An underdeveloped spy tale with implausible plotting and a flat romance.
Seventeen-year-old Talya has perfected the art of avoiding attention.
After her parents were killed in a carjacking, she relocated to an unnamed town to live with her mysterious uncle. When new student Axel arrives, Talya is immediately suspicious: He’s several years older than the rest of the senior class, and his clothes and shoes are oddly pristine. Convinced he’s a spy, she confronts him and reveals that her father was a secret agent. Axel reluctantly agrees to train Talya, who’s convinced she’s in danger, to protect herself. They break into the school’s rifle range, where Talya learns about ballistics and engages in target practice and hand-to-hand combat lessons with Axel. As the training intensifies, the two grow closer, although Axel’s protectiveness feels more like an imitation of Edward Cullen’s brooding control, minus the spark Stephenie Meyer brought to her characters, and the age gap and power imbalance between the two feels unsettling at times. The novel employs liberal foreshadowing, but it fails to generate real suspense, and the minimal character development leaves little reason for readers to care about the outcome. Odd behavior from students and teachers offers clues and red herrings about the event that brought Axel to town, but the plot often strains credulity, with characters leaping to wild conclusions and acting irrationally. The chapter headings and redacted names throughout point to the text being a transcript of recorded interviews. Main characters present white.
An underdeveloped spy tale with implausible plotting and a flat romance. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2026
ISBN: 9781646036844
Page Count: 210
Publisher: Fitzroy Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
Exhilarating, nonstop fun.
A murder on The Escape Game, a popular reality TV show, puts the next round of contestants at risk—can they all get out alive?
The previous season of the show, in which groups of teens race to get through escape rooms, ended in disaster when Sierra Angelos and her team discovered another player lying dead in a coffin—her older sister, Alicia. But the network and ruthless executive producer determine that the show will go on. Prickly, olive-skinned Sierra, whom some suspect of murder, is returning—and she’s determined to find the killer. Her new team includes math whiz Carter Kelly, who’s Black; home-schooled, white-presenting Beck Matheson, who designs his own escape rooms and is trans; and Aditya Parvesh, who’s cued South Asian, has a way with words, and was pushed into auditioning by his movie star mother. At first, Team Helsing struggles to gel, but the teens’ shared desire to prove themselves makes them a formidable powerhouse—even if they’re hiding some of their true goals from one another. As clues to the killer’s identity start appearing, the players must try to make it to the finale before someone else becomes the next victim. This thrilling whodunit moves at a page-turning pace; the occasional reveals for the main mystery are well balanced with the tighter sequences of solving the escape rooms. The narration rotates among the central cast, allowing readers to empathize with each character in turn and be privy to even more intrigue.
Exhilarating, nonstop fun. (Mystery. 14-18)Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9798217006120
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
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