Seeker by Arwen Elys Dayton

Seeker is a nail-biter of a book, full of action, hints of romance, and agonizing moral choices as three teens, Quinn, Shinobu, and John, struggle for control of time- and place-bending powers.  Quinn and Shinobu, upon taking their oaths as seekers, discover the darker side of their new responsibilities and want nothing more to do with them.  Escape is seen as betrayal and carries its own consequences, and John's desire to restore his family's legacy ultimately threatens to destroy Quinn, even though he loves her.  Great stuff!!

The Impersonator by Mary Miley

Vaudeville and Prohibition in the Roaring Twenties form the setting for this murder mystery in a small town in Oregon.  A young vaudeville performer bears a striking resemblance to a missing heiress, and the heiress's devious and unscrupulous uncle plots to use Leah to impersonate Jessie Carr, who reappears on her 21st birthday to claim her inheritance.  Leah has been on stage since her childhood, so becoming Jessie is no great challenge, but what if her secret is uncovered?  She could go to jail or worse, face the same fate as Jessie, who is probably dead.  Leah, as Jessie, has to fool her aunt, cousins and grandmother while exploring the family estate and asking questions to figure out the truth before Jessie's murderer makes her his next victim.

Burn by Walter Jury and Sarah Fine

Burn takes up where Scan, the story of a boy's fight to protect his father's invention, the scanner that can tell human from alien, leaves off.  The scanner is now in the hands of the H2 (alien) forces, but the enemy needs Tate to decipher his murdered father's coded files on how to use the technology and save the planet. Burn is a rollercoaster of a book, with Tate, a teenage version of television's MacGyver, struggling to outsmart his foes while evading capture himself.  There are action scenes galore, betrayals at the highest levels in the Fifty (the humans), arson, torture, and discovery of a new, even more lethal threat to earth's survival.  Impossible to put down.  

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

Theodore Finch meets Violet Markey when both climb to the school's bell tower to contemplate what it would mean to jump.  Forever searching for a way to justify living, Finch combines two projects--a geography class assignment to visit special places in the state (Indiana) and helping Violet to deal with her despair at the recent loss of her older sister.  The pair's developing relationship is told in alternating viewpoints that contrast Finch's irrepressible nature and attraction to Violet with her reluctance to be associated with someone commonly known as Freak.  The dialog is witty and the teens are sympathetic and engaging. The book deals with  love, responsibility,  family dysfunctions, school bullying and peer pressure, and mental illness.  This is both a satisfying and heart-wrenching story.

Alice & Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis by Alexis Coe

Coe explores Southern society in the 1890's from the perspective of sensationalist coverage of the trial that followed Alice Mitchell's murder of her former fiancee Freda Ward.  The public and doctors of the day were incapable of understanding the same-sex attraction that compelled nineteen-year-old Alice to propose marriage to seventeen-year-old Freda and then drove Alice to desperation when Freda's family discovered the affair and forbade any future contact between the two.  Terms such as deviancy, perversion, and insanity appeared often during the trial. Coe delves into the limited roles and possibilities of girls and women during the Victorian era.  The author also compares the type of justice applied to genteel white women to the lynching of three black men. The narrative is enhanced with primary source materials, particularly the impassioned love letters between Alice and Freda.  This is a fascinating glimpse of social mores in a distant place and time.  Recommended.

Scan by Walter Jury and Sarah Fine

Scan is all fast-paced action that pits a super smart and talented teen (think MacGyver with jui-jitsu skills) against a variety of ruthless agents that want what he has-- a super-secret piece of technology, developed by his father, that can tell the difference between humans and aliens.

Tate Archer finds the scanner while snooping in his father's lab and decides to take it to school, where it gets way too much attention.   He doesn't realize the import of what he's done until he, his father, and his girlfriend Christina are chased from the building by police who shoot to kill.  Someone in the school--probably an agent of the aliens, has turned them in.

Tate's father dies from a gunshot wound, and Tate and his immensely spirited and resourceful girlfriend run from the bad guys and struggle to stay ahead of pursuit while they figure out whom they can trust.   Tate's dad cautioned him about trusting any aliens (known as H2) or even the core group of pure humans--The Fifty--who stand against them.  Both sides want the scanner and are willing to destroy Tate and Christina to get it.

Suspense builds as inevitably the hunters close in.  Some of the strategies to escape imminent capture seem a bit far fetched to me, but I'm no chemist.  The non-stop action is tempered by talk of Tate's relationship with his girlfriend--yes, there is romance.  Overall, this is a fun summer read with, I suspect, a sequel in the works.

Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern

For her senior year, Amy decides to dump the adult peer partners she has required for her first eleven years of schooling in favor of hiring fellow students to accompany her during the school day and introduce her to other students so she can learn about how to make friends. Matthew signs up.  It is his observation in class one day that Amy only pretends to happy, well-adjusted and thankful for her many blessings that helps her better understand her isolation.  When she confronts him, Matthew is honest,  "It's not your fault that you don't have any friends.  You always have an aide with you.  No one is going to be themselves when there's a teacher standing right there."  Amy is surprised to learn that Matthew has watched her for years, that and his honesty makes her want him as one of her four helpers.

Amy isn't the only one in this relationship with problems, however.  Matthew has OCD, his way of managing a life beset with fears and anxiety.  He hopes that no one notices his habits of tapping lockers or compulsive hand washing.  Amy does, though, and isn't shy about asking him about his behavior, "WHAT'S THE WEIRDEST THING YOU DO?"  (Amy's dialog, which she writes on her computer,  is always presented in capital letters.)  She sees that he has a pretty serious case of compulsive disorder but that he seems so much more comfortable and relaxed with her.  The story revolves around the growing friendship between them, told through the conversations which reveal much about their secret hopes, fears, and problems.  Amy wants to help Matthew as much as he takes true pleasure in working with her.

McGovern does a great job writing from a "people-first" perspective, presenting her characters as individuals who have a disability but are not defined or stereotyped by that disability.  Amy and Matthew frequently use wit and sarcasm to hide their underlying feelings.  I found it easy to care about them and hope that they could finally be totally honest with each other.  If you liked The Fault in Our Stars, you should enjoy Say What You Will.