Vesper

I really identified with the main character in my latest read, Vesper by Jeff Sampson.  Emily Webb is a sixteen-year-old geek who gets way too engrossed in books and movies, doesn’t have many friends, stays at home most of the time, and never tries anything new for fear of rocking the boat or looking like an idiot.  I feel like I’ve just written a short autobiography.  I’m just like Emily (except, you know, twice her age), and, like Emily, I often have the urge to jump out of my shell and go a little crazy.  (I never do.)  Well, Emily is about to do what I’ve never had the guts to do.  She’s becoming an adventurous party girl, but she’s not all that thrilled about it…

By day, Emily Webb is still the same geeky, unassuming, often forgotten, run-of-the mill teenager who is simply counting down the days until the next superhero movie.  (Wow.  The similarities never stop.)  By night, however, Emily morphs into a fearless, reckless thrill seeker who lets nothing stand in her way.  What caused this sudden change?  Why does Emily let go of her inhibitions only at night?  And why does this weird transformation begin on the night that a girl is mysteriously killed just blocks from Emily’s house?

Emily knows she should be worried about her sudden personality shifts, but, at the same time, she kind of likes Nighttime Emily.  She likes not worrying about what people think of her.  She likes dressing to impress instead of hiding her figure behind oversized hoodies.  She likes being the daring girl she’s always wanted to be.  But when her transformation takes an unexpected turn, Emily realizes that something is seriously wrong with her.  She doesn’t know why this is happening to her, but she knows that there are others out there like her.  She just has to find them.

After doing a little research, Emily soon figures out that her freaky new self is somehow connected to the death of the other girl, also named Emily, and the attempted murder of another classmate.  What is happening with the teenagers in her small Washington town?  Will Emily be able to reconcile her daytime and nighttime selves long enough to figure out what’s going on?  And can she do it before becoming a killer’s next target?  Read Vesper by Jeff Sampson to find out!

I’ve left a lot about Vesper out of this post, and that was completely intentional.  I don’t want to ruin this book for anyone because, quite honestly, it went places I wasn’t completely prepared for.  At first, I wasn’t thrilled about these unexpected turns, but, as the story progressed, I accepted them and grew to anticipate where the story was taking me.  I look forward to reading more of Emily’s story in the second book of this Deviants series.  That book is Havoc and is scheduled for release January of 2012.  In the meantime, I encourage you to visit the author’s website at http://jeffsampsonbooks.com/ for more information on this exciting new series!