SPY GODDESS

Rachel Buchanan is an agent with Blackstone Academy.

I write that knowing that she would either bust out laughing, which she usually only does when she is scared or nervous, or she would grin and agree. It really all depends on her mood.

Blackstone Academy is not really a spy organization. They just train them. And FBI agents, police officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys. It is an elite Pennsylvania school not for the wealthy but for the talented, especially if those with the skills also have problems they need worked out. Strenuous exercise and heavy class loads are combined with interesting, unorthodox subject matter to get the 400+ students motivated and interested.

15-year-old Buchanan was most definitely not one filled with interest and motivation when she arrived. She had been caught as a joy-riding passenger in Beverly Hills and her 1% parents had no time for her distraction so when the judge offered her either juvie or Blackstone, she took it. The first day there, she tried to escape.

It seems many of the first-dayers do the same. She did not get far but she did accomplish enough to impression Jonathon Kim, headmaster and one very smart individual. It showed him the potential she had and he made a deal with her to entice her to give the Academy a chance - stay one full month and then he would, if she wanted, drive her to the airport himself. After a month, the trip was not necessary.

This story might have had a predictable ending with her learning responsibility and graduating and then on to college if not for her curiosity (snoopiness) which lands her and her roommate and two male students in the middle of an ongoing war between Mr. Kim and a former Special Forces partner of him, a very nasty and very wealthy man named Simon Blankenship.

It seems that Simon, several decades ago, became convinced he was destined to be the reincarnation of an ancient Roman god named Mithras. Kim was trying to stop him. And when Buchanan and company landed into the fray, Simon was stunned to discover that Buchanan was the modern day vessel for Etherea, the Persian Goddess of Light who had exiled Mithras long ago. Rachel Buchanan would have none of the nonsense if odd things didn't happen around her.

Regardless of my feeling as to whether this series belonged in the compendium, I would have mentioned it because of the title. Spy Goddess. A series of adventures. Has to fit.

So the adventures all deal with she and her people going up against him and his people and this might not be a spy series as would be expected but the training is similar and the action is most definitely similar and the bad guy is out for world domination and on and on.

Hey, it's here and it's a fun series. Nothing serious. Nothing major. But nothing wrong with it either. A fun young adult series about a group of teens out to save the world. And visit the mall once in a while.

I have admitted elsewhere that I seem to be a sucker for young adult books, those I would have loved to read 50+ years ago. And there ain't no law against enjoying them now. (I hope!)