The Naturals

The Naturals is a young-adult psychological thriller by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, first published in 2013 and the opening book of a four-book series. It follows seventeen-year-old Cassie Hobbes, who has an extraordinary talent for reading people, piecing together tiny details to figure out who someone is and what they want. When the FBI recruits her into a classified program that uses exceptionally gifted teenagers to crack infamous cold cases, Cassie is sent to live and train alongside a group of teens whose abilities are as unusual as her own.

As Cassie settles into the program, it becomes clear that no one among the Naturals is quite what they seem, and when a new killer begins to strike, the danger turns from cold-case theory into a very real threat. The teens must rely on their combined gifts, profiling, lie detection, emotion reading, and statistics, as they are drawn into a lethal game of cat and mouse. The book blends a crime-solving procedural with the interpersonal tensions and romance of a group of talented, secretive teenagers.

The novel taps into the popular appeal of criminal profiling and cold-case investigation, drawing comparisons to shows like Criminal Minds, while centering teenage protagonists. It launched a bestselling series and was recognized on YALSA's Best Fiction for Young Adults list, helping establish Barnes as a prominent voice in YA thrillers years before her later success with The Inheritance Games.