A Thousand Faces

A Thousand Faces #1

by Janci Patterson

In the world of high-stakes espionage, it pays to be able to change your face. And that's just what sixteen-year-old Jory and her family of shapeshifting spies can do-alter their faces and bodies to look like anyone.

Jory is in training to be a full member of the family business-when she can convince her parents to let her help with their elaborate cons. But when Jory's parents go missing on the job, Jory is thrown into a world of secrets, lies, and stolen identities that will put all her training to the test.

Jory's always wanted to be a member of the team-but saving her family may be the most difficult job of all.

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Young Adult, Urban Fantasy, Romance, Mystery, Thriller

293 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 20, 2015

About the author

Janci Patterson writes fantasy, science fiction, and contemporary young adult novels. Janci lives in Orem, Utah, with her husband, Drew Olds, and their children. Janci's first science fiction novel, A Thousand Faces, is available for free from all e-book vendors. Visit Janci at her website, www.jancipatterson.com, to join her reader's group for access to another free novel, her middle grade Searching for Super, only available there.

Reviews

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jory and her parents are shapeshifting spies. When her parents go missing, Jory decides to go find them with the help of her friend Khalif. Will she be able to find them before its too late? Read on and find out for yourself.

This was a pretty good action adventure thriller about spies and more. It is also a first of a trilogy but I decided to read it as a stand-alone. If you like these types of stories, be sure to check it out wherever eBooks are sold online.

[Logan · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I definitely liked it and would like to see more books with this sort of thought and interesting ideas.

The good:
The concept was pretty interesting and I liked how the author fleshed it out practically: certain individuals who have the ability to not just mimic voices, but mimic bodies. It plays to our natural love of acting.
Then the author recognized that there would be a need to determine who was real, so the handshake thing was cool.
The author also realized that an ability like this would naturally lend itself to nefarious purposes, particularly if your ability couldn't be well known for fear of being "studied".
The culture of being among 24/7 actors lead the main character to constantly question her boyfriend's sincerity. And that's a genuinely hard thing to gauge even in a normal person.

So I really liked how things were fleshed out.

The ending felt a little strange to me and not satisfying, unfortunately. And most of Mel's motivations (such as why would he keep his son a secret from his in-laws and was he really just a bad egg with no real motivation?) and the motivations of the kidnappers just didn't seem compelling. Maybe it was just me. However, the book was overall interesting enough that I'm planning on reading the next one, and it seems to be rated better so I'm looking forward to it!

[Layla ✷ Praise the sun ✷ · Rating 4 out of 5]

"When it came to impressions, trying to hard was the easiest way to fail".

Sixteen-year-old Jory is still perfecting her powers and about to pull through her first solo spie job as a shape shifter when we get to know her.
Shortly after her first job, her parents don't return from a supposedly easy job, and now it is up to Jory to make her way in a world full of lies and intrigues and rescue her family.

"To some extent, all relationships are about proximity. You don't fall for someone you've never met, and the more you're around someone, the more likely you are to like them."

While looking for her parents, a gentle, fun to read romance unfolds.

With "A Thousand Faces", Janci Patterson created a thrilling novel in an intriguing world, written with a lot of love, and with Jory, a fantastic heroine.

[Kayla · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book for my Kindle after Brandon Sanderson recommended it on his Facebook page, so I was expecting something totally epic. I was rather disappointed.

Jory is a shifter, someone born with the ability to change her body and face to look like almost anyone--male, female, old, young, short, tall, fat, thin--you get the idea. Her parents are shifters too, and so are her best friend Kalif and his parents. They make a living using their abilities to conduct corporate espionage, stealing technology and thwarting security systems of the rivals of whatever company hires them.

One day, Jory's parents don't come home from a mission, so she enlists Kalif's tech-savvy help to try to track them down. However, Kalif's parents think the teens will just get in trouble if they try to help, so Jory and Kalif have to hide what they are doing. But Jory and Kalif aren't the only ones keeping secrets, and the secrets they haven't discovered yet could get them all killed.

