The "State of Chaos" trilogy by Ezzy Black—Rebecca Danced, Anita's Rescue and State of Chaos—describes the lives of a group of teenagers. It's centered around Tony Smith, a wealthy, accomplished high school student, and his friends and family.
I seem to be reading a lot of books with the main character called Tony, full of remarkable talents. This Tony, unlike the narrator of Mural, is a confident, socially adept teenager, despite being a few years younger. He has inherited wealth, a musical talent, and is a licensed captain of a yacht. Despite all that, he is modest, kind, and to top it off skilled with the opposite sex.
To compensate for all that luck, Tony has some demons in his past. When he encounters Rebecca, a new student dealing with crippling medical problems, he jumps in to help. The plot evolves predictably from there, with romance as well as music.
Most of the major characters in these books are highly talented in one or more ways, as well as being just plain nice, too nice, really, for a bunch of high schoolers. That would remove much of the suspense, except the characters are so nicely portrayed that one really wants to see what happens to them. The author also drops in some plot twists and challenges. Even though we know things will go well, it's interesting to see how the highly fortunate, but inexperienced characters handle it. The later books have some darker elements, but the overall tone remains fairly light.
The secondary characters are interesting as well. Tony's love interest, Rebecca, and especially his younger sister, enliven most scenes they touch. Tina, the sister, is a musical prodigy of uncommon proportions; it's good that she is not the viewpoint character, since such talent is better observed from a more "normal" prospective of Tony, who is no mean musician himself.
As might be expected, music is a major part of Tony's and the crew's lives. Their progress in the books is remarkable, and the third book implies a great future for the friends.
All in all, the trilogy has a number of too-good-to-be-true elements, but the characters are colorful and at times vulnerable enough to intrigue the reader. The plot, while generally light, has good pacing and a nice number of twists and surprises despite lack of overall suspense. The next book in the series would be welcome.
The "State of Chaos" books can be found on here on Amazon.com.
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