OVERPOWERED

Four very different teens team up to fight the corporation that owns their too-perfect town.

Sixteen-year old Nica has traveled the world with her journalist mom since she was a baby. Sophisticated and self-sufficient, she resents her mother’s decision to send her to live with her doctor father in his little Colorado town. At first, the kids in her new high school treat her with almost too much friendliness, except for Jackson, the handsome bad-boy loner who cruises the streets at night in his classic Mustang GTO. She quickly becomes friends with nerdy Oliver, and then they find a link that brings Jackson to their side: All three have developed superpowers as a result of a strange atmospheric disturbance that occasionally engulfs the town. However, heavy security at Bar Tech Industries forces the trio to keep their investigations discreet, especially when Nica discovers that her father works with Bar Tech, doing tests on the town’s high school students. When unstable Maya also develops a superpower and joins the group, no one can be sure that she’ll keep quiet. In his first novel, screenwriter Kruger keeps tension high as he folds superpowers into a standard but exciting beat-the-evil-corporation plot. Characterizations are varied and not too deep, and there’s some romantic tension foreshadowed for the sequel.

Readers looking for suspense will find it and should enjoy the ride.