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Kelly Brady Channick
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Asbury High and the Thief's Gamble: Asbury High Series, Book 1 Kindle Edition

by Kelly Brady Channick (Author), Susan Schafer (Illustrator) Format: Kindle Edition
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 94 ratings
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NEW EDITION!

Can four teens solve a puzzling whodunit that captivates their small town and baffles the police?

"Asbury High is a quick paced, Scooby-Doo-esque story that features a strong storyline and even stronger bonds of friendship. [It] is a mystery that will appeal to anyone that enjoys a light and fun sleuth story featuring a group of likable young amateur detectives." (Indies Today, ★★★★★)

Available in paperback!
Take one spunky valedictorian, one clever billionaire athlete, one gossipy in-the-know cheerleader and one technological genius, and throw a string of burglaries into their usually quiet, coastal hometown and what do you get?

A freshman year of high school, filled with intrigue and humor. What starts out as a fun hobby for the four friends, turns serious when someone close to the gang becomes the fall guy. Using their unique, individual skills, Maddie, Cornelious, Carly and Pilot embark on a mission to stop the crime spree and put things right.

Unfortunately, solving crimes isn't as easy as it seems on TV. The further they investigate, the more they find themselves constantly side-stepping tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum-like policemen, outsmarting local bully JB and his gang of misfits, and dealing with Cornelious' billionaire father and Governor—who has disapproved of his son's choice of friends for years. In addition to these obstacles, the foursome must also adapt to their evolving friendship with each other and their peers.

But with upperclassmen, teachers, and teammates vying for their attention, the amateur sleuths must work even harder to root out the red-herrings from the true thief, before it's too late. Asbury High and the Thief's Gamble is the first book in a young adult cozy mystery series, that fans of Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys and Scooby Doo will love.

TOP Reviews:"If you're looking for a read that'll keep you guessing, make you laugh out loud and serve as a reminder to the 'good ole days,' this is the book for you. Channick delivers a wonderful perspective on life as a teen, with some exciting twists that make the book a must read. She makes readers feel like part of the team and I personally found the details to be wildly refreshing and totally relate-able. Add this to your summer reading list!"

"This was a fun and quick read with clever descriptive writing and a plot that keeps you guessing! As the book delved into the lives of the core four characters, Maddie, Cornelius, Pilot and Carly, you learn about their own individual struggles in the divided town of Asbury and begin to really care about these characters. Asbury High melded the best of comedy and mystery together! I'm excited to see what comes next!"
Previous page
  1. Book 1 of 7
    Asbury High
  2. Print length
    219 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  5. Publication date
    February 3, 2020
  6. Reading age
    13 - 18 years
  7. File size
    1073 KB
  8. Page Flip
    Enabled
  9. Word Wise
    Enabled
  10. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  11. See all details
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0845LBTQC
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Purple Milk Publishing; 2nd edition (February 3, 2020)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 3, 2020
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1073 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 219 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 94 ratings

About the author

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Kelly Brady Channick

Kelly Brady Channick

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Growing up just over the bridge from Ocean City, NJ in Upper Township meant discovering plenty of fun places to both read, write, and run around outside like a maniac. In fact, for as long as she could remember, Kelly loved making up stories, and leaving her listeners/readers on the edge of their seats.

After graduating from Ocean City High School, Kelly accepted a basketball scholarship to Holy Family University, in Philadelphia. Upon graduating college, Kelly continued to live in Philly, teaching for four years, and meeting her awesome husband.

Before writing page-turners however, she taught first, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade — like a dessert menu, she simply had to test them all out. As her first published work, the Asbury High series has been brewing since she was 18, and has something for every type of reader--go ahead take look for yourself!

If you love mysteries, you've found your new favorite author. Kelly loves to craft whodunit mysteries, leading readers through various twists and turns filled with red-herrings, hidden clues, and more peculiar characters than a reality show. As an athlete, she hopes that the importance of teamwork and overcoming adversity, is also quite clear in her writing.

