My Thoughts: I am a fan of Kate Kaynak’s Ganzfield series, I loved Minder and Adversary, but the 3rd book Legacy left me disappointed. I expected more, I expected that thrill and elation the first 2 books made me feel and Legacy left me lukewarm. So I started Accused, the 4th book in the series with a bit of trepidation: I wanted it to be just as awesome as the first two books were but feared to be left down. Thankfully my fears were for naught, because Kate Kaynak is back and Accused was just as mindblowingly fantastic as Minder!

Accused picks up where Legacy left off: before dying Isaiah sent in an e-mail a link to some video footage incriminating the Ganzfield folks and displaying their unique abilities to the media and other high placed military contacts. Maddie and co. were able to intercept almost all of the e-mails except two which went out to some unidentifiable top dog military leaders.

Kate Kaynak floored me with the pace she kept all through the novel: Accused starts pretty much with a  bang and from then on she never lets up the pressure, the tension is always there, drumming in the background.

I loved that despite the almost constant fast paced and nail-biting action, equal stress was put on the emotional development of Maddie and Trevor, both as individual characters and as a couple. I loved this side of Minder and was sad to miss it in later books, but in Accused Kate Kaynak brings us so many life changing moments and events that one can only blink and curiously await how it will change the characters and their relationships. Accused was an emotionally incredibly intense story: from Maddie’s fear in imprisonment, her efforts to surmount the torture she had to suffer, to Trevor’s way of dealing with what happened to Maddie, they were all written so realisticly, that reading about their struggles and suffering was a very intense and raw experience. (I’m saying this in the best possible way! Kate Kaynak made me sweat, swear, tear up and feel for her characters.) Of course don’t fear there are just as many wonderfully sweet and tender, touching scenes!

But I absolutely must state that besides the very emotional and at times dark scenes the novel is full of humour. The characters’ thoughts and dialogues will make you chuckle and lighten up the story:

“Hey, it’s Treddie!” Drew jumped up from a  table of sparks.

Ugh. I smiled at him, glad to be able to focus on his exuberant thoughts. Treddie? That sounds like a repulsively cute kid’s toy. If you must, go with “Madvor”. At least that sounds like something that would’ve fought Godzilla.

Another aspect for which I have to applaud Kate Kaynak is the way she approached and wrote about sex, intimacy, teen pregnancy, STDs, etc. in a YA novel. She didn’t shy away from talking/writing about sex but did it in a responsible and realistic way.

And to conclude here is a line from one of the characters, which I think perfectly sums up everything that happens in Accused:

(Seth:) It’s like a damn soap opera around here these days. Everyone’s falling in love or dropping into comas or getting arrested for murder. Blech! All we need is an evil twin or something.