Psychopaths on the Warpath

 Never Saw Me Coming - Vera Kurian

If Vera Kurian is to be believed – and apparently, she has the proper training to make this statement – there’s about a 2 or 3 percent chance that whoever’s reading this right now is a psychopath. That’s not to say that you are, as popular fiction might have it, a serial killer. No, you’re merely antisocial and/or empathy-impaired and/or egotistical. Based on that description, 2 or 3 percent of the population seems rather low…

…but the main characters of Kurian’s debut novel, Never Saw Me Coming, are pretty close to 100% psychopathic. That’s because they’re members of the seven college students enrolled in a study run by renowned psychologist Leonard Wyman; youngsters who’ve received full-boat rides to a DC-area college so he could study them in the wild. Well, actually, one’s faking it – a rather strange twist given that psychopaths usually fake being “normal.” Anyway, protagonist Chloe Sevre – 18, gorgeous, smart, psychopathic coed – is really there so she can murder Will Bachman. Truth be told, he kind of deserves it…

Mogs Invade! Mogs Invade! The Garde Take the Fight to the Evil Aliens

The Revenge of Seven (Lorien Legacies) - Pittacus Lore

When we left the remaining Garde last time (The Fall of Five), everything was a mess. The traitorous Five had killed Eight, left three other numbers marooned in the Everglades, and tipped off his Mogadorian allies to the location of the stronghold in Chicago. In the aftermath of the resulting firefight; Ella’s been kidnapped by Mog soldiers and John, Sarah, Adam and the Goodes are on the run. Maybe it’s time to regroup…

Told from three viewpoints – those of Six, John and Ella – The Revenge of Seven finds the remaining Garde sundered even further, with three of them off in search of the fabled Sanctuary while John, the humans and their “good Mog” ally Adam fight a rear-action on the east coast. Meanwhile, Ella is imprisoned on Setrákus Ra’s flagship in interplanetary space as the Mogadorians prepare to invade Earth. And that’s not Ellas’ only heart-rending surprise, as the evil Mog overlord reveals his true face to her while laying out his plans for our planet.