I have a couple of main complaints about A Thousand Faces. Firstly, it took forEVER for the plot to get going. I was pretty bored for about the first 50% of the book, because it was mostly Jory and Kalif sneaking around behind his parents' backs using technology to search for her parents. Yeah, there was a little bit of espionage where they used their shifter abilities to investigate, but it wasn't exciting.

Secondly, the attraction between Jory and Kalif felt forced and awkward. I didn't like that Jory was constantly second-guessing whether she could trust Kalif, and I felt like the way she was reading so much into every little thing he did was unreasonable.

Thirdly (and this might be my biggest complaint), the book took itself too seriously. A really good story, even if its characters are in dire straits, will have moments of humor now and then to keep the mood from getting too heavy. A Thousand Faces was lacking on that front. There were no moments that made me earnestly laugh, or even chuckle, really, and in my book (no pun intended) that is a cardinal sin.

One thing I did enjoy was seeing Jory break into that final secure facility, the one that was run by other shifters. It was satisfying to see how she beat the retina scans after having failed the iris scan earlier in the book. I appreciated that she gained better control over her abilities over the course of the novel.

On the subject of mature content: there's not much to speak of. Jory and Kalif get into a little bit of heated kissing, but go no further than that. There may have been a few mild cuss words. The violence is infrequent and moderate. Most action movies nowadays have more mature content than A Thousand Faces.

So overall, this wasn't a bad book; I just don't think it was fantastic. It might be that I set my expectations too high because Brandon Sanderson recommended it, so if you appreciate the technology aspect of spy stories you may end up liking it more than I did. *shrug*

[BJ Richardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely loved Janci Patterson's collaboration with Brandon Sanderson on Sunreach and ReDawn. So when Kindle Unlimited threw this book up as a recommendation, I jumped at it. I wasn't expecting a masterpiece. It is YA fiction after all. But it was a good fun break from all the academic reading I have been/will be doing recently.

A Thousand Faces focuses on Jory, a shapeshifter and daughter of two other shapeshifters. Her parents are corporate spies/thieves for hire and the Jory is just coming to the age where she can join the family business. In fact, the book opens with her performing her very first solo mission. This is an excellent way to introduce what they do and how they do it.

Shortly thereafter, her parents both get captured in a job gone wrong. Now Jory needs the help of her shapeshifter boyfriend and his shifting parents to track down and rescue them. Can she trust his family? But can she trust him? Can she trust her own raging hormones around him? (barf) Are her parents really the good people she thought they were? Jory confronts these questions in this fast-paced supernatural thriller (or is it low fantasy, or perhaps YA romance ((barf again)).

Normally YA isn't my thing. Especially not when the protagonist is a teenage girl. Unfortunately, 99% of all sff, YA, or any other fiction these days seems to have a female teen MC, so if one were to avoid that, then there really is slim pickings through what is left. To be fair, this is certainly up there with the Divergent Mockingbrats of Twilight if you are into this sort of thing. I probably won't be reading the sequel right away, but I'm positive I'll get around to it sooner or later. My next read from Janci Patterson will almost certainly be Evershore. Since it is released on December 28th, it will probably be one of the last books I read this year. Can't wait.

[One Man Book Club · Rating 3 out of 5]

Check out my Booklikes Blog, Dan Grover: Cover to Cover

The Value of a Star: Ratings Explained

This was a nice, quick read from an indie who's getting a shot a success because Brandon Sanderson gave her a pretty nice recommendation on his blog.

This is YA spy stuff. Jory and her parents are "Shifters"--they can change their body at will to look like anyone they want. They are spies for hire. Despite the moving around, the secrecy, the lack of friendships, and the constant worry about being discovered, Jory feels like her life isn't so bad. That is, until her parents don't return from a job one night. Barely experienced in the family trade, Jory needs to use all the skills her parents taught her to find out what happened to them and save the day.

It's well written and has an exciting, unique plot. I wasn't a fan of the ending though. I'm sure this author has aspirations to follow up with another installment to give some closure to her characters, and when she does I'll read it.

[Alicia McIntire · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a romance, not a thriller

I really wanted to like this book. Patterson creates an interesting world with a great premise, but the execution has serious problems. First off, this is a YA romance, not a thriller. Multiple characters' arcs focus on their love lives. Except, it doesn't have the build up and pay off needed to pull off the romance well, and it spends to much time on romance that it doesn't do the thriller aspects well either. Second, most of the characters are flat, especially the almost cartoon like villains. Finally, Patterson's style includes a ton of stage direction which constantly pulls the reader out of the story.

