{"id":8016,"date":"2016-10-15T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-15T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=8016"},"modified":"2016-10-12T21:36:11","modified_gmt":"2016-10-13T02:36:11","slug":"desert-dark-by-sonja-stone-book-review-school-for-spies-time-to-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=8016","title":{"rendered":"Desert Dark, by Sonja Stone (book review) – school for spies, time to die?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bookBrilliant students wanted,
\nPuzzle-solving a plus.
\nSurvival through graduation not guaranteed…<\/p>\n

Whoa! Full tuition for boarding school for math genius problem-solvers? And across the country from her cheating boyfriend, too? Best idea that cryptographic<\/a> whiz Nadia has heard in a long time, till she arrives at… a secret Black Ops<\/a> academy, funded by the CIA, with a killer double-agent on campus!<\/p>\n

The first chapters (provided here<\/a> free by the publisher) set up the dangerous world that Nadia finds herself in.<\/p>\n

How far can you run from heartbreak?
\n**kmm<\/p>\n

Book info<\/strong>: Desert Dark \/ Sonja Stone. Holiday House, 2016.\u00a0 [author site<\/a>] [publisher site<\/a>]\u00a0\u00a0Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.<\/p>\n

My book talk<\/strong>: Recruited for an exclusive boarding school where her math abilities will be prized, Nadia discovers that Desert Mountain Academy covertly trains students for CIA black ops careers. When rumors of a double-agent on the remote Arizona campus prove true, suspicion falls on the newly-arrived Virginia teen whose mother is Lebanese.<\/p>\n

Nadia is overwhelmed with martial arts and Mandarin, trying to master firearms and survival skills with the other juniors in her team – and resisting her attraction to their senior leader, Jack.<\/p>\n

Teammate Damon is willing to help her catch up, but socially-challenged Alan (grandson of a Jewish Mossad agent) is openly skeptical, sure that she’ll bring down the team.<\/p>\n

Her germophobic roommate Libby is hiding something – is it about the girl whose death opened a spot for Nadia after the semester had begun?<\/p>\n

Chapters by Nadia, Libby, Jack, and the mysterious double-agent tell of assassination attempts (yep, plural), gradual team bonding, survival training, academic challenges, and a growing romance – if Nadia can survive her first year at Desert Mountain Academy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brilliant students wanted, Puzzle-solving a plus. Survival through graduation not guaranteed… Whoa! Full tuition for boarding school for math genius problem-solvers? And across the country from her cheating boyfriend, too? Best idea that cryptographic whiz Nadia has heard in a long time, till she arrives at… a secret Black Ops academy, funded by the CIA, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,237,19],"tags":[90,255,22,7,4,11,45,20,5,70,37,16,18,40,44,43,39,49,184,15,9,21,35,33,58,3,6,8,28,209],"class_list":["post-8016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","category-diverse-books","category-fiction","tag-abandonment","tag-arizona","tag-behavior","tag-beliefs","tag-belonging","tag-communication","tag-competition","tag-conflict","tag-coping","tag-crime","tag-death","tag-determination","tag-family","tag-fathers","tag-friendship","tag-growing-up","tag-love","tag-memories","tag-mothers","tag-relationships","tag-school","tag-self-image","tag-surprises","tag-survival","tag-technology","tag-teens","tag-travel","tag-us-author","tag-villains","tag-virginia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8016"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8061,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8016\/revisions\/8061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}