Haven

Gr 9 Up—When Violet's stepmother leaves for a new city and a new job, the teen chooses to go to a boarding school. Her roommate, Cece, and her new schoolmates explain that Winterhaven is a school for people with psychic gifts. Violet has tried to hide her gift of precognition and hated it because she saw bad things happen to the people she loved. She starts to have visions about a boy to whom she is inexplicably drawn. Aiden is pale, gorgeous, aloof, can read minds, and has other "gifts." Sound familiar? Yes, he is a vampire. He is using the chemistry lab to find a cure for vampirism. While at a school dance with Violet, his research is destroyed. Someone is trying to stop him. Violet's visions show Aiden covered in blood, and she fears that she might be his killer. Should she risk her life and soul to save him? Cook uses well-known vampire lore and twists it a little to create her own vampire/psychic world. She also uses Violet's visions to foreshadow the plot and keep the pace of the novel. Violet is an average teen with special "gifts," but development of her personality and powers are lost to her immediate and overwhelming obsession with a boy she barely knows. Average paranormal fare that is aimed at Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" series (Little, Brown) fans.—Samantha Larsen Hastings, Riverton Library, UT