The girl’s body is marked with the number 10, which matches the first in a sequence of numbers that has mysteriously appeared on Nearly’s lab table in chemistry. The first leads her to the unconscious body of a fellow student that nearly had been tutoring in chemistry. An avid reader of the personals and “missed connections” column in the local newspaper, Nearly begins to notice strange ads that seem to be directed at her. However, Nearly’s plans to earn the scholarship are put on hold when she is targeted by a menacing stalker. Anh, Nearly’s best friend, has a slightly higher score than Nearly and seems on track to get the scholarship, but Nearly is determined to get her grades up and beat Anh’s score. Nearly and several of her friends come into conflict when they find out about a chemistry scholarship that ensures them a full ride to university and ticket out of poverty.

Her closest friends – fellow misfits Jeremy, Anh, Oleksa, and TJ – know about Nearly’s humble home life, but not about her greatest secret: she has budding psychic abilities and can feel the emotions of others when she touches them. She is ashamed of her lower class roots and her mother’s job as an exotic dancer so she attempts to keep both secret from the other kids at her high school. The main character, Nearly Boswell, is a teenage girl living with her single mother in a Washington, DC trailer park. Inspiration for the novels and their supernaturally-gifted protagonist is drawn from television procedurals such as Bones and Fringe, though with the plotting of a mystery thriller.

Both books are unique for their tone and subject matter, which is on the dark side for YA. A sequel to Nearly Gone, titled Nearly Found, which follows the protagonist as she prepares for college, was released in 2015. It was published in 2014 and is the first book in a series about a psychic teenager who finds herself embroiled in a series of lurid murder mysteries. Nearly Gone is a young adult mystery novel by Elle Cosimano.

Nearly found by elle cosimano