Synopsis
Something very strange starts happening in Nightshade the summer that the eldest Giordano sister, Rose, gets a job working at Dr. Franken's research laboratory. People are starting to see double. Doppelgängers of Nightshade residents are popping up all over town. Daisy, Rose and Poppy think it's a coincidence, until the rumors start that their father, who disappeared several years ago, has been spotted in town. Meanwhile, Daisy's beau, Ryan is spending all of his time training for football, and like the other guys on the team, he's grown enormous almost overnight. Samantha Devereux's boyfriend's neck has doubled in size since school ended. Could the football players be resorting to extreme measures to win? Between summer jobs, sugar rushes, and beach parties, the Giordano girls get to the bottom of these mysteries and more.
School Library Journal
Gr 7 Up
In this follow-up to Dead Is the New Black (2008) and Dead Is a State of Mind (2009, both Harcourt), Daisy Giordano and her sisters have just returned to Nightshade from Italy, leaving their mother behind to work on a mysterious case. All three girls have secured summer jobs. Daisy works the early-morning shift at Slim's, Poppy puts in her time at the Snack Shack, and Rose tediously toils for Dr. Franken at a research lab. The psychic siblings quickly find themselves in the middle of a multi-front mystery between a young and dangerous pack of Werewolves running loose on the streets at night and an invasion of some sweet-toothed doppelgangers whose mission is to wreak havoc and destroy the reputations of the citizens of Nightshade. To complicate things, Daisy's dad has returned to town, and the teens are left on their own to determine if he's the real deal or a "DoppelDad." Perez's latest tale does not disappoint as her upbeat writing consistently rings true throughout. While every plot thread isn't neatly tied up, readers are left with the impression that Nightshade is full of intrigue. Point reluctant readers who devour this title to other quick, supernatural reads like Brian James's Zombie Blondes (Feiwel & Friends, 2008) or Rachel Caine's "Morganville Vampires" series (Signet).-Adrienne L. Strock, Maricopa County Library District, AZ