Deadly Little Secret by Laurie Faria Stolarz

Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Pub. Date: December 16th 2008
Age Range: Young Adult
Pages: 252
Format: Hardcover
Source Of Copy: from the publisher - Disney Hyperion

Some secrets shouldn't be kept...

Up until three months ago, everything in sixteen-year-old Camelia's life had been fairly ordinary: decent grades; an okay relationship with her parents; and a pretty cool part-time job at the art studio downtown. But when Ben, the mysterious new guy, starts junior year at her high school, Camelia's life becomes anything but ordinary.

Rumored to be somehow responsible for his ex-girlfriend's accidental death, Ben is immediately ostracized by everyone on campus. Except for Camelia. She's reluctant to believe the rumors, even when her friends try to convince her otherwise. She's inexplicably drawn to Ben...and to his touch. But soon, Camelia is receiving eerie phone calls and strange packages with threatening notes. Ben insists she is in danger, and that he can help--but can he be trusted? She knows he's hiding something... but he's not the only one with a secret.

A balanced story of paranormal and thriller that you might consider picking up, although it's not guaranteed that Deadly Little Secret will satisfy fans of these two genres to the max.

Personally I think the story is okay. The plot is well developed, most of the characters are interesting and the excitement/thrill is to be felt during the story. I love the idea of Touch - the power to see someone's past, present and even future. Even though that is used in a lot of books already, I find the description in Deadly Little Secret the most. With the background of the male lead, it's suddenly more mysterious.

I like that lots of characters are introduced, making us enable to predict what's going to happen next or who's the creeper. Also, scenes of Camelia's being scared at home are very intense, capturing all of my attention. I think I'm slowly interested in thrillers nowadays.

There are a few things that I don't like about Deadly Little Secret too. It suddenly slows down when we reach the most exciting part. I expected a more eventful escape of Camelia. It's too fast and I don't feel its impact on the story. And Camelia is sometimes very clueless. I mean you can trust your savior but the way she acts, like she knows he's danger but still heads to him. And her friends annoy me often. They don't add much to the story either.

Having said all that, I still enjoyed Deadly Little Secret to an extent. And the ending is not that good doesn't mean I'm not curious to see what happens in the next book.

Rating: 3/5