The Naturals by bestselling author Jennifer Lynn Barnes is a murder mystery that will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout the whole book. Barnes earned the #1 bestselling author for her book The Inheritance Games in 2012 and has kept the position ever since and I could tell why when reading this book. The Naturals invoked emotions that made me feel like I was there in the book, experiencing it firsthand.

This book follows the story of a seventeen-year-old, Cassie Hobbes. Cassie can deeply read and figure someone out without even talking to them, the tiniest of details can tell her who you are and what you want. She lives with her father’s side of the family after her mother disappeared when Cassie was very young. She lived a more peaceful life with her family until the FBI asked her to join a classified program that used exceptional teenagers to crack cold cases. She’s sent to live with a bunch of teenagers who have gifts different but just as peculiar as her own. Everyone in the program aren’t what they seem as everyone holds secrets. And as if this big change in Cassie’s life wasn’t enough, she’s being targeted by a mysterious killer. Cassie has to struggle with the constant state of fear and the looming suspicion that this all has something to do with her mom.

The Naturals is a book where you can guess the killer or other mysterious situations and be proven wrong with all the unexpected twists and turns. It shows how past trauma can interfere with what is happening in the present, making it harder for those around someone can find them hard to believe. This book did a really good job at comparing love and loss and how trust has to be gained and not earned.

All the emotion expressed in the book makes it feel like you’re watching a movie as you realize you literally started sitting on the edge of your seat. There were a couple of times during the book when I was gasping for air because I didn’t realize I had stopped breathing during all the intense moments. There were so many emotions in this book, expanding from happiness, fear, and sadness; this book portrayed all of them perfectly.

I would rate this book an 8.467 out of 10. It made its way up to my Top 5 Favorite Books. I’d recommend this book to anyone who likes murder mysteries, the book A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, or any of Barnes’ other books.