One of the Girls by Paul M. Carhart

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When sixteen-year-old Jana Swain discovers flying rocks coming to her rescue while fleeing bullies after school,she knows her life has changed forever. But she could have never guessed what would come next. With the help of her popular cheerleader twin sister Jeni, her comic book-obsessed younger brother and her neighbors from across the street, Jana seeks to get to the bottom of her strange encounter. What she discovers is that she's somehow received, in her brother's words, "super hero powers." She can move things with her mind! With coaching from her siblings, Jana reluctantly takes the guise of PsyChick!",haphazardly using her abilities to fight crime. But she's in over her head and only her sister has what it takes to rescue the hero. Indeed, powers or not, only by acting together can Jana and Jeni become the hero that neither could have been as long as they both emained merely one of the girls.

Excerpt from One of the Girls

Jana reached out and twisted the first two cars in each direction sideways, turning them into roadblocks. The action was accompanied by the honking of horns.

The nearest driver rolled down her window."What are you doing?"

"Call the police," Jana ordered. "Tell them I have their robber."

"Look out," the woman cried.

The robber had closed the distance between them quicker than Jana had anticipated. He wrapped one ham-hand around her throat.

Her feet left the ground, this time not by her choice.

"I don't know how you did that," he grunted,the smell of egg on his breath. "But I want my key back."

He pulled a pistol out from his vest and pressed it against her temple.

The barrel was cold against her skin.

"Now, little costume girl," he rasped, "you've made your last mistake."

Then he pulled the trigger.

Thoughts on the PsyChick™ Series

The idea is basically The Parent Trap meets the costumed superhero. I thought, what if Clark Kent could be there at the same time as Superman? That was the kernal of the idea. So I started with twins, one with telekinetic powers who doesn't want them and one without powers who does want them.

I had all these ideas of how they'd get in these fixes where the one with the powers doesn't have the costume or the one with the costume has to use her wits instead of powers but, unfortunately, I didn't get to use most of those ideas in the first book. As I started plotting it, I realized that I was telling the origin story. So you really only get into these dynamics halfway into the story. Which means I expect to revisit the Swain sisters again.

I also realized that these characters weren't going to work if they were 50 years old. Thus, my first Young Adult series was born... by accident.

- Paul M. Carhart