Rising Tide: Dark Innocence (The Maura DeLuca Trilogy #1)

PARANORMAL:  Social outcast Maura DeLuca only has a few weeks left until the end of her junior year, when she and her mother will be moving from Pennsylvania to Vancouver.  A loner most of her life, Maura doesn’t think she’ll have many reasons to miss home until the day she accidentally spills her milk on a cute senior named Ron.  Ron is kind and patient, taking the time to draw Maura out of her self-imposed shell, and before long, the two teens are madly in love.  Moving away from Ron is the hardest thing Maura has ever done, and to make matters worse, her body is behaving in unpredictable ways.  Is it just her hormones going wild or is her health in serious danger?  Will she ever see Ron again?  And why is her mother suddenly acting like a different person after the move?

Ms. Melanson has found an excellent balance here with a storyline that is straightforward enough to not be confusing and intriguing enough to remain compelling.  She captures the full spectrum of unpredictable teenage emotions and makes readers remember the immediacy of that first love.  Savvy readers will deduce Maura’s “affliction” long before it is revealed, but many questions will still remain unanswered by the time the last page is turned.  This teen romance touches on ground that has been well-trod in recent years, yet does so in a way that makes readers eager to go down that road again!

Leslie Stokes