Dead is the New Black by Marlene Perez

Welcome to Nightshade, California—a small town full of secrets. It’s home to the pyschic Giordano sisters, who have a way of getting mixed up in mysteries. During their investigations, they run across everything from pom-pom-shaking vampires to shape-shifting boyfriends to a clue-spewing jukebox. With their psychic powers and some sisterly support, they can crack any case!
Teenage girls are being mysteriously attacked all over town, including at Nightshade High School, where Daisy Giordano is a junior. When Daisy discovers that a vampire may be the culprit, she can’t help but suspect head cheerleader Samantha Devereaux, who returned from summer break with a new “look.” Samantha appears a little . . . well, dead, and all the most popular kids at school are copying her style.
Is looking dead just another fashion trend for Samantha, or is there something more sinister going on? To find out, Daisy joins the cheerleading squad. Summary via www.amazon.com

This book will suck in (no pun intended)all those younger middle school girls who are looking for a cute romantic fantasy with werewolves, vampires, psychics, telekinesis and of course... high school drama!  This is the first of the "Dead Series" including "Dead is a Battlefield", "Dead is Not and Option", "Dead is Just a Rumor", "Dead is So Last Year", "Dead is a State of Mind".

 

Learning to Swim to Sara J. Henry

“If I’d blinked, I would have missed it. But I didn’t, and I saw something fall from the rear deck of the opposite ferry: a small, wide-eyed human face, in one tiny frozen moment, as it plummeted toward the water.”

When she witnesses a small child tumbling from a ferry into Lake Champlain, Troy Chance dives in without thinking. Harrowing moments later, she bobs to the surface, pulling a terrified little boy with her. As the ferry disappears into the distance, she begins a bone-chilling swim nearly a mile to shore with a tiny passenger on her back.
Surprisingly, he speaks only French. He’ll acknowledge that his name is Paul; otherwise, he’s resolutely mute.
Troy assumes that Paul’s frantic parents will be in touch with the police or the press. But what follows is a shocking and deafening silence. And Troy, a freelance writer, finds herself as fiercely determined to protect Paul as she is to find out what happened to him. What she uncovers will take her into a world of wealth and privilege and heedless self-indulgence—a world in which the murder of a child is not unthinkable. She’ll need skill and courage to survive and protect her charge and herself.
Sara J. Henry’s powerful and compelling Learning to Swim will move and disturb readers right up to its shattering conclusion. www.amazon.com


This is a wonderful summer read with plenty of intrigue, suspense and romance. My only negative comment is the main character, Troy cries a lot. I suppose if I was in a similar situation, I would probably cry a lot too. That being said, Troy's character seems to be an independent and confident and self-motivated young woman yet she seems to be crying about something is most of the chapters. Personally, I chose to ignore that fact because the overall book was well written and the plot was intriguing.