I Am Princess X a Fast Paced Scavenger Hunt of Life and Death

Imagine you created a comic book character with your best friend. Nobody saw it but you. And then your best friend dies.

Now imagine a few years later your comic book character starts to pop up on stickers and posters. And there's a web comic featuring your hero, in a story that's eerily close to real life events.

This is the situation May finds herself in when she returns to Seattle for the summer to stay with her father. Years before, she and Libby bonded over a character they created called Princess X, clad in a ball gown and red sneakers, and carrying a badass katana sword. May did the writing, Libby did the drawing. And then one night Libby was in the back seat of her car when her mother drove it off a bridge.

May never quite got over Libby's death. And now she's seeing Princess X pop up in unusual places. Her curiosity leads her to discover a webcomic, IAmPrincessX.com, that has developed a cult following of fans. Nobody knows who produces it, and it's buried behind layers of firewall protection. And the story begins with Princess X being rescued/captured from a car crash into a river. That can not be coincidence, and May becomes obsessesed with proving to the world that her friend did not die.

With the help of a "not quite as good as he thinks he is" computer hacker named Trick, May embarks on an adventure that takes her from abandoned buildings to graveyards, with a determined killer hot on her heels. Will May's theory be vindicated -- or will she become the next victim of the comic book villain known as The Needle Man?

A blend of Paula Stokes' LIARS INC with Scholastic's 39 CLUES series, Cherie Priest's I AM PRINCESS X is an edge of your seat thrill ride combining compelling prose with graphic novel (illustrated by Kali Ciesemier). It's 227 pages that I began with low expectations and finished in two equal-portioned sittings because I simply couldn't quit reading.

Girl power has a new hero. And her name is Princess X.