Earthbound

Gr 7 Up—Eighteen-year-old Tavia Michaels is currently living with an aunt and uncle she just met after surviving the plane crash that killed her parents. She has cut ties with everyone from her past and is starting over. The only people she talks to, besides her aunt and uncle, are her psychiatrist and Benson, her crush. While trying to adjust to life after the accident, Tavia begins seeing a mysterious boy dressed in Revolutionary-period clothing to whom she is inexplicably attracted. She soon finds herself torn between her feelings for this stranger named Quinn Avery and those for Benson. While trying to decide between them, Tavia discovers that she has special powers, that things are not what they seem, and that everything she thought she knew was a farce. This is an action-packed novel filled with longing and secrets. The characters are well developed and the narrative is easy to follow. At times, Tavia's vacillations are tediously drawn out, and Pike does take a while to get to the heart of the matter, but overall the story is compelling. Readers of supernatural romances will be clamoring for this one.—Kristyn Dorfman, The Packer Collegiate Institute, Brooklyn, NY