The Candidates
The Candidates (Delacroix Academy, #1)by Inara ScottI was going to post the summary from Goodreads except it's terribly long and looks like it takes up my entire post. So in a nutshell - Dancia is 14 and lives with her 100-year old Grandmother and has some sort of odd telekinetic power that appears when someone is in danger. Because of that she makes sure she's unnoticeable - no friends, no nothing. Because if she cares for someone and they are in danger her powers will surface and someone could get hurt. Because of an incident that made the papers, Dancia is recruited for the fancy-schmancy Delacroix Academy boarding school. There she's still the odd one out because everyone around seems to excel at one subject or another and she's just....average.There are also boys. Jack and Cam. I guess there's a little love-triangle action, but I wouldn't say it was very overwhelming because it didn't bother me at all. The relationship she has with Jack - another "special" Freshman - is more friendship. Cam on the other hand is a Junior who seems to have more interest in Dancia than one would think he should have.This was a very non-paranormal paranormal book. I liked it immensely but I found it a little slow on the build up and very few references to other people having powers. I had a feeling Dancia was recruited because of the power thing and I wanted to be suspicious of everyone and everything that had to do with the Academy, but I wasn't. Why? Well because everything seems so bloody normal. It was just a nice story about a girl who never fit in who was learning to trust others and find friends who cared for her.And I was more than happy with that because I truly liked Dancia and her grandmother and Jack. I loved Esther and Hennah. I liked the school dynamic and even though I was terribly curious about what the "mystery" was, I was just enjoying the ride.I have a feeling, because of the way this book ended, that the sequel will be slightly more action packed and that this book was just the set up. I am highly anticipating the sequel to this novel and I hope I don't have to wait more than a year! I am very happy I splurged this past weekend and bought the book.I am also fairly certain this book counts towards the 2010 Debut Author Challenge. I can't find information that would mean otherwise, so unless I am corrected, I shall be adding this to my list.Delacroix Academy