Serendipity — Peter King

A restored mansion on remote Aotea Island off Auckland, New Zealand has burned down. Twenty people are missing but only one, 14-year-old Sam Kahu, has been found. Detective Sue Williams soon discovers Sam is unusual. He tells her he's psychic. Then, by saving her life, he proves it. But he also tells her he has his own UFO... A gritty and compelling story about an apparent orphan with a troubled past who meets a young lesbian police-woman in crisis. The two abandoned souls draw strength from each other to explore the mystery of why Renwick House burned down, but only Sam knows how deep and incredible that mystery goes. For Sam is not the only psychic teen who lived at Renwick House. There was also the beautiful but troubled Iranian Baha', Tahira; the hunted black Louisianian, Ashley; the calm white Zimbabwean, Scotty; the pretty Vietnamese, Cam; and the enigmatic Russian, Dr Gennady Prosperov. But it was only when Dr Prosperov's experiments transported Tabika from the safety of her own world that the extent of his conspiracy became clear.