Second Thoughts

September 15, 2014
This second series installment finds Lainey, a girl who can kill with her thoughts, in her senior year at a posh school that caters to paranormal Sententia. Lainey has settled in nicely at Northbrook Academy, enjoying the favor of the headmistress and agreeing to serve on the Honor Board. She continues her intense romance with boyfriend Carter, who can move objects with his thoughts. Disturbingly, Lainey has had a vision that Carter will somehow kill her, but she can't divine when or how. She's shocked when she meets Carter's uncle, Sen. Astor, head of the Perceptum, the council that controls Sententia worldwide. He looks so much like her deceased father that she is sure the two must have been brothers. The senator showers her with attention, taking her to dinner often and trying to convince her to serve the Perceptum with her unique, forbidden talent. Meanwhile, her roommate has trouble in her relationship with her boyfriend, Caleb, and Lainey becomes convinced that a new eighth-grade student is deliberately sabotaging the romance. Events progress until graduation looms, and the senator demands an answer. Bertrand balances her paranormal storyline with romance, hoping to hit that fading sweet spot. Much effort goes into explaining how Lainey feels about events, a less-than-engaging strategy. The plotting falters until the exciting climax finally occurs, but readers may well have given up by then. For fans only. (Paranormal romance. 14-18)

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October 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-In this sequel to Lost in Thought (Luminis, 2014), nearly 18-year-old Lainey Young has a lot on her mind as she starts her senior year at Northbrook: when should she and boyfriend Carter have sex, which college should she attend, and why is a lowerclassman and Sententia siren bent on breaking up Lainey's normally unflappable roommate Amy and her boyfriend Caleb. Minor worries compared to the vague premonition implicating Carter in Lainey's impending death and a new vision involving his father's demise are stewing with concern over the Perceptum's desire to make Lainey their executioner. Meeting Carter's "uncle," Perceptum bigwig-Daniel Astor-leads to a shocking discovery and initially assuages the protagonist's fear of Hangman conscription. However, readers and Lainey's gut know better. Secrets aggravatingly pile up (especially on the heroine's end), but add plenty of tension in a book that might otherwise suffer from "Second Book Slump." Characters occasionally succumb to archetypal behaviors, but they're realistically impacted by anxieties, familiar and unfamiliar. Sex (which happens off page), swearing, and teen drinking are realistically present but not gratuitous. Give to fans of the previous volume. Readers familiar with the story will better understand the stakes and relationships and await the next installment.-Danielle Serra, Cliffside Park Public Library, NJ

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2014
Grades 10-1 Like many a romance novel, the question of will they or won't they have sex is at the heart of Bertrand's sequel to Lost in Thought (2012), a finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. But since this is a paranormal-romance novel, there is an equally important question: Will the heroine and her boyfriend kill each other first? Lainey is the only living Sententia with the Hangman gift, and she is charged with eliminating rogue Sententia who use their gifts for harm. Lainey's diviner-sense vision shows her own death at the hands of her handsome boyfriend. Will she in turn have to use her rare second gift to execute her own boyfriend? Bertrand stirs family secrets, a scheming senator, and young rivalries into the otherworldly mix. Many of the questions remain unanswered, and as Lainey drives off into the sunrise, the door is wide open for the next installment. Bertrand writes smoothly, and her characters, if improbably perfect, are engaging enough to keep the pages turning quickly and the demand for the next in the series high.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)