A New Day

StrikeForce, Book 1

By: Colleen Vanderlinden

Narrated by: Chloe Cole

Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's Summary

Superheroes exist.

Driven, honest, courageous...true heroes. They live among us, and all over the world, they save lives. Their stories are told in hushed tones to rapt audiences, over and over again, myths of epic proportions.

This is not that kind of story.

Jolene Faraday is the girl next door, the type of woman who will babysit your kids or lend you 20 bucks when you get into a bind. She takes care of her mother, works her way through college, and even escorts her elderly friend to church. But no one knows the other side of her story.

Jolene is also the Detroit area's most infamous, infuriating burglar, robbing the mansions of the wealthy and making a mockery of the law enforcement officials who vow that each job will be her last. She thrives on the chaos, the infamy, the pure thrill of every heist she pulls off. And then one day, it happens.

Across the globe, a new wave of ordinary people find themselves with superpowers. Some hide, afraid of what they've become. Some become heroes; others, villains. Jolene just becomes a better crook.

And suddenly, it's not just police officers after her. She's officially under the jurisdiction of StrikeForce, Detroit's supernatural law enforcement force, an agency shrouded in mystery. As her actions become more audacious and the world begins to see that she is far more dangerous than they ever realized, she finds herself on StirkeForce's most wanted list.

Which leaves her with a choice to make: learn how to become a hero, or embrace life as a supervillain.

©2015 Colleen Vanderlinden (P)2016 Colleen Vanderlinden

I did not enjoy this book at all

This is so far the only book I've ever refunded, and I have hundreds of titles in my library, I really found it that bad.

The world building and exposition is generally poorly thought out; there was an event which gave a few people superpower, but it's not widely known that it also gave a lot of people very minor abilities, yet the main character is genuinely shocked to discover this. In our world, when a piece of toast gets a weird burn mark shaped like someone famous it makes the news, how is it that people getting powers somehow didn't get reported all over the news?

The characters act a little like marionettes, in that they have no internal self consistency, they just do whatever the author needs them to do.
The characters often act in extremely illogical ways, for instance one character has the ability to control electronics, and uses his powers to rob banks, yet he has another of his team break open a vault BEFORE he decides to use his power and disable the systems, and no it's not some Machiavellian plan to incriminate his fellows, or an attempt to garner infamy.

The main protagonist is afflicted with the "I'm always right" syndrome, which wouldn't necessarily be a problem, if it was just a case that she thought she was always right; no, whatever snap judgements she comes to are always correct, and no this isn't her superpower.

All in all, I found this to be a terrible book.