Kelly lives in South Jersey with her handsome husband, energetic baby boys, two cookie-stealing dogs, and an awfully smart cat. If you want to know when Kelly’s next book will come out, please visit her website at http://www.kbchannick.com, where you can sign up to receive emails providing updates for new releases, or contact her directly, as well as win fun giveaways, and receive up to date news.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
94 global ratings
Can’t wait for the other books in the series!
5 Stars
Can’t wait for the other books in the series!
Awesome young adult mystery novel! Intelligently written with humor throughout, this book is sure to keep any reader entertained.
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Top reviews from the United States

Joshua Grant
5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful throwback to lighthearted high school mysteries like Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys!
Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2021
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Kelly Brady Channick brings us a brand new cozy mystery set in high school with Asbury High and the Thief’s Gamble! Four friends begin their career in high school doing what they can to fit in. But when one of them is framed, the four must band together to figure out who really dunnit. I loved the lighthearted feel of Channick’s writing harkening back to the classics like The Hardy Boys! This charm and the endearing characters really made this one a fun read! If you love cozy mysteries and more lighthearted high school lit, come test out your detective skills at Asbury High!
2 people found this helpful
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5.0 out of 5 stars Teen Mystery With Lots of Laughs!
Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2020
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This is Brady Channick's debut novel, and I was very excited to read it! She did a very thorough job of world building and creating strong and unique characters. The relationships between the four main characters, Cornelius, Maddie, Carly, and Pilot, is absolutely adorable, and as a reader, I found myself rooting for them as I continued their story. Brady Channick has a great writing style. There is always a witty anecdote about a character that creates a great back story. Her sense of humor also shone through her writing. There were many parts of the story that caused me to laugh out loud-- whether it was a situation that the characters got themselves into or a one-liner that Brady Channick added to the narration. I can't wait for the next book in the series!
5 people found this helpful
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Crystal
4.0 out of 5 stars Teen Sleuth Mystery vs. Baffled Police
Reviewed in the United States on November 26, 2021
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What I like
I like the fact that there is a mystery going on this town and the police who are trying to solving the mystery are baffled to no end. Enter 4 sleuths who take on trying to solve this mystery.
I love the fact of intrigue, mystery, hilarity, fast paced, easy to read and how the book ends up. I also love the fact how the author integrated the characters. I mean I like how the author used a spunky tomboy, a clever billionaire athlete, a cheerleader and a technological genius in the book.
Recommend it and hope to read it in print sometime in the future.
One person found this helpful
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Tech Fan
3.0 out of 5 stars A Parade of Inexplicable Weirdness
Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2020
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Asbury High and the Thief’s Gamble is a teen-focused novel about four high school freshmen who take it on themselves to solve a spate of burglaries in their small coastal town by relying on the power of friendship, preposterous theories and dumb luck.

My biggest problem with this book is that nothing makes sense. The Justice Department is called in to investigate one of the burglaries with no explanation, while all subsequent investigations are handled by the local police. A restaurant run by the two best chefs in the country combines pancakes and tacos, and has a sign that’s visible from space. During Thanksgiving dinner at the governor’s mansion, a reporter literally leaps out of a closet — meaning he broke into the house and hid there for most of the meal — all to ask some softball question about how it feels to be rich. A teenage hacker gives every senior citizen in the country free healthcare … somehow. Sports in this town are apparently played with the Marquess of Queensbury Rules, as a soccer match is described as “a literal bloodbath” and a single football game requires six ambulances to transport all the injured players to the hospital. Maybe they should be the ones getting the free healthcare.

My personal favorite on the weird-o-meter: the governor hosts a Halloween ball each year, and attendance is compulsory for all Asburyans with the means to pay. Think about that for a second. This town’s council passed a law requiring people go to a party and then set payment thresholds for entry. Ignoring how this is all hilariously unconstitutional, it seems like a fantastic waste of time and taxpayer money. During said ball, underage workers covered in mud provide refreshments while smoke pours out of all the bathrooms, because I guess OSHA doesn’t have enough on its plate.

As you might expect for such a strange town, the adults in this book are uniformly bonkers. The governor is such a cartoonish villain that he makes Lucius Malfoy look like Mister Rogers. Cops threaten to throw children in jail. The parents of a 14-year-old girl are totally cool with boys sleeping in her bed; two at a time, in some cases. One adult sings the morning announcements over the intercom. A teacher uses a math equation to suggest that the parent of one of his students is a criminal, presumably just to torment the girl. The adults in this story aren’t quirky or buffoonish, which is what I think the author was aiming for. They’re clinically insane. It’s just fortunate that this mass delirium somehow skipped a generation, as their kids come across as comparatively normal.

