You all know Carrie Vaughn from her popular Kitty Norville series. Well, this is a delightful change.  A wonderful late summer read.

What if: your parents are the superhero king and queen of the city—with their own band of other superheroes? And, you’re their only daughter? Annnndddd…..you have no super powers whatsoever.  Life can be just a little sucky.

Celia West is the adult daughter of Captain Olympus and Spark---superheroes extraordinaire who protect the citizens of Commerce City with their band of other stalwarts named the Olympiad.

Celia is a forensic accountant and works for a prestigious law firm. She has her own little apartment and her own life, thankyouverymuch. She is perfectly…well…normal. Except of course, she walks around pretty much wearing a ”kidnap me” sign every time she sets out on the streets. Especially after that little incident when she was a rebellious teenager and took up with her parents arch nemesis: the Destructor. Why did she do this---well, because she could.  But now, she’s bait for every two-bit well-heeled arch villain in the city.

This is making it hard for her to do her current job which is tracking down the convoluted financial trail of the Destructor who’s been finally caught and is going to trial. Celia just keeps getting kidnapped. Luckily not injured. But she hates the fact she has to rely on her folks for rescue, and the others of the Olympiad, especially, Dr. Mentis, who is a licensed psychologist and a telepath. He’s the one member of the group Celia can deal with without feeling like a victim or inadequate.  In her struggles, Celia finds herself attracted to detective Mark Paulson who is the son of the current mayor and her main police source every time she gets kidnapped.

The story moves along with terrific aplomb as Celia begins to find a thread in the Destructor’s finances, which leads to an abandoned building in an industrial part of Commerce City. A building Celia discovers is owned by….her father’s corporation (because every superhero needs a large independent source of finances—for all those super gadgets and…stuff!)

Ohh, and the tension ratchets up...and a lot of things are just not what they seemed from the outside.  This is a clever fun, and a fast read. A perfect novel to relax with on a long summer weekend.. ~~ Sue Martin

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