This addicting, action-packed series follows Cameron “Cammie” Ann Morgan, a sophomore at the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women. The Gallagher Academy’s reputation is primly negative, and the neighboring inhabitants of Roseville, Virginia view it as a school for “rich, snotty heiresses.” However, the students are actually spies-in-training, the next generation of agents who hope to be employed by the CIA post high school graduation.

Book One: I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You
While on a mission for her Covert Operations class, Cammie meets Josh Abrams, a normal, typical boy, who sees her, despite her rank of being a great ‘pavement artist’ and her distinctive aim to stay in the shadows. Cammie is known as the “Chameleon,” because she is average- not too tall, not too short, not too chubby, not too thin, not too anything- so she is able to blend in among a crowd of people, and specializes in tailing her subjects while under cover. With the help of her best friends, Liz Sutton and Bex Baxter, and her roommate, Macey McHenry, along with some brilliant heists and ingenious exaggerations of the truth, Cammie is able to develop a steady relationship with Josh, and sneaks out– using the school’s newfound secret passageways that only she knows about (being the headmistress’s daughter and all)– to see him on a regular basis throughout the school year. She revels in his normalcy and takes comfort in his regular teen dilemmas; I believe this is a big part of why she likes him: when she is with him, she is able to become someone she’s not, and abandon the careful, restless side of her that has been trained to constantly watch her back. However, things soon get complicated, as Cammie is forced to lie endlessly (and flawlessly) to keep her cover as a rich schoolgirl, and she soon learns that normal isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Book Two: Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

After the whole Josh-inspired mishap, Cammie returns to Gallagher Academy for her junior year of high school, only to find that the East Wing is strictly off-limits. During CoveOps the next day, the class is blindfolded and transported to the National Mall, where they are told to blend in and instructed to meet at the ruby slippers exhibit by a given time, practicing counter-surveillance. Only one girl in the class succeeds in doing this; Cammie fails when she is followed by Zach, whom she believed to be an innocently ignorant teenage boy, follows her from the elevator. Later, Cammie’s mom, Headmistress Morgan, announces that fifteen boys- Zach being one of them- from Blackthorne Institute for Troubled Young Men (Cammie concludes this is a cover, and they are also spies in disguise) will be staying at the Gallagher Academy for an unknown duration of time, in a sort of “one-way exchange program.” Cammie and her roommates view the boys as suspicious targets and decide to investigate, but the carefully-placed listening devices in their bedrooms, and the trackers in their shoes don’t prove useful. Zach always seems to constantly hang around Cammie, who doesn’t know whether to consider him infuriating or endearing, and ends up settling with annoying. When he asks her on a study date, she almost says no, but then uses it as an excuse to get information from him about his school, and his past. When the Gallagher Academy’s cover almost gets blown, and is in danger of being released, the girls- and the boys!- must work to make sure that their identities stay secret, no matter what the cost.

Book Three: Don’t Judge a Girl By Her Cover

When Macey invites Cammie to stay with her in Boston over summer break, Cammie accepts, and looks forward to watching Macey’s father accept his nomination for Vice President of the United States. But Cammie and Macey lead dangerous and twisted lives, and they soon find themselves victims of an attempted kidnapping. But luckily their in-depth training and fantastic espionage skills kick in, and they manage to escape along with Preston, the son of the soon-to-be President of the U.S. As their junior year begins, Cammie has a hard time focusing on her studies, and Gallagher Academy doesn’t feel like the safe sanctuary she once believed it to be. In addition, Zach is starting to make a habit of showing up at dangerous points in Cammie’s life. Coincidence? Or is he a piece of the puzzle? Cammie (Codename: Chameleon), Macey (Peacock), Bex (Duchess), and Liz (Bookworm) must dig up their field devices once again and harness their talents of espionage in order to discover who is out to get Macey and why, in this extraordinary novel of friendship, romance, and family. Continue reading →