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Juli Scott Super Sleuth #1
Mysterious Monday
Unable to accept the death of her policeman father, sophomore Juli Scott and her new friend Shannon are plunged into terrible danger as they follow a path of amazing clues.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
5 people are currently reading
38 people want to read
About the author
Colleen L. Reece
245 books37 followersCOLLEEN L. REECE writes under the pen name Connie Loraine and is one of Heartsong's most popular authors. Colleen learned to read beneath the rays of a kerosene lamp. The kitchen, dining room, and her bedroom in her home near the small logging town of Darrington, Washington, were once a one-room schoolhouse where her mother taught all eight grades! An abundance of love for God outweighed the lack of electricity or running water and provided the basis for many of Colleen's 140+ books.
Her rigid "refuse to compromise" stance has helped sell more than 6 million copies that help spread the good news of repentance, forgiveness, and salvation through Christ. Colleen helped launch Barbour Publishing's Romance Reader flip books, the American Adventure series, and her own Juli Scott Super Sleuth Christian teen mystery series. In 1998 Colleen was inducted into the HeartSong Hall of Fame in recognition for her contribution to Heartsong's success.
Her rigid "refuse to compromise" stance has helped sell more than 6 million copies that help spread the good news of repentance, forgiveness, and salvation through Christ. Colleen helped launch Barbour Publishing's Romance Reader flip books, the American Adventure series, and her own Juli Scott Super Sleuth Christian teen mystery series. In 1998 Colleen was inducted into the HeartSong Hall of Fame in recognition for her contribution to Heartsong's success.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 14, 2024
I have a vague recollection of reading this when I was younger but remembered very little about the plot. With my love for Christian YA series of the 80s/90s/00s, I thought I’d give it a try. I read the Kindle edition, which I have to say has one of the worst covers I have ever seen. It would’ve been better to have been a blank page with the title printed on it.
While I think the story premise is a good one the execution left a lot to be desired. This feels written for the 8-12 crowd, but the main character was 15 years old and read much younger. Not in an uncomfortably immature way, just inexperienced and innocent. It felt off to have her at 15, I think she would’ve fit better as a 12 or 13-year-old middle schooler.
The pacing was off – we meet the Scott family, our inciting incident takes place, and then roughly a year passes within a few paragraphs. During that time Juli meets Shannon and they become best friends. Throughout the rest of the book (which covers a few weeks time) their friendship is referenced as having a lot of history to it, which rings false for the reader because we know so little about Shannon.
Other things that stuck out to me:
As other reviewers mentioned, the misuse of “was” for “were” - it almost read as if a find and replace was run in the editing and made a lot of errors.
Shannon‘s misquotes of common clichés was supposed to be funny, but unfortunately became her entire personality, and each time she made a mistake everyone laughed until they cried, over and over again. That got old really quickly.
It was so odd to me that Juli’s mother always referenced Juli’s father by his first name when talking to Juli– she never said “dad” or “your dad” she always said “Gary Scott.” Perhaps there are people who speak that way and I’ve just not met them.
Lastly, this was billed as a Juli Scott mystery, and yet the “mystery” showed up around 40% through the book, and Juli had nothing to do with solving it. She had concerns about some suspicious things that were happening, and she interrupted the bad guy at the end of the book, and that was the extent of her involvement.
All that to say, I did like Juli and her friends and would be willing to try others in the series, though my hopes aren’t particularly high. I am a glutton for this genre.
While I think the story premise is a good one the execution left a lot to be desired. This feels written for the 8-12 crowd, but the main character was 15 years old and read much younger. Not in an uncomfortably immature way, just inexperienced and innocent. It felt off to have her at 15, I think she would’ve fit better as a 12 or 13-year-old middle schooler.
The pacing was off – we meet the Scott family, our inciting incident takes place, and then roughly a year passes within a few paragraphs. During that time Juli meets Shannon and they become best friends. Throughout the rest of the book (which covers a few weeks time) their friendship is referenced as having a lot of history to it, which rings false for the reader because we know so little about Shannon.
Other things that stuck out to me:
As other reviewers mentioned, the misuse of “was” for “were” - it almost read as if a find and replace was run in the editing and made a lot of errors.
Shannon‘s misquotes of common clichés was supposed to be funny, but unfortunately became her entire personality, and each time she made a mistake everyone laughed until they cried, over and over again. That got old really quickly.
