Summary

Still on the hunt for her missing brother, Kayli Winchester's life amid the Academy team comes to an abrupt halt when she and Brandon are kidnapped. Mistaken for his identical twin brother, Brandon's life is threatened unless he helps a team of criminals hack into a secret underground cellular network and exploit it.

The cunning Kayli makes a daring escape. With Brandon still held prisoner, she turns to the guys to help save him. Despite the team of Axel, Marc, Corey and Raven working tirelessly, this desperate search and rescue mission quickly changes into submission to the kidnappers. If the team doesn't give the bad guys what they want, someone will die.

It’s unavoidable: they’re going to need to bring in outside help... help that will come at a high price. Saving the guys might require Kayli to do the unthinkable, and may shatter the team forever.

Review

The series C.L. Stone writes are magical in the way they are able to grab readers and force their attention, you never want to put it down. Fake, the third book in Stone’s newest academy series, follows Kayli, a stronger female lead character in comparison to the first series. Kayli is a character that resembles her male peers in regard to their life events and experiences.

Fake provides a story that seemed to be much longer and better developed than any story Stone has produced so far. I found the plot to be a rounded one, meaning that every event lead to another, and eventually it all made sense. Fake also has a plot so different than the books in the series, which all hold similar plots. Fake begins with Kayli being kidnapped, the unique component. Beginning with this was unexpected and pulled the reader into the story.

However, slightly under produced in this series was the romance throughout Fake. Unlike in Stone’s other academy series, I am becoming aggravated at Kayli’s indecision. I can only take one series where five guys “share” one girl. So with that, I wished Kayli would stop being emotionally and physically involved with all the boys, and simply pick one.

Kayli really makes the Scarab Beetle series my favorite of Stone’s, she is strong willed and is able to think for herself. I am extremely excited to have had a chance to read another amazing books by C.L. Stone and cannot wait for the next one, as per usual.

Reviewed by Rachel Keane

Pages: 283 pages
Publisher: Arcato Publishing (January 29, 2015)

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