Ally Carter’s Heist Society series is one of my favorites, so I knew that I’d want to give Embassy Row a whirl. Her books all promise twisty plots peopled with interesting characters, and they’re led by girl protagonists who are smart and a little prickly. All Fall Down introduces us to Grace Blakely, who is the prickliest of them all so far (and I mean that in a good way). Her mother was shot and killed three years ago, and Grace knows that it was a scarred man who did it – she saw him do it. The only thing is, no one believes her. She spent some time in a mental hospital, and now she’s been sent to live with her grandfather in Adria, a fictional European country. He’s the American ambassador to Adria and it’s important for Grace to be on her best behavior when living on Embassy Row with him. This, of course, is something Grace is not particularly interested in.

Carter does a really good job of portraying Grace, who narrates the story in first person. She’s traumatized by what she saw, she’s frustrated that no one believes her, and she sticks to her guns, though she does try to downplay it a bit since she’s supposed to be “healed” by now, three years later. But ultimately, she’s not someone to be controlled, and I love that about her. The setting is fascinating, allowing Carter to explore some real-world international politics while also inventing some her own. Much of the supporting cast is multinational (kids of other ambassadors and their staffers), which adds to the interest. And because this is an Ally Carter series, there’s plenty of mystery and intrigue. The central plot of All Fall Down involves Grace trying to find the person whom she believes killed her mother. She discovers it has to do with some fishy things that are going on in Adria on Embassy Row, and before too long she’s caught up in something way over her head. There are plenty of surprises, and the reveal at the end of the first book is heart-wrenching.

See How They Run (I love these titles) finds Grace still reeling from the revelations of the first book, but Carter wastes no time plunging her into another mystery, this one involving a centuries-old secret society of Adrian women. We learn a lot more about Adria’s history and there’s some good stuff about how women are often left out of the history books – and how the Adrian women have combated this over the years. This one is a bit slower than the first, but it makes up for it with a killer ending that I really should have seen coming but didn’t. I had to listen to it twice because I was so dumbfounded.

Narrator Eileen Stevens does a fantastic job. She makes Grace sound like an actual teenager – her voice isn’t so high that she sounds like an eight year old, but neither does she sound like a mom. When Grace is on an emotional edge, she makes us feel that too; it’s easy to get inside her head. Stevens is also great at voicing older women (and men too!). Much of the humor in the book (and Carter always laces her books with a hefty dose of it) is derived from the way Stevens reads some of the dialogue; this is one I definitely recommend on audio.

I think teens who liked Jennifer Lynn Barnes The Fixer would find a lot to like in the Embassy Row series (the covers are even nearly identical) – they’re both teen-oriented political thrillers with hefty doses of old family secrets that make great page-turners. I wonder if these two series will give rise to more teen political thrillers.