Poor Emily!

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I loved The Hiding Girl, the first book in the Emily Calby series by Dorian Box. The relationship between twelve-year-old Emily who is on the run after seeing her family viciously killed, and Lucas, an older black man who makes fake identification, was so good. I was looking forward to continuing their story in The Girl in Cell 49B. For me, I think Lucas needed a bigger part in The Girl in Cell 49B. I thought the concept of Alice Black (Emily’s new identity) was interesting but at times dragged in the juvenile detention facility Rochachant. Emily was arrested on her sixteenth birthday after her finger prints showed that she was wanted on a warrant in Louisiana for the murder of Scott Brooker.

There were some interesting characters in this book that I can see in the cast of a third book. Alice/Emily becomes an expert in law by reading law books in her job to help the librarian at the detention center. I found some of the court drama a bit unrealistic. I do think as Emily ages, we could see her working with Paula, her public defender, and Leslie Tierney, the prosecutor.

This is a good read and lays some groundwork for future books in this series. Thank you Friction Press and Netgalley for an ARC of this book. The opinions in this review are my own.