Conspiracy Girl
By Sarah Alderson
Everybody knows about the Cooper Killings – the Bel Air home invasion that rocked the nation.
There was only one survivor – a sixteen year-old girl.
And though the killers were caught they walked free.Now eighteen, Nic Preston – the girl who survived – is trying hard to rebuild her life. She’s security conscious to the point of paranoia and her only friend is a French Mastiff bulldog, but she’s making progress. She’s started college in New York and has even begun dating.
But then one night her apartment is broken into and the life Nic’s worked so hard to create is shattered in an instant.
Finn Carter – hacker, rule breaker, player – is the last person Nic ever wants to see again. He’s the reason her mother’s killers walked free from court. But as the people hunting her close in, Nic has to accept that her best and possibly only chance of staying alive is by keeping close to Finn and learning to trust the person she’s sworn to hate.
Fleeing across a snowbound New England, frantically trying to uncover the motive behind the murders, Nic and Finn come to realize the conspiracy is bigger than they could ever have suspected. But the closer they get to the truth and the closer they get to each other, the greater the danger becomes.
To survive she has to stay close to him.
To keep her safe he has to keep his distance.
THIS IS SOO GOOD! I LOVE THIS BOOK. I’ve read it twice in one day ’cause I couldn’t get enough of it!
If any of you read Alderson’s Hunting Lila books, YOU WILL LOVE THIS. It was very similar to Hunting Lila in some aspects, in others not so much.
First, the story line. Beautiful. Mysterious. Captivating. Romantic. This is a dual POV novel, alternating between Nic Preston and Finn Carter.
Disclaimer: This is not a LGBT novel. Nic is a girl and Finn is a boy. I had serious issues figuring out the genders of these characters.
The story starts out right into the action which I love. Alderson doesn’t hesitate to get things moving. And the action doesn’t stop until the end of the book! The characters adapt well with the series of events and there was no shred of stupidity and annoying main characters that don’t use their brain. The mystery was practical and in the end everything made sense. Clues were placed strategically and I never felt like I was missing anything important. The details were there and the story was there. There were plot twists that I never saw coming, and the romance between Nic and Finn was A-MAZING. Conspiracy Girl had a nice blend of romance, action and mystery.
Nic Preston saw her family get murdered right in front of her. And they never caught the killer. This causes her to get a dog, train in self-defense and live life cautiously. She goes through some serious character development as she deals with the danger of being her family’s murderer’s next target. She goes from a scared girl to a brave women who just wants to live her life. Thrown back with the FBI, Nic must dodge attempted murders on her, and find her family’s actual killer. I loved her from the start and her dog, Goz was a great comic relief to the story!
Finn Carter. I have another man to add to the list. He is an ex-FBI trainee/hacker and absolutely brilliant. I love my female characters kickass and clever but male characters who are like that along with the main character was a nice breath of fresh air. Finn actually has a past with Nic and when he sees her again a few years later, he can’t help but dig Nic’s case back up to solve it once and for all. If anyone can, Finn can as he was the youngest and more promising FBI trainee. He also has a dark past which make Nic and Finn two broken souls who find their way to each other in order to heal. (Damn that was corny… 😛 )
Their chemistry was probably one of the highlights of this book. I couldn’t get enough of it. The dual POVs helped a lot in figuring out their feelings for each other and how they resisted each other without the other knowing. The angst was real and going strong my friends. It was going strong. Their relationship was realistic too. It didn’t come out of nowhere like some novels I’ve read. It came naturally and the process of their relationship were calculated and moved at a nice pace over the course of the novel. Not only, the complications with Nic’s murder case and the FBI were something to consider as well. Nic and Finn were practically running for their lives for most of the novel! Action + Romance = One Hell of a Novel.
Conspiracy Girl is a great young adult novel with healthy amounts of romance, action and mystery. It is a page-turner that I will definitely be escaping into again and again. The story came alive under my fingertips and that is all a book addict can hope for. 🙂
I recommend Conspiracy Girl to Sarah Alderson’s existing fans, those who love action and romance, and if you love a good mystery, this is yours too!
Keep calm and read on,
Addictively Turning Pages 