Product Description

When lightning strikes there can only be trouble - as Jessica Mastriani finds out when she and best friend Ruth get caught in a thunderstorm. Not that Jess has ever really avoided trouble before. Instead of cheerleading there are fistfights with the football team and month-long stints in detention - not that detention doesn't have its good points - like sitting next to Rob - the cutest senior around! But this is trouble with a capital T - this trouble is serious. Because somehow, on that long walk home in the thunderstorm, Jess acquired a newfound talent. An amazing power that can be used for good...or for evil.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #79960 in Books
• Published on: 2004-07-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

About the Author
Born in Indiana, Meg Cabot spent her childhood in pursuit of air conditioning - which she found in the public library where she spent most of her time. She is the author of the bestsellng 'Princess Diaries' and 'All American Girl'. Meg has lived in California and France and currently resides in New York City with her husband.

Customer Reviews

A girl hit by lightning, get's special powers
This is the first book in the missing series. It is for young adults like the others, and although I'm an old adult, I still enjoyed it. I finished it in just a few hours. Time well spent I think.

Read this series in order: When Lightning Strikes, Code Name Cassandra, Safe house, Sanctuary.

Mark E. Cooper
The Warrior Within

Brilliant!!!!
Jess is a normal girl, right? Apart from being a bit quick with her fists, which often lands her in detention. (but that's not so bad because she gets to sit beside Rob Wilkins, cute senior, during it.) Well up until she got lightening she was. But now because of the lightening all she has to do is see a photo of a missing person (like Sean Patrick O' Hanahan) and the next morning, after a nights sleep, she knows where that missing person is. give the girl a medal!!! she's a heroine!!!
but actually it's not so great. You see, her brother Douglas suffers from shizophrenia. It means that sometimes he hears voices. Little things don't bother him, but big things do- things like waking up to a horde of reporters, which happens when Jess tells 1800-Where-R-U the location of Sean and this other girl who were shown as missing children on the back of a milk carton. It's also not great when it turns out that she should have left Sean alone, because, you see, he and his mother are hiding from Sean's abusive father. Then even worse, the F.B.I are after Jess because they want her to join them and find more missing people. Only now Jess doesn't want to find more missing people unless she knows that they want to be found. But eventually, for Douglas' sake, she agrees to go to Crane Military Base where the F.B.I. want to do experiments on her. She soon gets sick of it so she decides to try rescue Sean from being brought home to his abusive father. She legs out of Crane and rescues Sean but that proves harder than she thought and they all end up locked up back in Crane. Time for some unorthodox action. Jess manages to seal a phone card from one of the lady at Crane (using skills she learned at detention) and using it she rings Rob who she likes and she thinks that he likes her. Or at least he did until he discovered she is only 16 and he is 18. But he must like her a bit because he turns up at Crane with all his Hell's Angels friends and busts her out of Crane. Jess knows what she must do. She gives Sean the reward money she got for finding the other girl and tells him to take it and use it so that he and his mother can escape his father for good. Then she frees herself by telling a reporter that she has lost her psychic powers. But she hasn't of course. That's only to get rid of the F.B.I. (which is really important cause a girl needs her privacy.)

Fun mystery
Sixteen-year-old Jess is a stroppy tomboy given to punching people who annoy her, conseqeuntly she spends a lot of time in detention, where she drools over gorgeous, hunky Rob Wilkins. But Rob is a Grit (a country boy) and Jess is a Townie, and they're not supposed to mix (I found this quite shocking, whatever happened to Democracy? whatever happened to All Men are Created Equal?). One day on the way home from school Jess is struck by lightning. She finds that this has given her an amazing supernatural power, she can find missing children, she looks at the pictures on the milk cartons, and then dreams exactly where the children are. She tries to remain anonymous, but soon the FBI are after her, wanting her to use her talent to track down wanted criminals. And then she finds that she has made a mistake over one of the missing children she located, he didn't want to be found, and Jess has to try and put things right for him. She needs the help of Rob Wilkins to save the boy. This book is not as funny as the 'Princess Diaries' but it is an exciting and entertaining story, and Jess is a very likeable heroine.I have to admit I found myself drooling over Rob Wilkins too, even though I'm old enough to be his mother, I do hope Jess manages to get him to overcome his scruples over their age difference (he's eighteen) and go out with her!