River Heights #6 Lessons in Love and #7 Cheating Hearts

In River Heights #6, Lessons in Love, Samantha Daley falls for the substitute French teacher, Monsieur LeBlanc.  Sam seriously thinks that she has a chance with him and plots to get her dream to come true.

Karen Jacobs also has problems.  Karen is attracted to Ben Newhouse, whose girlfriend broke up with him.  Ben seems to think of Karen as just a friend, and Karen has no idea how she can change that.

With this book, the series shifts away from focusing only on Nikki and her friends.  In my opinion, the series is better and less stupid from this point on.  The series really hits its stride.

Samatha's attitude about the French teacher is ridiculous.  On page 70, Kim tells Sam that "there are rules against things like that.  He could lose his job, for one thing."  In the next paragraph, Sam wonders why they are saying "such horrible things."  She concludes that they are jealous.

I greatly enjoyed this book.

In River Heights #7, Cheating Hearts, Karen Jacobs has learned about a cheating ring at River Heights High School.  Students have stolen tests and are selling them to other students.  Karen could break the story in the school paper, but Ben tells her that she could ruin lives with the information.  Meanwhile, Nikki falls for Niles Butler, who will only be in town for a few months.  But does Niles like her?

On page 3, Karen overhears Jerry warning a student about the upcoming test for which he has just provided a copy.  Jerry tells the student that "whatever you do, don't ace it.  That would look suspicious."

Indeed.  My cheating students never seem to realize that, which always alerts me.  For instance, a student consistently makes failing grades on tests.  Suddenly, the student scores a 95% and somehow can get the correct answers to all problems by showing no work at all.  Whenever that happens, I give the student his or her very own test the next time, and the grade is then amazingly consistent with the earlier test grades.

I enjoyed this book.