Cortex has a problem. He is only in high school., but he’s already a superhero. Blame his family—his parents are both superheroes, and Cortex grew up going to parties with the finest (if aging) superheroes in the country. What choice does he have, really, except to become a superhero himself? But he has no nemesis, no supervillain, that he can fight against. What is a superhero to do?

Enter Meta-Match, an app where heroes and villains can create their own profiles and meet up (virtually) to see if they want to give the relationship a try. Cortex matches with V, a supervillain who has sharks with pets and has killed a lot of people. (In her defense, they weren’t very good people.) But as they start chatting, they seem to fall into a natural rhythm. This could be a match.

The more they talk, the more they realize that they’ll be good together. They coordinate a meet-up in real life to see if they can fight successfully while still looking cool. They share more of their life stories with each other. They volunteer some time at camp together (it’s to pay back their fight coordinator).

Everything seems to be on track for them to be hero ‘n’ villain together.

But when Cortex gets involved with a jealous girlfriend and V suffers a personal tragedy, will their relationship be able to survive? Or will everything fall apart?

Dear Hero by Hope Bolinger and Alyssa Roat is a fun, whimsical look at how teenaged heroes and villains might hook up in modern times. The way these characters develop through the story is heart-warming, and the action takes twists and turns you will not see coming. Told entirely through app messages and texts, Dear Hero is an epistolary novel like no other, and a superhero tale that brings you inside the real lives of teenaged heroes and villains in fun and unexpected ways.

A copy of Dear Hero was provided by the authors and Intense Publications, with many thanks.