Just to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with giving your story its own distinct reality, but to do that you need two things: first, you need to apply the unreality consistently; and second, you need to incorporate some kind of structure or rules to explain it. The author clearly adores the Harry Potter series, as she references it numerous times, so let’s use that as an example. J.K. Rowling drew a sharp distinction between the magical realm and the muggle world to explain how wizards and magical creatures could coexist with cars and computers. Wizards were under strict instructions to follow a code to avoid muggle detection. And the rules of magic there worked consistently. A spell that levitated students one day wouldn’t make them explode the next. But this book provides no such clarity or consistency. One minute, we see awkward teens trying to fit in at school. The next minute, gym teachers are carving Mount Rushmore out of spittle and AI-controlled kitchens are producing Pop-Tarts on command. I practically got whiplash from all the double-takes I did trying to make sense of this novel.

Additionally, this book has numerous mistakes: sloppy grammar, tensing problems, narrative voice changes, random capitalization, formatting issues, and improper word selection (e.g.: “whenever a fight broke out, everyone seemed to digress”). To be fair, most of these issues are minor, but since they occur every other page on average, they collectively add up to something major. All of this should have been addressed by the editor credited in the book.

Needless to say, I am not the target audience for this book, and you can make a reasonable argument that many of them won’t care about the issues I’m raising here. However, I would disagree. Young teens may not be able to articulate their disbelief in a small town police force serving an arrest warrant on a non-violent suspect without a shred of evidence at 2 in the morning (and somehow finding a judge willing to sign it at that ungodly hour), but they’re savvy enough to sense that something about that scenario is off.

I think the premise of this story has potential, but it needs to be rewritten from the ground up — with a different editor — and released in a revised edition to smooth out these numerous rough edges.

2.5 Stars, rounded up to 3.
6 people found this helpful
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5.0 out of 5 stars An Endearing Whodunit!
Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2020
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Asbury High and the Thief's Gamble is a story of friendship and growing pains with 4 teens who band together to solve a rash of burglaries in their town. Enter Maddie, Cornelius, Pilot and Carly, friends from different backgrounds entering their freshman year of high school.When Maddie's mom is implicated in the burglaries, the teens set out to clear her name while dealing with the social pressures of high school and the rift between the haves and have-nots. Smart, funny and insightful, "Asbury" captures all the angst of the teen experience while delivering an action packed whodunit with some surprising twists and turns. All in all, a delightful read. I want to know, is there really such a thing as a pancake taco and where can I find them?
5 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Sam
5.0 out of 5 stars Smart Storytelling
Reviewed in Canada on September 15, 2020
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Full of mystery and suspense, this story follows four friends as they try to solve a case of burglaries plaguing the town. Juggling high school and home life, they are still able to do what others can't, locating clues and figuring out things that had been missed. If not careful, it could end up leading down a path that some might not wish travel.

With unique characters who fit together like abstract puzzle pieces, playing off one another to beautiful effect, and plenty  going on at any given moment, the author paints a picture of intrigue, making for a well-paced story with a pay off that delivers. I was so happy to find out that this was only the first in the series, and look forward to picking up on the further escapades of Maddie, Carly, Cornelius and Pilot in book two. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys YA, crime stories, mystery and humour.
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Arti
5.0 out of 5 stars A genuinely refreshing, laugh out loud kind of book!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 7, 2020
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I thoroughly found Asbury High and the Thief's Gamble absolutely refreshing. There were many times where I was sat smiling to myself at the accuracy of the innocent and cheeky personalities of the high school students! Through the chuckles, there were many twists that left me working with the team as we tried to solve the mystery. I would definitely recommend, and look forward to reading the second part of the series.
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David E. Miles
4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 22, 2020
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If I am honest, I felt it started a little slowly but in the end I felt it was well worth persevering with.

I enjoyed the different characteristics of Cornelious, Carly, Maddi and Pilot and warmed to Cornelious and Pilot for the most part. Actually, they are fairly likeable with their own little foibles.

Once you get in to the meat of the book, it becomes a cleverly thought out mystery, of which I don't want to give any spoilers away.

Overall, an enjoyable read
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