Cassidy Jones Adventures Amazon Amazon UK Category:  Young Adult/Teen Publisher: JACE Publishing LLC ISBN-10:  0615377130 Pages: 314 Copyright: 2010 ISBN-13: 9780615377131 Something Strange Has Happened To Cassidy Jones, And Her Life May Never Be The Same Again… Fourteen-year-old Cassidy Jones wakes up the morning after a minor accident in the laboratory of a world-renowned geneticist to discover that her body has undergone some bizarre changes. Her senses, strength, and speed have been radically enhanced. After exploring her newfound abilities, Cassidy learns that the geneticist, Professor Serena Phillips, is missing and that foul play is suspected. Terrified that her physical changes and Professor Phillips' disappearance are somehow connected, Cassidy decides to keep her strange transformation a secret. That is, until she meets the professor's brilliant and mysterious fifteen-year-old son, Emery. An unlikely duo, they set out to find Emery's mother, who is key in explaining Cassidy's newly acquired superpowers. Their lives are put at risk when they find themselves embroiled in a dangerous, action-packed adventure. Soon they are forced to confront a maniacal villain willing to do anything- including murder -to reach his own ambitious goals. Excerpt (Scene: Dressed as a ninja, Cassidy rescues her friend, Ben.) I wrenched open the tailgate and dove out head- first. My hands made contact with the rocky dirt and I flipped up, landing squarely on my feet. Silver Tooth already had the gun on me. My eyes zeroed in on a jagged-edged rock at my feet. In one fluid movement, I reached down, grabbed the rock, and hurled it toward the gun. My movements were so quick that Silver Tooth didn’t realize what had happened until the rock tore through the top of his hand, embedding in the thin flesh. Letting out a piercing scream, Silver Tooth dropped the gun. Diving forward, I had it in mine before it hit the ground. When he looked up, he was looking down the barrel of his own weapon. Though in pain, he kept his voice even, menacing. “Who sent you?” I couldn’t very well answer in my young female voice, so I kept silent, clasping the gun that I had no idea how to shoot. Peripherally, I saw one man’s hand move toward his holster. Before his hand moved a fraction of an inch more, I turned the gun on him. His hands flew up in the air in surrender. I moved the gun to the other man, who mimicked his friend, raising his hands in the air. Silver Tooth flinched. The gun moved back to him. Silver Tooth laughed low. Holding up his limp hand, he asked me, “Do you mind?” Taking my silence as consent, he savagely ripped the rock from his flesh. Perspiration beaded on his forehead. “Why don’t you tell me what you want,” he said steadily. I kept quiet. He lifted his chin toward Ben. “Do you want him?” Still, I didn’t respond, at a loss of how to cross this bridge. “The silent type, eh? How about I do the talking. You want what we all want: the assassin.” Who is the assassin? His lips lifted, revealing the silver tooth. “No reason we can’t share, eh? Be partners. Together, we take these Kings out of the equation.” Smiling, he waited. After seconds of silence, his face contorted in frustration. “Do we have a deal or not? Talk!” Well, I certainly couldn’t do that, and I wasn’t using the gun in my hands. Simultaneously, I tossed the gun behind me and kicked Silver Tooth square in the chest. I could hear the wind leave his body. He flew backwards and landed on his back, gasping. Adrenaline rushed through my veins. The night sky brightened, revealing everything around me in a new light. I perceived every physical detail of my adversaries, breathing in the smell of their skin and hair, tasting their fear on my tongue. Time and space slowed. Everything slowed but me. The other men went for their guns. I leapt toward the nearest thug, grabbing his hands just as he drew his gun. Squeezing his hand hard, I felt bones crack and give way. Crying out, he released the weapon, letting it drop to the ground. Still clenching his hand, my other arm swung around, punching him in the gut. His body folded around my fist, and he flew backwards ten feet, bouncing off the van. Before he hit the ground, my left leg swept the other thug’s legs as he trained his gun on me. His feet flew up, and he landed on the back of his head with a thud. As he lay dazed on the ground, the gun rested in his fingertips. Darting forward, I retrieved the gun, twisting back to grab the one at my feet. With slack jaws, each man looked blurry-eyed in my general direction, unable to visually track my fast movements. Sensing movement from behind, I dropped the guns and spun around, catching Silver Tooth by his outstretched arm as he went to grab me. Twirling him in a circle, I let go, and he flew through the air, his air- borne limbs resembling a rag doll’s. Hitting the ground, he landed flat on his back with the wind knocked out of him for a second time. One of the thugs made a feeble attempt to get up, but I was on him like a fly on stink. Grabbing him by the collar, I threw him against the van. As his body began to slink down, I eagerly grabbed him up again, throwing him at the Explorer. A scream tore from his throat as he flew sideways across the ten-foot gap. His body bounced off the Explorer, falling into a heap on the ground. Excited, I sprung at him, gathering him up by his collar and pulling him up so we were eye to eye. Petrified, he didn’t struggle, only stared at me with terrified eyes. As I looked into his dark, wide eyes, an image flashed before me: The black cat playfully tossing the mouse in the air, toying with its prey before the kill. This image punched a hole through the adrenaline- induced cloud in my head. Through this clarity, I recalled John Merrick in the movie The Elephant Man crying out in anguish, “I am not an animal!” Releasing the thug’s collar, I watched him sink to the ground at my feet. I am not an animal. Slowly, I reached down to the terrified man, grabbing his collar again. His body was rigid as I dragged him across the dirt to the van, depositing him next to the other thug. Both men stared at me, frozen with fear. I put up a single finger, warning them to stay. They complied fully, reluctant to even take a breath. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Silver Tooth inching across the ground, afraid to make any sudden moves. Unarmed, he didn’t pose much of a threat. The guns. In a heartbeat, I collected the scattered guns, placing them on the Explorer’s floor. Closing the Explorer’s door, I turned around and assessed the men: the two thugs hadn’t moved an inch, and Silver Tooth had inched a few more feet. Then I stepped behind Ben, who had stood frozen during the entire altercation, and snapped the cord from his wrists. Still, he didn’t move. I gave his back a reassuring pat. He flinched, but otherwise stayed silent and still. I assumed he was in shock, and then realized I, too, was in shock. Drawing in a ragged breath, I lowered my face into trembling hands. It’s the adrenaline, I realized, my heart pounding like a jackhammer in my ears. The van’s engine started. My head jerked up. The thugs were scrambling in through the side door. As I contemplated what to do, it peeled away, Silver Tooth driving with his good hand. In a running leap, I sailed through the air, grabbing the rack on the van’s roof. Pulling myself up, I flattened my body out on top, hoping I didn’t stick out like a sore thumb against the white.

