Meg Cabot - Sanctuary (2002)

This is the fourth book in Cabot's Missing series.

It's Thanksgiving and Jess is busy trying to get out of dinner with her family so she can make it to her boyfriend Rob's house to eat with him and his mother. On her way home she's stopped by police who've found the body of her neighbour, covered in racist carvings, left dead in a field.

Jess had known he was missing, but she'd thought he was out with friends so she hadn't tried to 'see' where he was. Now she blames herself and when another boy goes missing Jess is determined to use her abilities to find him and put the racist murderers in gaol, even if it outs her to the FBI.

Another dark storyline, but well-written. Cabot finds solutions to the darkness and gives us the happy ending we rarely get in real life. It's difficult to write books like this for young adults without making them adult books, but Cabot manages it. I really like this series, there's so many great characters with simple lives that are so interesting. Jess may have psychic abilities thrust on her, but she's an ordinary girl in all other ways. The books are worth reading just to experience the interactions between Jess, her family, friends and the FBI.

Meg Cabot - Safe House (2002)

This is the third book in Cabot's Missing series.

Jess is back from summer camp and finds herself blamed for the death of fellow student Amber Mackay. Amber had disappeared while Jess was away and didn't know she was missing, but that doesn't make the students at Ernest Pyle High School any less angry at Jess. When another girl goes missing everyone looks to Jess to save her and she's forced into trying to save Heather, whilst keeping her family safe from the FBI.

Considering this was a murder mystery it wasn't too heavy. Cabot is good at writing books where the subject matter doesn't draw you into the dark too deeply, but you're still wanting good to win and evil to be pummeled into gooey pulp. You can recognise that you're in Hell, but it doesn't overwhelm you. I like that about these books. They're darker than Cabot's Princess Diaries (which was more light than dark), but I can see how they're the next level up for kids developing. This is their first look at the horrors of the world and how to live with or fight it.

Janet Evanovich & Charlotte Hughes - Full House (2002)

This is the first book in the Max Holt series. It starts with the genius Max as a teenage boy on his uncle Nick's ranch. Nick is trying to run a Polo school, but Max is busy fighting inequality in society - by blowing things up. Add to the mix Max's much older and very self-involved sister Dee, who is about to enter her fourth marriage, but is crashing at Nick's home until the wedding - and driving him crazy.

So Nick does the only reasonable thing - he tricks the woman he's lusting after, Billie, into taking Dee into her home. It's an avalanche of the usual calamitous high-jinks Evanovich is infamous for until the explosive ending.

The book was okay, but I found Nick's character super-cold. Particularly near the end (SPOILER) where Billie has only been kidnapped for an hour, but he's all ready to sink into despair and assume she's dead. Umm... that's the spirit??! Apart from that it was interesting seeing a teenage Max, he's a fun character.