The world is cool, and the ending is interesting with real consequences for all parties, hence the 2. I can see an argument for 3 stars but not more.

[Alice Bailey]

This is a teen romance, sci-fi thriller (in that order). I really liked the overall concept of the book but I had to skip parts of the teen romance to keep it PG (can’t teen relationships be healthy and not just about hormones?) So, despite the fact that the story is very compelling, I won’t be reading the rest of the trilogy.

[Jon Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this as a purchased ebook on my Kindle. This book is this month's selection for a science fiction & fantasy literary group I joined recently. I have to admit it is not a title I would have been drawn to in the first place, since in general I shy away from books that feature a teenage protagonist. In this case the teen is sixteen-year-old Jory, who narrates the book. She is a "shifter", a person who is gifted with the ability to change her physical appearance and voice at will to perfectly mimic any other person (of any gender). Her Mom and Dad also have this ability, and the three of them work as a team for hire to perform industrial espionage. Their "shifting" powers are stated to occur in one in about every million people, so in the USA there would presumbly be a population of 325 shifters, give or take. Jory's family is teamed with another family of shifters (Mom and Dad Aida and Mel, with teenage son Kalif, who in addition to being a shifter is a computer whiz). They all strive to keep their existence secret from "the government", which would presumably experiment on them and dissect them to plumb the secrets of their abilities. It seemed odd to me that if shifters are so rare, here we have 6 together in a group, and two more appear later in the book, but whatevs. Events in the book start rolling when Jory's parents both disappear while conducting a routine assignment. Kalif's parents start to investigate the disappearance, but at a slow pace, so Kalif and Jory decide to launch their own investigation. Jory has a secret crush on Kalif, and it is amidst the blooming of their teen romance with its attendant tremblings and swoonings and stolen smooches that I started to skim through the second half of the book. The pair encounter treachery and intrigue and hairbreadth escapes at every turn before the book reaches its inevitable denouement. Other reviewers have classified this as a "young adult" title, and I guess it is, though it is not without some amount of violence and bloodshed. One aspect I did find enjoyable was that in keeping with its YA nature, there was none of the omnipresent swearing and foul language that is de rigueur in so much of today's sci fi writing. Overall, however, not my cup of tea. Three out of five stars.

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shape shifter spies. Very interesting concept. Good characters. Good storyline and a little romance. A little creepy to think you could never completely trust anybody, even family. I enjoyed book and look forward to the next.

[Mad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eher 3.5 stars

It was interesting to read about how shape shifting works in this world, but the romance-plot proportions were less than ideal. I felt eigentlich kinda tricked into reading this 😤

Still gonna read the sequel though

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this above average YA Sci fi because of it's take on what it means to be a shape shifter. I read this when it first came out and liked it but reread after I realized it was written by the Brandon Sanderson collaborator that wrote the skyward novellas that weren't terrible. Plus bonus points, so far no love triangle.

[Kimberly Vanderhorst · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was far better than I expected. I've started so many poorly written shapeshifter stories I haven't been able to finish, but this one carried me through to the end with brilliant worldbuilding and a concrete magic system that beautifully grounded the supernatural elements in the story. The pacing was excellent, and while this book isn't quite at mind-blowing five-star status for me, I give it a very high four-star ranking and recommend it as an engaging, thought-provoking read. I look forward to reading future books from this author and will be keeping an eye out for them.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

I slogged my way through about a third of the book and found myself dreading going back to it.

The shape-shifting structure and rules are somewhat compelling, but are forced down your throat rather than explored through exciting use of them.

The plot is predictable, slow and flat, but the sappy, unimaginative and unrealistic teenage romance is what killed it for me.

Perhaps this would be a good read for a teen just getting into sci-fi.