Gail D. Welborn, Seattle Christian Book Review Examiner
Like many fourteen-year-olds, Cassidy Jones is shy and a bit insecure, her “entire goal…” to stay in the background, so as “not to attract attention.” And she did just that until…

She joins her news anchor father on what she thought would be a “boring” interview with Professor Serena Phillips, a brilliant geneticist who invents unusual secret formulas.

During the interview Cassidy sat off to the side on a rickety stool with nearby laboratory beakers merrily bubbling atop small burners, sending up wisps of smoke. Shortly after her father began the stool gave way without warning. Cassidy frantically clutched the counter, overturning beakers of “hot liquid” that then pooled and “instantaneously vaporized, forming a white cloud.”

At that moment Cassidy gasped for air and took a crucial breath then…blackness overtook her.

Thus begins Elise Stoke’s new fun-filled, action-packed, adventure series, perfect for teens and tweens summer reading, where a young girl’s senses are transformed overnight. Share the fun and hijinks as Cassidy learns how to master her newly fine-tuned senses, from enhanced hearing, sight and smell to incredible athletic prowess and speed that make her feel “like a racehorse at the starting gate.”

Cassidy, uncertain about what’s happening, keeps her altered state a secret until she meets Emery, the professor’s very cute, but mysterious, fifteen-year-old son. Where she learns the professor is missing and foul play’s afoot. Join this unbeatable duo as they team up and risk their lives to discover who kidnapped the professor, what the secret formula 10X is, who stole it and the cause of Cassidy’s enhanced powers.

Brimful of danger, secrets, a bit of romance and fun, this debut author’s entertaining plot and well-drawn characters not only is all it promises to be, but will leave readers looking for more.

I liked the characterization, the plot and the Seattle setting, but most of all I liked that the story didn’t deal with “dark” material. It’s devoid of magic, vampires, werewolves or other dark imaginings; it’s just a good, clean story, sort of like a modern day Nancy Drew or Hardy Boy’s mystery. Highly recommended!