A teen mystery with an urban setting and multicultural cast. Amateur detective Chanti is clever and quick-witted, and her family struggles with her mother and the truth about the father she's never met ring true. Action-packed and suspenseful. ( )

SWEET 16 TO LIFE - A LANGDON PREP NOVEL
By Kimberley Reid
2013/Kensington Publishing
A Young Reader Novel

Teenager Chanti Evans is known to her friends and peers as ‘playing detective’ in life. Again and again, her curiosity and quest to understand keeps leading her into troubling, often dangerous situations. However, since Chanti’s mom, Lana, is an undercover cop, not the paralegal they tell everyone, Chanti has her own secrets to hide.

16 year old Chanti’s friend MJ is an ex-gang member and already on probation, now living with her grandmother in Colorado, just a couple doors away from Chanti’s home. One morning, Chanti smells smoke, rushes outside and discovers the fire is at MJ’s! As Chanti rushes over to the burning house, to try to awaken MJ and her grandmother, she notices a young man, wearing shades and a hoodie standing across the street, smiling. Smiling??

With that, MJ calls 911, and bangs on the house door, hoping MJ and her grandmother are ok. This, however, is only the beginning of Chanti’s major investigation into the mysterious fire. Did the stranger set it? Why??

In the midst of the tumultuous teenage years, Chanti Evans is trying to discover who her father is, deal with the emotions of having just broken up with her first boyfriend, Marco, and now trying to uncover who set the fire - and why, Kimberley Reid’s “Sweet 16 to Life” is an action filled teenage novel that any young reader would be delighted to read and keep on reading til the end.

“Sweet 16 to Life” is a ‘clean’ novel - no sex, nor foul language. Kimberley Reid’s novel is a fabulous young reader book!

I received this book for free, to review. I am a member of Librarything, Goodreads, NetGalley and Wordpress and post reviews on all these sites. ( )

This is the first book of the series I have read and was quite surprised that I wasn't lost at all. The story kept my attention the whole way through and I never got lost. Thanks for a good read and can't wait to read more of Kimberly's books in this series. ( )