Seventeen-year-old Dara Roux and her two best friends, Mackenzie Yarborough and Jennifer Torres, the three collectively referred to as the F.I.G.’s (Females of Intellectual Genius) because each has an intelligence quotient in the genius range, have just returned from Frascati, Italy. It was there that their much loved teacher and mentor, Carolina Lovel, discovered that her birth parents were gypsies, and that she had a connection to the Voynich Manuscript, the most mysterious document in the world.

Now, with graduation from Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women behind them, Dara asks her friends to help her locate her birth mother when she learns that she might be living in New York City. Relying on Dara’s gift for speaking and understanding foreign languages, the black and white images that stir musical cadences in Jennifer’s mind, and Mackenzie’s mathematical calculations that normally provide numerical solutions and answers to life’s most difficult questions, the determined young women tirelessly go from one address to another in search of Dara’s mother.

Their determination turns to desperation, however, as they encounter a dark hidden society more dangerous and terrifying than they could have imagined. It is there that

Dara hopes to find out why she was abandoned in a candy store all those years ago.

Buy the book:  Amazon  ~  Barnes & Noble

x

x

My Review

I received a free copy of this book for an honest review. I had read The Cadence of Gypsies, the first book in The F.I.G. Mysteries and I was looking forward to reading book #2.

After Carolina was able to find her birth mother with the help of the F.I.G.s, one of the girls, Dara, wants to try to find her mother. Dara had been abandoned 10 years ago in a candy shop in New York. Carolina gets approval from the school and the F.I.G.s are off the New York City days after they just returned from Italy.

I like the characters in this book and how the F.I.G.s and Carolina are so supportive of each other. My favorite character, though, has to be Carolina’s mother, Lyuba. She’s a gypsy and has a lot of talent and wisdom.

The F.I.G. Mysteries are good stories and I like Barbara Casey’s writing. I did feel like there could have been a little more content in this one. There was a lot of back story from the first book and I almost felt like I was re-reading it in the first couple of chapters.

The FIG Mysteries for readers of all ages, but especially young adults and middle grade readers.

 

About the Author

Barbara Casey is a partner in Strategic Media Books, and president of the Barbara Casey Agency, representing authors throughout the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and Japan. She is also a manuscript consultant and the author of numerous articles, poems, and short stories.

Her award-winning novels have received national recognition, including the Independent Publishers Book Award. Her novel, The House of Kane, was considered for a Pulitzer nomination, and The Gospel According to Prissy, also a contemporary adult novel received several awards including the prestigious IPPY Award for Best Regional Fiction. Her most recent young adult novel, The Cadence of Gypsies, received the Independent Publishers Living Now Award and was reviewed by the Smithsonian for its list of Best Books.

Ms. Casey makes her home on the top of a mountain in northwest Georgia with her husband and three dogs who adopted her: Benton, a hound-mix, Fitz, a miniature dachshund, and Gert, a Jack Russel terrier of sorts.

Connect with the author:   Website

 

Giveaway

Rafflecopter giveaway