Anna lives with four boys who are not her brothers ck, the brooding bad boy; Trev, the thoughtful intellectual; Cas, the carefree jock; and Sam, their mysterious leader. What sounds like a lighthearted shojo manga in novel form is actually a rapid-fire thriller as Sam leads the escape from the farmhouse, where all four genetically altered boys were imprisoned in the basement. The boys, who don't remember anything about their lives before they were imprisoned, take Anna hostage as insurance, and slowly, Anna and the boys begin to piece together the true nature of their relationship. This exciting debut novel does not break any new ground, but it provides enough twists and turns to keep readers engaged and wondering if there will be a next volume. Fans of the Hunger Games and Maze Runner series seeking more dystopian titles would likely enjoy this new adventure.

Ignore the shaky start--within minutes, this medical-engineering thriller will have readers glued to their seats. In the farmhouse upstairs, Anna and her widower dad lead a quiet life. Downstairs, the four surgically altered boys whom Anna has tended and her dad has studied for five years live in comfortable, isolated cells. Home-schooled Anna is isolated, too, her mother's treasured, annotated cookbook their only connection. Though Anna's attached to the boys, even sullen Nick, Sam is the one she sneaks down to see at night. She knows the boys are human lab rats in a project run by the Branch, a private company funded by the government, and dreams of freeing them, but it's Sam who masterminds their escape when Branch agents show up to end the project. Urged by her dad, the boys take Anna with them. With no memory of life before the farmhouse and few clues to guide them to safety, their quest to understand what has happened to them yields fewer answers than questions, especially for Anna, whose own memories increasingly appear suspect. In the desperate race to find answers before the Branch agents find them, Anna clings to what she knows is true: her love for Sam. A surfeit of casual violence detracts from the ending, but this debut's strengths--pacing and plot twists, especially--outweigh the deficits. Riveting. (Science fiction. 12 & up)

Anna's father has a secret lab in their basement where he experiments on four superhuman teenage boys who have no idea who they used to be. When the boys break out, Anna goes with them and discovers that her past is connected to theirs. This science-fiction mystery will captivate fans of The Bourne Identity and other fast-paced thrillers.

Gr 8 Up-Four hot guys are locked in rooms below Anna's house: Trev (literary, erudite, yoga practitioner); Cas (artistic, funny, sporty); Nick (cynical, grouchy, vain); and Sam (caring, agile, a leader). Now 18, Anna has interacted with "the units" imprisoned in her father's underground lab for five years, and when she's not being homeschooled, baking cookies, or doing combat training, she helps with blood draws and data collection, occasionally sneaking down for midnight chess games. She's developed special ties with Trev and Sam, and a crush is turning into love. The action kicks in when representatives from the Branch (the secret organization overseeing project OP ALPHA) arrive to take the boys to a new location. They turn the tables, kill most of the Branch team, and flee with Anna as willing accomplice. The science behind the "altering" process is vague. Rush often tells readers that the information is "classified," but she does reveal that experiments in genetic alteration have given the boys a special connection and made them "more than human." Their memories were wiped clean in the process, leading to puzzles dealing with coded scars and tattoos. Those expecting hard science fiction will be disappointed, but readers seeking a "teens on the run" plot featuring surprising twists and turns, romantic entanglements, hard stomachs and curved muscles, and innocent-but-mischievous smiles will come away satisfied. Maggie Knapp, Trinity Valley School, Fort Worth, TX