Perception: Clarity Fern, #2 -- Kim Harrington
Clarity Fern isn't big on using her psychic power in public—when she tries, sometimes she can feel the impressions left on an object by its past handlers—but she has to admit: it does come in handy when she needs to do the Girl Detective thing.
Which, for the second time in mere months*, she's about to do. She's got an ex-boyfriend who wants to patch things up, a brooding new guy who wants to get smoochy, and a secret admirer... who might have crossed the line from admirer to stalker. Also, a girl has gone missing. And her disappearance might be directly related to Clare's romantic conundrum...
I was not a fan of the first book in this series. At all. I felt that the dialogue, especially, was really, really weak. But you know me—ever optimistic**—and constantly looking for new mysteries, so I read it even though I didn't expect to like it.
SURPRISE! I enjoyed this one so much more. Either Harrington's writing has evened out, or I read Perception on a really, really good day. (I very much think it's the former, though.) Gone were the dated references, and gone was the bad dialogue. What was left was a solid little mystery—with some red herrings that tripped me up—about a likable sleuth who, in addition to the boy dramarama and the missing girl, has to deal with a pack of Mean Girls AND put up with having a telepathic mother. And Perception gets bonus points for wrapping up the love triangle, rather than spinning it out.
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*Eastport, Massachusetts seems like an unlikely hotbed of crime, but so does Cabot Cove. Or Midsomer or St. Mary Mead, for that matter. YOU JUST NEVER KNOW ABOUT THOSE SMALL TOWNS, DO YOU?
**Ahahahahahahahaha! That's a huge lie. I am the Glass Half Empty QUEEN.
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Book source: Review copy from the publisher.