Twelve

The Naturals Novella

By: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Narrated by: Amber Faith

Length: 3 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

Dive back into the world of The Naturals in this novella from Jennifer Lynn Barnes, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Inheritance Games.

Cassie Hobbes has been working with the FBI since she was a teenager. Now twenty-three years old, she and her fellow Naturals have taken over running the program that taught them everything they know. As a unit, they're responsible for identifying new Naturals—and solving particularly impossible cases. When their latest case brings back a ghost from their past, Cassie and the other Naturals find themselves racing against the clock—and reliving their own childhood traumas.

In a small coastal town in Maine, there has been a rash of teen suicides—or at least, that's what the police believe. Mackenzie McBride, age twelve, thinks differently. Desperate to make herself heard, she stands at the top of a lighthouse, threatening to jump . . . unless the FBI agents who rescued her from a kidnapper at age six come to hear her out. Enter the Naturals. It doesn't take Cassie long to realize that Mackenzie isn't bluffing: she truly is convinced that the suicides are murder, and she really will jump if she can't get the FBI to believe her. To the outside world, Mackenzie is nothing more than a traumatized child. But so was Cassie, once upon a time. So were Michael, Dean, Sloane, Lia, and Celine. With a storm rolling in off the ocean and Mackenzie's position becoming more precarious by the moment, the Naturals have very little time to get to the truth about the deaths—and about twelve-year-old Mackenzie McBride.

©2017 Jennifer Lynn Barnes (P)2023 Little, Brown Young Readers

Almost perfect

I read all the other books of this series but when I had an eye injury and couldn’t read I decided to listen to this one. It was the perfect length not too long but enough that a plot could develop it was nice to be back in this world and it was a better spin off then I expected

Great End to a Great Series

With Criminal minds being one of my favorite tv shows and a young adult, I was drawn to this book series out of relatability and curiosity. I was intensely captured with the way the stories in all 5 of the Naturals books were spun and the great deal of background information needed to know for this series to flow as well as it did!

Something I really appreciated was the how the narrator, Amber Faith, did not falter when it came to consistency of the voices, not only throughout a single book but through the entirety of the “Naturals” series. She did an amazing job when it came to the emotional aspect of each character and their different backgrounds. It was very audibly pleasing to have the same narrator throughout the series and makes the books so much more cohesive and compelling for readers such as myself.

I selfishly wish there were more books in this series, to see what had happened to the two brothers in Texas and to see how well the Naturals program is faring with new recruits. However, I do look forward to reading the next Jennifer Lynn Barnes book series, The Inheritance Games.