You Haven’t Caught Jenny Pox Yet?

Jenny Pox by JL Bryan is one of those books I downloaded because it had a pretty cover, and it was free, and I thought, hey, why not? I’m a big fan of starting books and if I’m not entranced ten percent in, I let it go. Jenny Pox had me from the first creepy chapter.

Can I repeat creepy? I need to repeat creepy.

Here’s the Jenny Pox synopsis:

Eighteen-year-old Jenny Morton has a horrific secret: her touch spreads a deadly supernatural plague, the “Jenny pox.” She lives by a single rule: Never touch anyone. A lifetime of avoiding any physical contact with others has made her isolated and painfully lonely in her small rural town.

Then she meets the one boy she can touch, and her life begins to change. Jenny feels herself falling for him, but first Jenny must learn to use the deadly pox inside her to confront her new enemy, a girl who secretly wields the most dangerous power of all.

The book won a Red Adept Award: #1 in Horror for 2010 and was selected by Geeks of Doom for Top 10 Horror/Urban Fantasy Books of 2010.

Jenny Pox did what I love most from a book: took me on an emotional journey. The horrible horrors of human nature? Check. The frightening highs of young love in uncertain times? Sure.

You’ve got evil cheerleaders. You’ve got issues that make people uncomfortable. You’ve got big questions. You’ve got love. And sex. Questionable parenting. Scenes that make my eyes pop open wide and pay attention. And an ending that… I’ll be hard pressed to believe you guessed was coming.

The series (The Paranormals) is complete with four books, so no nasty waiting to see how it all ends. I should mention that while this is arguably YA, since we have characters in their senior year of high school, it’s intended for readers over eighteen. Grown up content, y’all.

As I am a collector of quotes, these are some of my favorites from Jenny Pox:

• “The thing about money was that it really gave you a chance to express your insanity.”
• “There was no point in smashing up her own heart by thinking about him, and about things that could have happened, had almost happened, if only the world had been slightly different.”
• “Stringy, pale, hopeless Jenny Mittens, whom nobody liked, but everybody liked to hurt.”
• “Jenny would never win the lottery, but she’d probably get struck by lightning.”

You can download the first book in The Paranormals series, Jenny Pox, free on amazon or Barnes and Noble, or wherever you buy ebooks.