Action and Adventure August – Vanished/1-800-Where -R-U

I can’t believe it is the first of the month again and time for a new genre – Action and Adventure August.  Almost every book I read has some aspects of action and/or adventure but I have decided to restrict my reading this month to books with human/humanlike characters, present day scenarios and not to go too far into the speculative/dystopian/fantasy genres as it will overlap with what I have done or plan to do.

Firstly, what have I read and always recommend –

1. The Cherub Series – Robert Muchamore
2. The Alex Rider Series – Anthony Horowitz
3. The Tomorrow (when the war began) series  – John Marsden
4. Conspiracy 365 series – Gabriel Lord
5. Evil Genius (and sequels) – Catherine Jinks
6. The Lab (and sequels) – Jack Heath
7. Scarecrow Series (eg Ice Station) – Matthew Reilly

What I plan to read

• Ally Carter – Gallagher Girls
• Charlie Higson – Young Bond
• Brian Falkner – Brainjack
• James Patterson – Maximum Ride

But, to start with a something I read on the ipad!  Meg Cabot (of Princess Diaries fame aka Jenny Carroll) commenced a series called Vanished/1-800-Where -R-U  in 2001.  There are five books

1.       When Lightning Strikes

2.       Code name Cassandra

3.       Safe House

4.       Sanctuary

5.       Missing You

In the first book we meet 16 year old Jess, a townie who always seems to get into trouble (she punches people) because of her temper and her protectiveness towards her brother Douglas and friend Ruth. After a school detention, Jess and Ruth shelter from a storm under bleachers (a metal sports stand) and Jess gets hit by lightning.  Seemingly alright, Jess and Ruth head home with all appearing normal except the next day Jess knows the location of two missing children (whose faces are on the back of the milk carton). How she notifies the authorities and locates the children is the start of the action.  So the series develops around Jess finding missing children with her psychic abilities, getting into danger and rescuing others, the FBIs interest in her and a developing romance with a Grit bad boy called Jeff.  The action in this series isn’t as unbelievable or as male focussed as many other A and A books (e.g. Cherub, Alex Rider) and perhaps this is why it didn’t do as well in terms of sales.  However, after discovering the first book, I eagerly consumed the rest in a matter of days.

The first four books have recently been released as two books in one