The Summoning: Darkest Powers, #1 -- Kelley Armstrong

Fifteen-year-old Chloe Saunders spends a lot of time alone, as her mother died when Chloe was in first grade and her father is often away on business.  She looks so young for her age that waiters still automatically hand her the kiddie menu, and she hasn't yet had her first period.  The day it finally comes, everything changes, and not in good way.

She starts seeing people that other people don't see and hearing people that other people don't hear.  Due to her (very understandable, at least to the reader) freakout at school, after a brief hospital stay she is whisked away to Lyle House, a group home for disturbed teens.  It doesn't take her long to realize that the kids in Lyle House seem to have something in common other than being disturbed -- and that that commonality might have something to do with the secret history of the house...

The Summoning takes absolutely no work on the reader's part.  It's an entertaining, quick and easy read.  The storyline mostly kept me interested, but I was never fully engaged because the characters never felt all that well-developed.  It's the beginning of a series, and it does have that pilot feel*, which, for me, gets old fast.  I'm sure I'll read the rest of the series as it is released, but even with the cliffhanger ending, I'm not dying to know what happens next -- and a big part of that is that, well, it's been done.  I'd like to make a list of books of this type, but just throwing the list criteria out there would be a big spoiler -- so I'll put that up in the comments.

Oh, and the necklace she's holding on the cover?  If that's supposed to be the necklace her mother gave her... it doesn't even remotely resemble what was described in the book.

Regardless of my lukewarm-to-tepid meh feelings, I do think it'll be popular among teens who are enjoying the many, many urban and paranormal fantasy novels that have been appearing over the last few years and I think it'll also be a good pick for reluctant readers -- especially the ladies.

*Where everyone and everything has to be introduced.