Gypsy (The Cavy Files, #1) by Trisha Leigh
Genre: YA Paranormal
Published May 13th, 2014
This was a really cool book, and a must read fans of YA paranormal, or fans of any paranormal fiction. It is sort of X-menish in a way that each of the kids has a special power, however, they have been kept in the dark about the real world and only shown select movies for entertainment. But training their powers was the number one priority. Until the day the law showed up and "rescues" all the kids. The children are then thrown into the real world with powers they were only learning to control. More important than fitting into their new schools and families was their need to not kill anyone in the process, but they also want to know how they came to be where they were, and how they got there if they were not truly orphans like they had been told.
This was a fast paced action book that is set in the South Carolina low country around Charleston, and the surrounding areas. Like I said, the book is reminiscent of the x-men as the rescued teens including the main character Gypsy, has a power of some sort. They use these powers to fight the government who want to make them into secret soldiers.
You will not want to put this book down, it is that amazing of a page turner to the end, when the action is at its highest. But you will need to read it yourself to see who wins, and if Gypsy gets the guy and the life she so desperately wants for herself. The book is totally mesmerizing and will have you hooked to the end, I can not wait for the next part to come out and really hope I get to review that book as well.
FIVE STARS
In the world of genetic mutation, Gypsy’s talent of knowing a person’s age of death is considered a failure. Her peers, the other Cavies, have powers that range from curdling a blood still in the vein to being able to overhear a conversation taking place three miles away, but when they’re taken from the sanctuary where they grew up and forced into the real world, Gypsy, with her all-but-invisible gift, is the one with the advantage.
The only one who’s safe, if the world finds out what they can do.
When the Cavies are attacked and inoculated with an unidentified virus, that illusion is shattered. Whatever was attached to the virus causes their abilities to change. Grow. In some cases, to escape their control.
Gypsy dreamed of normal high school, normal friends, a normal life, for years. Instead, the Cavies are sucked under a sea of government intrigue, weaponized genetic mutation, and crushing secrets that will reframe everything they’ve ever been told about how their “talents” came to be in the first place.
Author
Trisha Leigh is a product of the Midwest, which means it’s pop, not soda, garage sales, not tag sales, and you guys as opposed to y’all. Most of the time. She’s been writing seriously for five years now, and has published 4 young adult novels and 4 new adult novels (under her pen name Lyla Payne). Her favorite things, in no particular order, include: reading, Game of Thrones, Hershey’s kisses, reading, her dogs (Yoda and Jilly), summer, movies, reading, Jude Law, coffee, and rewatching WB series from the 90’s-00’s.
Her family is made up of farmers and/or almost rock stars from Iowa, people who numerous, loud, full of love, and the kind of people that make the world better. Trisha tries her best to honor them, and the lessons they’ve taught, through characters and stories—made up, of course, but true enough in their way.
Trisha is the author of THE LAST YEAR series and the WHITMAN UNIVERSITY books. She’s represented by Kathleen Rushall at Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.
Website: http://trishaleigh.com/
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/2715400
Twitter: https://twitter.com/trishaleighKC
Tumblr: http://trishaleighkc.tumblr.com/
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/trishaleighkc/
The Giveaway:
a $20 bookstore gift card and a signed paperback of the book, plus some swag
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Excerpt
The library is one of the bigger rooms in the
house, converted from what used to be the upstairs parlor. The Professor looks
out a window that overlooks the back lawn. Shelves, sagging with dusty books,
cover every inch of the light blue, fifteen-foot walls. The morning sunlight
still lingers around the front of the house, making this space dim, but motes
of dust twirl and waltz like members of a royal court on the pale, reaching
beams.
All at once, happiness floods my bloodstream, as
though someone smacks good cheer into my chest cavity through my shoulder
blades. The strange desire to burst into song hums along my nerve endings, as
though I’m a Disney princess summoning her bird and varmint attendants
at the window. It takes serious concentration to bite back the urge.
The abrupt change in mood announces another
Cavy’s presence, but as hard as I try to glare at Pollyanna, my mouth refuses
to cooperate. Her mutation, a reverse empath alternation that allows her
disposition to affect the moods of people in close proximity, is
more...invasive than most. Losing control of my own mind never fails to make me
feel icky.
And given her insistence on cynicism and anger,
she's not aptly named. Not at all.
“Feeling good, Gyspy?” She shakes out her long,
blond hair and pins me with china-blue eyes. The faux-happy shroud crawling
from her to me dissolves and my smile finally falls away. Polly nods. “That's
better. You look weird when you smile.”
“Pollyanna, we have spoken at length about the
perils of using your gifts on your fellow Cavies.” The Professor's patient,
tired voice reprimands the youngest of his students, if only by several months.
The Philosopher, who runs Darley, took us in
before we were three months old, and we all arrived between sixteen and seventeen
years ago.
“Sorry, sir.”
She's not sorry, but his chastisement and her
apology are part of our daily routine. Of all the kids here, Pollyanna is my
least favorite. She's everyone's least favorite, and even though she knows it
she doesn't change. I guess she doesn't care.
“Sorry for what? Fucking with people again?” The
voice bleeds out of thin air before Haint shimmers into view around it, face
first. She leans against one of the bookcases once her shoulder appears,
examining her nails as she waits for her daily reprimand.
The Professor doesn't disappoint. “Language,
dear.”
He says nothing to me, not even hello, nor does
he issue a warning to Haint about using her ability to go invisible. It’s not
dangerous. Pollyanna could make any one of us walk straight off a cliff if she
felt particularly suicidal that day.
The twins Athena and Goose arrive together, a
tornado of rough-housing elbows and flashes of reddish hair, loosing half a
shelf of books onto the floor and toppling an end table before getting
themselves under control. The Professor ignores them, having long ago resigned
himself to their antics.
We're all here now, at least those who are
expected. Mole is still enduring his weekly brain prodding and so is Reaper.
They’re our lethal Cavies, and are kept for testing more often and for longer
than the rest of us. We're categorized according to our level of usefulness,
the details of our mutations and abilities listed in records the Philosopher
hopes might convince the government we could be potential assets as opposed to
threats.
Three Operationals, two Substantials, one
Developmental, three Unstables, and one Inconsequential. That’s me. The one who
will never be an asset to anyone but can't be locked away and forgotten like an
Unstable, either. They don't know what to do with me, so I shuffle along with
the group.
“Everyone sit down, please.”
The Professor's command sounds more like a genteel request, and we drop into a circle of cross-legged teenagers on the oval Oriental rug that smothers the center of the room. He paces behind us,
passing binder-clipped pages into our waiting
hands.
I grab mine, excited as the title filters
through my eyes and into my brain. It's a thesis, written by the Scientist back
in the 1960s: Genetic Mutation and the Human Brain.
He died before any of us were born but his
thoughts and experiments, his studies, help the scientists at Darley Hall
figure out what might have caused the mutations that resulted in our “gifts.”
Maybe one day they'll figure out how to switch off those screwy genes and I can
touch another person without at least one layer in between us. Without the
protection, touching someone means seeing a number in my mind.
The age the other person is going to die.
My “talent” is creepy at best, totally useless
at worst, and being able to get rid of it has been a hidden desire for the
whole of my life.