Enjoyable: 5/10
Honest: 5/10
Intelligent: 5/10
Uplifting: 5/10

[Rickh · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 Stars. The write-up for the book makes it seem like it would be more of a thriller but it comes across as more of a romance. Author spends more time describing minor details without fleshing out what is going on around the characters leaving them to operate in a "gray kind of world ". Needed an editor to identify the flaws for fixing before release. Could have been good.

[Peter R Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent

I enjoyed it for the most part. The ending was fairly dull. I'm not a huge fan of reading from the perspective of teenage girls. Worth reading but not spectacular. I would read a sequel. The premise is good and the story line is quick paced and fun.

[Dave West · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book after a FB recommendation from Brandon Sanderson. Boy am I glad I did.

This is a great new world with new magic and story in the YA Fantasy world. It's the best YA that I've read this year not written by Sanderson. Very well done.

[Katie O'Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unique and totally absorbing, this YA paranormal deserves a whole lot more recognition than it's received so far. Author Janci Patterson creates a new kind of human shape shifter - one that doesn't turn into an animal, but rather can change their bodies, faces, and even voices into other people. There have been aliens and robot terminators in books and movies who've had this ability - but a shape shifting race of humans? The concept and the world building the author invests is fascinating and utterly believable.

If you like YA paranormals and enjoy new twists and concepts, you need to read this well-written, well-executed story - the bonus being that it's the first of a three book series, and Book One is currently free, and can totally be enjoyed as a standalone, or as the start to a delicious new series.

Jory is a sixteen year old girl who's been learning the "family business" and is eager to take on more responsibility, although her parents aren't sure she's ready. The business? Corporate espionage, and the book starts with her first solo assignment, "breaking into" a high tech company by pretending to be one of the employees. Very Mission Impossible, but without the prosthetics or gadgets, because Jory and her family are shape shifters, who can mimic anyone's body, face and voice.

Shape shifters live in the shadows, staying under the government radar. Their existence is barely hinted at on conspiracy websites, and shifters are cautious about getting caught and ending up in some Area 51 vivisection laboratory. Needless to say, Jory's family moves around a lot. She doesn't attend school or have friends - only one other shifter family that they work with, who happen to have a teenaged son.

Kalif is the first shifter boy Jory has ever known, and he's somewhat of a tech genius. She's developed something of a crush on him, which her parents notice and tease her about. But when her parents don't come home from a routine assignment, Kalif is the only one Jory can trust to help her find out what happened.

Both teens have been somewhat sheltered by their parents, not allowed to participate in higher stakes missions or informed of some of the dangers of their world. Their parents think they're kids, and not ready to handle or execute anything of importance, trying to exclude them from investigating what happened to Jory's parents. Together, Kalif and Jory use their training to search for answers and conduct undercover ops that reveal uncomfortable truths for everyone.

This is a unique coming-of-age novel, told exclusively in Jory's first person point of view. The first-love romance between Jory and Kalif is sweet (nothing beyond kisses and hugs, and a growing attachment.) I think the book is misclassified as science fiction and should be YA paranormal, which would be a better audience for the POV and storyline. Because despite some tepid Amazon reviews, this is an awesome storyline, great characters, well-executed timing, and world building of a secret subset of society that doesn't rely on any apocolyptic shift in the current world, but layers right into the shadows of real-time America.

Obviously, I can't say enough good things about this book. Grab a copy and decide for yourself.

[Segullah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sixteen-year-old Jory and her family have a dangerous secret: they’re shape-shifters, paid to take on the identities and likenesses of anyone, to satisfy the highest bidders. Her family has recently begun a cautious truce with another shape-shifting family, working together in a series of assignments.

But when Jory’s parents go missing after a job, Jory enlists the aid of Kalif, her shapeshifting neighbors’ son, to help her find her parents. What they find, instead, is a mystery much closer to home, and in a landscape of shifting identities and lies, Jory has to decide who she can trust, before she loses her parents forever.

This book has some pretty amazing praise from NYT bestselling authors: James Dashner, Brandon Sanderson, Aprilynne Pike. I’m not sure it lived up to the hype for me (but I’ve probably already made my fantasy bias known). The prose was clean, and the story fast-paced and intense.

