Bad Connection

by Melody Carlson

If God gave you a vision, would you trust it?

Melody Carlson - winner of the RITA Award and the Golden Medallion - paints a riveting tale of the not so normal, and secret life of Samantha McGregor. Her writing is superb, as if its scripted straight out of the mind of a sixteen—excuse me—almost seventeen year old.

At times it warped me back to my own teenage years, while at other times I found myself thinking of my daughter’s teenage years to come. Either case, Melody does a wonderful job of placing the reader in the life and times of a teenage girl.

That teenage girl, Samantha McGregor, knows that Kayla Henderson likes to break the rules. Fine. That’s Kayla’s thing. Samantha’s not even surprised when Kayla goes missing. Hadn’t she been saying she was going to take off, to go meet her online “boyfriend” in person?

I have to take a moment and laugh at this for a moment considering that’s where I met my wife. Granted, you have to be careful if this sort of thing happens to you, but for Kayla things didn’t turn out so well as they did for my wife. It wasn’t the smartest move in the world, but Kayla would be okay. She always was—or at least that’s what Samantha thought.

Then come the visions—and they reveal that Kayla is far from okay. Samantha freaks. Was her vision from God or just imagined? What would you do?

If Kayla’s really in danger, what can Samantha do? Only one person can help her: Detective Ebony Hamilton. But can Samantha trust Detective Hamilton after what happened to her father?

Can this unlikely pair work together—against the clock and the system—to patch together the truth and find Kayla…before its too late?

Bad Connection has it all; mystery, suspense, romance, and issues that you might find in the life of any teenager throughout America (or any country of your choice).

As a parent, I’d highly recommend this to anyone out there with a teenager of their own. In fact, I’ll be saving this one for my own daughter. If nothing else, they’ll be able to escape their own lives for just a moment and enjoy the secret life of Samantha McGregor.

Bad Connection will make a good connection with any teen.