Perfect Lies

December 15, 2013
Fia's freed her sister, Annie, from the sinister Keane organization but at a high price: severing contact between them to maintain the fiction that Annie's dead (Mind Games, 2013). Competing demands and desires further rend Fia's tattered psyche: recruiting girls with paranormal abilities to be shaped by the Keane School while plotting its destruction and protecting the vulnerable--especially Annie, who's blind. Without her sister to rely on, Fia grows increasingly dependent on James, who's got issues of his own. Meanwhile, Annie can't enjoy the freedom for which her sister sacrificed herself, not when her own visions point to a calamitous future. Always the more stable of the sisters, Annie's equally determined to protect the vulnerable, including Fia, a task complicated by romantic entanglements and the choices they entail. The sisters' alternating narration helps to modulate the tension, balancing Fia's jittery, violent persona with Annie's focused, levelheaded one. Fia's emotional extremes verge on tiresome without quite crossing the line. White avoids sequel padding, keeping her tale lean and streamlined, and again makes skillful use of temporal shifts (readers are wise to keep track of dates and times) in constructing her suspenseful plot. If the narrative (it's less a sequel than Mind Games' second half) doesn't explore new territory, there's plenty in its template to hold readers fast. (Paranormal romance. 13 & up)

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December 15, 2013
Grades 8-11 Fia and Annie, sisters with paranormal powers, plot to take down the ruthless Keane Foundation that has controlled them in this breathless sequel to Mind Games (2013). After faking her death, Annie is free to join Keane's opposition, an underground network headed by the mysterious Lerner. There, her predictive visions of Fia, working against Keane from the inside, suggest that Fia is losing control. Aided by Keane's son, James, Fia is in place as a recruiter for Keane's school, but her perfect instincts, which enable her to manipulate situations, grow unstable without Annie's moderation. She can no longer feel which choices are right and wrong, and without a moral compass, she's more dangerous than ever. Like the first, this book has an intriguing nonlinear structure, with both sisters counting down to the final confrontation. Fia's time line starts five days before the event and proceeds in frenetic bursts, while Annie's starts four months earlier and provides information and context. Suspenseful and smart, this ties up the main story lines while leaving the greater world-building details to the imagination. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: A Dark Days group author tour spearheads a national campaign including videos, appearances, a sweepstakes, and exclusive content.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2014
Though separated, Annie and Fia (Mind Games) simultaneously plot to destroy the Keane Foundation, which has been recruiting, exploiting, and even killing psychically talented girls like themselves. The structure--two sisters alternating narration on different timelines--can be confusing at times. Annie, blind and lacking much agency in the first installment, (refreshingly) plays a much more significant role.

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