[Gloria DeGeare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Parents Missing, Exceptionally Intelligent kids to the Rescue

Wonderful build up to fast paced exciting climax. Shapeshifters as never before read about, makes it seem so plausible, and more scary the further along we go. Fascinating concepts of humans shapshifting into others, to test security or protocol issues of high tech firms, when a set of parents go missing. Jory enlists the help of her tech savvy friend Kalif to investigate and find papertrails, motives, and double crossing to find her parents. The paces quicken when they find they've been spied on and found out. Incredible turns and double-backs leaves everyone wondering who to trust. Great read, loved the believable characters. Hope there are sequels...

[Whitney · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure if it is, but this is one of those books that practically screams, "Good first effort." The author's instincts seem good-the writing is fluid, the fight scenes are clear, and the emotions are written pretty well. The concept is well-fleshed out as well. The big problem here is making sure that it isn't so self-contained. The MC keeps talking about people whose lives they've ruined, so it might have been nice to see that a little more. The villain, as others have said, was a little one-note as well.

The pacing was probably the area that needed the most work. That said, this was a free book, and on the better end of books I haven't paid anything for.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. The concept is intriguing- a novel about shape-shifters.

Wording was awkward in places, trying to sort out exactly who was doing what to whom.

I think the author needs to re-think the whole idea of what her version of a shape-shifter is and what they can and cannot do. Why is it that a shifter can shift to the appearance of a totally different person, yet cutting their face or getting a sunburn cripples their ability to shift. Why? Why couldn't a shape-shifter assume the form of an inanimate object, or just flow between jail cell bars or under doors? I don't get it.

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent start to a new series.
Janci Patterson is one of the better YA authors I like her work a great deal. In this one, it is a bit paranormal and thriller all mixed into one splendid read. There is a great deal of action that kept me glued to the book. I found the author’s plot really interesting shapeshifter spies totally new idea for me. The last chapter was heart-wrenching but I did like the very ending. I am looking forward to reading the next book in the series I want to know what happens to Kalif and Jory.

[Scott Wozniak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strong romance but weaker action

The romance portion of the book is very well written. It was full of emotion and believable. The action/spy portion of the book was less believable. There were some good plot twists, but I had a harder tome getting emotionally engaged. In retrospect, they were mostly summarized and not fully fleshed out. The ending was an exception to this and redeemed a book I was fading on.

[Brittany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow to get going (I almost put it down immediately because the author described the main character's breasts twice on the first two pages--maybe that's just a personal pet peeve of mine) but I'm glad I kept reading because there were some fun twists. I'd recommend it for fans of YA romance/sci-fi. I don't know if I liked it enough to continue in the series, but the author did leave some unanswered questions at the end for a sequel hook.

[Robbo · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s a thriller mystery horror love story. It’s got everything. Halfway through, I was getting annoyed with myself that I couldn’t read any faster! Very believable logic to the whole shapeshifting, I like how mass is different to volume, it’s little details like that, that make you embrace the whole concept readily. The plot twists left me dizzy at times, there’s no second guessing what’s coming next. If the other two books in this trilogy are half as good as this one, I’ll be a happy bunny.

[MGB · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting take on shifters- one I had not seen before. But if a shifter can become a werewolf, who's to say they could not become a different human being.

Unfortunately there is a back current of deceit, lies and thievery that detracts from the story. Other than that it was a very interesting plot and development. A young heroine and her nerd accomplice come through, but not as we would have hoped. I was left a bit sad and disappointed.

[Bernadette Hutton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shifting through the book in no time

What a book. Two shifting families. A mix of good and bad in both. One family who changed their ways and the other had more problems than they thought. A psychiatrist would have a field day! The main characters are both teenagers. Hormones, family rules and bad guys trying to kill them. Not knowing who to trust even the parents.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars

This book was actually quite good. Took me a little while to get into, but the story was different and thrilling. I didn’t think this would be a series, not sure if it is, but it ended in such a way that makes me want to find out what happens next in their next chapter of life. Jory’s dad seemed cool, not her mom though.

[Karl Hakimian · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting premise that was well executed. The characters we enjoyable, the plot kept me interested and the details on how their world worked was fascinating.

Their moral code and the conflicts, both internal and external, that resulted made the characters easy to relate to. All in all, a fun read.