After a blood-induced frenzy, they have both a dead body to dispose of and a mystery to solve, as they discover that a strange powder added to Val’s drink may have induced her attack. The other girls find her consuming Kaiden, Eli’s band mate. At his invitation, they attend a party at the festival, in the middle of which Val runs away.

Val becomes enamored with Eli despite the lead singer’s anti-Hollow stance. On their way, they meet No Flash Photography, one of the bands. Zoey, Celeste, Jasmine, and Valeria, who all suffer from Hollowness, are headed to the Desert Bloom music festival in the Mojave Desert. Fortunately, lab-grown SynFlesh allows them to lead mostly normal lives. Those affected by the Hollowing developed the need and desire to consume human flesh. Two years ago, humanity was forever changed when melting permafrost unleashed a strange pathogen. YA)Ĭalifornia victims of a climate change–induced pandemic uncover a deadly plot. An adolescent-seeming effort that may well please many adolescents, which is fine. She doesn’t build suspense, merely throwing it on the page, and indulges in some odd imagery-“He smelled comforting, like grapefruit and leather”-and frequently clunky writing.

Indeed, the author portrays all characters as extreme and keeps them static. Hopcus spends time with student romance, music, fashion and gossip, often abruptly jerking the narrative into the next scary scene with another dream or an ultra-villain. Zach and the rest of the “townies” are genetic mutants with supernatural powers, and Phe herself has ties to a chthonic Greek goddess. Phe has dreams that tie her to the town and meets an elderly lady who personally knew Phe’s previous incarnation in the 1730s. She meets Zach, an impossibly handsome boy to whom she’s instantly attracted. Fifteen-year-old Persephone (“Phe”) attends an exclusive New England prep school with a secret past. Her daughter is author Anastasia Hopcus.This hefty supernatural debut thriller has many elements of commercial success but few of the literary kind. She lives in Austin, Texas with her husband, Pete Hopcus. So after Candace sold her first book, she happily gave up lawyer-ing to pursue her lifelong dream of writing. The only kind of tort she has any interest in is the kind that comes after the word chocolate and has an E on the end.

She can write even surrounded by towers of textbooks tall enough to crush her to death if there were an earthquake. Candace wrote her first novel while in law school. Candace Camp is the NY Times best-selling author of over 70 novels, including A Momentary Marriage and the popular Mad Moreland series (which now encompasses a not-so-small portion of that 70).

Anastasia hopcus