MS Review – Best Friends
Book Title: Best Friends: The Orion Sessions by Cheryl DaVeiga
Category: Middle-Grade Fiction (Ages 9-13), 144 pages
Genre: Contemporary Middle-Grade Fiction
Publisher: Waterhole Productions LLC
Release date: April 12, 2026
Content Rating: G. Written for middle-grade audience.
At thirteen, Orion Casey has stopped singing—and it’s not because she stopped loving it. After the girls everyone follows start talking about her instead of to her, she’s finished performing for anyone.
Then the messages start.
Anonymous. Encouraging. A little too perfectly timed.
Someone’s been watching her—really seeing her—and part of Orion can’t help hoping it’s the one person she wishes would notice her back. The texts give Orion confidence she didn’t know she had—enough to discover songwriting and a new way back to her music.
But as friendships shift and secrets surface, Orion begins to wonder: when the way you see yourself keeps changing based on who’s looking at you, how do you figure out who you really are?
Best Friends launches The Orion Sessions, a contemporary middle-grade series about friendship, self-confidence, and learning what it means to sing—and live—for yourself.
Guide to Categories – MS Review – review of books for older elementary-aged and middle school-aged children
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Coming Next in the Orion Sessions Series:
Book Title: Stolen: The Orion Sessions by Cheryl DaVeiga
Category: Middle-Grade Fiction (Ages 9-13),
Genre: Contemporary Middle-Grade Fiction
Publisher: Waterhole Productions LLC
Release date: July 15, 2026
Format available for review: ebook (PDF)
Tour dates: June 22 to July 10, 2026
Content Rating: G. Written for middle-grade audience.
She finally found her voice. Now someone’s stolen it.
Thirteen-year-old Orion Casey arrives at songwriting camp ready to write, perform, and finally belong. Then she meets Ava Rae: TikTok-famous, confident, and exactly the kind of songwriter Orion hopes to be someday. When Ava Rae asks Orion to co-write a song for a real music producer, it feels like the universe finally has her back.
It doesn’t.
The morning after their late-night session under the stars, Orion wakes up to a post blowing up on social media. Ava Rae has uploaded their song — every chord, every lyric, every melody that was more Orion’s than hers — and claimed it as her own. Orion’s name? Nowhere. And the notebook with all the proof? Gone.
Now Orion is up against something she never saw coming. She’s been written out of her own story. And in a camp full of kids who worship Ava Rae, who’s going to believe her?
Stolen is Book 2 of The Orion Sessions — a fast-paced trilogy for music lovers and anyone who’s ever trusted the wrong person or had to fight to be believed.
Cheryl DaVeiga grew up loving music—singing, writing, and dreaming in melodies. Following that passion was never framed as a real option, so she chose a path that felt defined and practical, building a career in accounting and eventually becoming a partner at a national firm.
Years later, she found her way back to the music she had set aside, becoming an award-winning songwriter recognized by ASCAP and ultimately discovering the joy of writing children’s books. Across her seven picture books—stories infused with music, humor, and sing-along joy—her work has received award recognition from the Eric Hoffer Book Awards, Mom’s Choice Awards (Gold), Purple Dragonfly Book Awards, and Literary Titan.
But even as she wrote those playful stories, she knew there was another one waiting—one rooted in the girl she used to be and the voice she had tucked away. That story became The Orion Sessions, a middle-grade trilogy for kids growing up in the real world—with music, of course. The Orion Sessions is the series Cheryl wishes she’d had when she was twelve: full of music, friendship, mistakes, courage, and the journey of reclaiming the voice she’d hidden to fit in.
Cheryl lives in Tucson with her partner, Doug, and they spend summers in New Jersey. She still sings… like all the time.
connect with the author: website ~ facebook ~ instagram ~ bookbub ~ goodreads
My MS Review
DeVeiga, Cheryl. Best Friends. Waterhole Productions, 2026.
The Orion Sessions book 1
Cheryl DaVeiga demonstrates from the first page that she understands middle schoolers. Pre-teen and early-teen years can be challenging to navigate.
Orion, the main character in The Orion Sessions series, has the same struggles many in this age group do. Awkwardness, popularity (or lack of it), not liking their appearance, and more – Orion struggles with those. Orion is a talented musician but has given up music due to her struggles with self-worth. At the start of the book, Izzy is her only friend. Izzy is a great friend; the girls have been together for their entire lives. She also has a secret friend who sends her encouraging text messages just when she needs them.
DaVeiga included discussion questions at the end of the book. These questions help make the book a valuable classroom resource for literature circles or book clubs.
Best Friends has many elements (memorable characters, great plot, and more) that make me want to read more in the series. I look forward to future books.
Best Friends would make a great addition to a K-12 Christian school library. It is appropriate for upper elementary and middle school students.
I received a complimentary copy of Best Friends. This is my honest review.
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