“The world of espionage is a fragile house of smoke and sand. It slips between your fingers, disappears into the air. From now on, illusion and deceit are your companions; intelligence and stealth your weapons.” Sixteen-year-old Nadia Riley is thrilled to earn a spot at an elite, government-funded boarding school. But Desert Mountain Academy turns out to be more than she bargained for. It’s a covert CIA program training high-achieving students for the Black Ops. Nadia starts the school year behind many of her classmates, and she struggles to keep up in Arabic, martial arts and target practice. Things get worse when she’s assigned to her team for campus-wide competitions, known as “survival courses.” Her Southern belle roommate, Libby, is sweet enough, but their prickly teammate Alan can’t stand Nadia, and suave Damon seems more preoccupied with the ladies than with winning. Plus, Nadia happens to have a massive crush on their team leader, Jack. These concerns take a backseat when news leaks of a double agent on campus. In an attempt to clear her name, Nadia discovers some unpleasant surprises about her classmates. Each of them is hiding something…and one of them is the deserter.

Hogwarts meets The Bourne Identity in this thrilling sequel to Desert Dark that keeps the twists and turns coming! With the trials of first semester behind her, sixteen-year-old Nadia Riley hopes to quietly rejoin her friends and complete her junior year at Desert Mountain Academy. But at a covert CIA school that trains high-achieving students for the Black-Ops, nothing stays quiet for long. In fact, the threats from first semester start haunting Nadia the minute she realizes she's being tracked on her very first survival course. Her pursuer is relentless. His agenda is frightening. And the intel he has on Nadia will put her life at risk all over again.