Changels Genesis Series

Sam Kahu, 14, has been haunted all his life. First by his dead mother, then by his very alive and dangerous father. But now the young Maori has more pressing problems: his home has burned down and all his friends, and remaining family have vanished in mysterious circumstances. The police have a lot of questions because his home was a large mansion on a remote island, and the man who leased it - Dr Gennady Prosperov a Russian millionaire - has a history of dodgy financial trading, and a certain fascination for UFOs. But two things are more interesting to Sam at the moment. The first is that the young policewoman opposite him has no idea that her lover has dumped her and she is about to suffer terrible heartbreak, and the second is that it won't be long before they send agents to try and abduct him and extract the incredible secrets in his brain. For Sam although Sam is a teenager with family, bully, and girlfriend problems, he is also a Changel; one of six psychic teens, trained and equipped to find and safeguard the future leaders of our planet, in the world's most dangerous places. Nor is Sam's life, riven by gangs and death, all that remarkable compared to the others. Tarik Gursoy is a Kurd, on the run from Ergenekon, the secretive Turkish deep state; Ashley Robinson's world was torn in half by Hurricane Katrina and the Sinaloa drugs cartel; Tahira Khadem had to flee Iran when her father was judicially murdered for being Baha'i; Scott Khumalo's blended family has escaped Zimbabwe; and Cam Tran, the Vietnamese boat child lost her mother to pirates in the South China Sea. But it is not the obvious dangers of life on Earth which threaten Sam and his friends. For as they have searched the world they have discovered there are others here too. Others with different agendas, and they are decidely not friendly. Initiation is part one of Changels Genesis and not a complete story. Changels Genesis is a single 1,900 page story in six book-sized parts. Each part is not a self-contained story but a part of the organic whole. I liken the read to climbing a mountain rather than running over a series of hills. There are steep scary parts and there are gentle hidden valleys. There is excitement but also views and flowers on the way. Only as you reach the summit does the scale of the whole become fully apparent, making the base jump at the end all the more fun.

Part 2 of Book 1 (Serendipity) The Weaving tells five stories It tells the stories of Tarik Gursoy, a young Kurd, whose father became embroiled in Turkish politics which cost Tarik the life of his mother and sister at the hands of Ergenekon. It tells the story of Scott, a white Zimbabwean boy, whose father's efforts to preserve the past simply contributed to the disaster of Zimbabwe, and how Scott ended up with his step-father, Bernard Khumalo. It tells the story of Ashley Robinson who grew up in New Orleans and how her family which was split over disagreements on civil rights was united by a hurricane that put her remaining family to flight. And Sam tells the story of his growing romance with Emma, the girl next door on Aotea. And it tells the story of Gennady Prosperov, an electrical genius to rival Nikolai Tesla, who's career in the Soviet Union, led him to form a theory of the paranormal which has become his life's work.

In Renaissance Sam tells Sue how Dr Prosperov's secret plan to use the psychic teens as super-secret agents went down with their parents. How the base beneath Renwick was built and the children trained to use their amazing technology. It tells the story of how Sam's romance with Emma fizzled under the onslaught of the community's secret but how his relationship with his Iranian work partner, Tahira, flourished. And in the present it tells how Sam manages to whisk Sue to safety from the clutches of the mind- controlling alien infiltrator Father Rocelli.

From the safer safe-house Sam recalls shock the teens felt as they sought to rescue a girl child-soldier in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a Moldovan girl as she follows her sister into danger abducted by human traffickers, and Nathan Robinson, a black boy living with his alcoholic mother in Washington DC. It tells how Sam's father tracked his children down to Aotea island and revealed to Sam the motive behind his mother's murder. But most important it tells the story of how the Changels discovered they are not the only force on Earth influencing human destiny and the alien infiltrators, the Bruderschaft are single-minded and utterly ruthless in using humanity for their purpose.

Detective Sue Williams finds there are no limits to the battle between Sam's friends and the secret alien infiltrator society called Die Bruderschaft. Even her own brain becomes a battlefield as the enemy tries time and again to destroy the Changels - Earth's secret resistance once and for all. But as Sam's ongoing story reveals the dimensions of this conflict have no limits.

Capturing one of their enemies Sue and Sam interrogate him and are almost killed when he escapes. However the information allows Sue to work out how the Changels were almost caught previously. Unfortunately their effort to dispel the mystery of the original house fire is intercepted by the Administration and used against the Changel's families. Anticipated at each turn the Changels are almost caught. At the same time the Bruderschaft is using the distraction to launch a new plague. Driven into a corner the Changels are ultimately left with no option but to fight.