It was so odd to me that Juli’s mother always referenced Juli’s father by his first name when talking to Juli– she never said “dad” or “your dad” she always said “Gary Scott.” Perhaps there are people who speak that way and I’ve just not met them.
Lastly, this was billed as a Juli Scott mystery, and yet the “mystery” showed up around 40% through the book, and Juli had nothing to do with solving it. She had concerns about some suspicious things that were happening, and she interrupted the bad guy at the end of the book, and that was the extent of her involvement.
All that to say, I did like Juli and her friends and would be willing to try others in the series, though my hopes aren’t particularly high. I am a glutton for this genre.
January 16, 2022
3.5 ⭐️ I read this one since my daughter was interested in this series.
Positive: The story plot was engaging for sure. I really think I would have enjoyed it as a young teenager or preteen if I had known they were around! There is suspense but the story is wholesome. There is a little “drama” like crushes but nothing inappropriate.
Cons: i am not sure if it was like this in the hard copy since I read on kindle, but there were many grammatical mistakes (but that was minor really in my mind since most were in the way the people spoke.”), the story line had a few gaps and was sometimes abrupt or I had to reread to figure out what was going on…
one thing I disliked was how the mom seems disconnected and decides to leave and go on a sleigh ride with the group. She has no problem with her 15 year old daughter staying at the lodge place completely alone with a 15 year old friend who happens to be a guy and she happens to have a crush on. The mom just seems disconnected and oblivious that they both stay back intentionally. Though they are staying to “investigate” and nothing remotely romantic happens, The author could have handled that better in my opinion (being a Christian book for a young teen audience).
Again the book as a whole is ok! The plot was enjoyable though somewhat unbelievable. Nothing immoral happens. It’s a suspense story with some junior high type innocent crushes and talk. I didn’t dislike it. I will probably read the rest of the series too just to check it!
I think though I would recommend more of the Cooper Kids series by Frank Peretti if your 6-9th grader is looking for a quality Christian suspense story. Those are really well written and are some of my favorites!
Positive: The story plot was engaging for sure. I really think I would have enjoyed it as a young teenager or preteen if I had known they were around! There is suspense but the story is wholesome. There is a little “drama” like crushes but nothing inappropriate.
Cons: i am not sure if it was like this in the hard copy since I read on kindle, but there were many grammatical mistakes (but that was minor really in my mind since most were in the way the people spoke.”), the story line had a few gaps and was sometimes abrupt or I had to reread to figure out what was going on…
one thing I disliked was how the mom seems disconnected and decides to leave and go on a sleigh ride with the group. She has no problem with her 15 year old daughter staying at the lodge place completely alone with a 15 year old friend who happens to be a guy and she happens to have a crush on. The mom just seems disconnected and oblivious that they both stay back intentionally. Though they are staying to “investigate” and nothing remotely romantic happens, The author could have handled that better in my opinion (being a Christian book for a young teen audience).
Again the book as a whole is ok! The plot was enjoyable though somewhat unbelievable. Nothing immoral happens. It’s a suspense story with some junior high type innocent crushes and talk. I didn’t dislike it. I will probably read the rest of the series too just to check it!
I think though I would recommend more of the Cooper Kids series by Frank Peretti if your 6-9th grader is looking for a quality Christian suspense story. Those are really well written and are some of my favorites!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 1, 2023
I mean it’s a good book but most of the time I got bored… and stop reading then I push myself to finish reading it.
April 8, 2015
This is a nice, clean book with light Christian references, however, it is in need of editing. The author consistently misused the word 'was' in place of the word 'were', making reading the book difficult and distracting. The overall plot premise is good however it is at times choppy and doesn't flow well. Multiple times I had to backtrack to try to figure out what location the characters had jumped to with no transition. Mysterious Monday is a nice story for tweens. P.S. Carolyn Keene, author of the Nancy Drew series, isn't/wasn't an 'old lady' writer. Carolyn Keene was the pseudonym for multiple men and women writers of that series and others.
May 31, 2016
This novella story was in the Forget Me Not Romance Collection 2 and this is not an author I know. This story written in a perspective of a teen girl who is at school with a friend Shannon who she meets after her dad dies as a police officer. No answers n many questions living under the cloud of getting on with life. Who to trust n believe? Who to confide in?
May 30, 2009
I loved these books as a preteen.. I've been thinking about reading them again.
January 18, 2016
This book was slow starting, but over all a good Christian book. I thought the end of the book was awful though.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews