The Darkest Powers Trilogy by Kelley Armstrong

The Darkest Powers Trilogy was written by Kelley Armstrong.  It includes The Summoning, The Awakening, and The Reckoning.  I listened to it on audio with Cassandra Morris as the narrator.  First of all, the narration was pretty good once I got used to Cassandra Morris' voice.  It's a little bit 'young-ish' sounding, but this is a young adult series and the main characters are in their mid-teens, so it  was appropriate.

I've meant to read books by Kelley Armstrong for a long time.  Her adult books are what you would consider urban fantasy and include tales of all kinds of supernaturals - werewolves, sorcerers, witches, necromancers and the like.  There has been a TV adaptation created recently called Bitten, which I have not watched.

In the first book, The Summoning, Chloe Saunders is a pretty normal 15-year-old girl, who is really interested in becoming a filmmaker.  She goes to a school for the arts and lives with her father and a series of housekeepers.  Her mother died when she was young and her mother's sister, a doctor, has also helped with her upbringing.  She did have some odd experiences with the basement and the dark when she was a little girl, but she had forgotten them until all of a sudden she starts dreaming about them - dreaming about seeing ghosts.  And then she actually sees one - a ghost - at school.  He scares her so badly that she has an episode with the principal and some teachers that lands her in Lyle House, a group home for teens with psychological problems.  Or that's what she is told.

The other kids at Lyle House also have issues.  Some are nice to her and some are quite hostile.  Her roommate, Liz, seems nice, but is transferred out soon after Chloe arrives.  And then Chloe sees Liz again, but she's a ghost.  It turns out that all the kids at Lyle House have special abilities that the adults try to convince them are due to mental illness.  A whole Scooby gang gradually gets together.  It includes a necromancer, a witch, a sorcerer, a half-demon who can control fire, a ghost with tele-kinetic abilities, and also a very, very smart werewolf.  When they finally realize that each of them has a special talent, they go on the run from the Edison Group, the people that run Lyle House.

The second and third books tell the further adventures of our 'special' kids as they try to find out how they got their abilities and how to control them.  They are all progressing faster than normal and their powers are more than a little scary.  And then they realize that they are being hunted by other people,  as well as the Edison Group.  Family members that were thought trustworthy and dependable betray them.  They are captured more than once and then escape over and over.  The Darkest Powers kids eventually find that they can count on each other and they form a cohesive group of friends.  A real Scooby gang.

I had a good time with these books.  And they kept me interested.  I've always liked Buffy-type adventures, and I'm a sucker for superheroes.  The tales of Chloe, Simon, Derek, Liz, Rae, and Tori were lots of fun.  The story continues with another group of teens, The Darkness Rising trilogy.  In the last book of that trio, The Rising, both groups of teens join forces to fight.  And I'll be looking for that trilogy to start before long, as well as some of the adult books.  I love finding a new-to-me author with a large backlist.