from her and have no real reason to help her.

REVIEW: The Naturals (book) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

The Naturals is YA Criminal Minds with some of the usual “secret school for special teens” mixed in. I read an ARC copy I picked up at a conference several years ago (yes, I'm terrible about reading ARCs, which is why I rarely request them).

When Cassie was 12, she entered her mother’s dressing room only to discover a bloody crime scene, but no body. Her mother's body and murderer (because how could she still be alive after losing that much blood?) were never found. Cassie is now 17 and living with her father’s family. She doesn’t feel like she fits in, but she also doesn’t want to be the focus of her family’s often overbearing love and concern.

Ever since she was little, Cassie has had a knack for noticing little details about people and figuring things out about them using those details. She used to use her ability to help her mother, who worked as a psychic. Since her mother’s death, she hasn’t used her skills for much beyond privately guessing things about customers at the diner where she works, so she’s both intrigued and suspicious when a handsome boy gives her an FBI agent’s business card.

The agent presents her with an offer she can’t resist: she can become part of his “Naturals” program, a team of teens with natural skills that take most adults years of training to learn. Because the program members are all minors, they only get to deal with cold cases, but Cassie still jumps at the chance to do something good and useful with her abilities. However, she and the other program members can’t resist getting more and more involved in a difficult, and possibly personal, active case.