Bridge of Souls

 

 By Victoria Schwab

Cassidy Blake, Book Three

Third story in the triology finds Cassidy, her ghost friend Jacob and her parents in New Orleans where her parents are working on new episode for their video ghost story series.

Of course a place like New Orleans is going to have a lot of haunted locations and ghosts. But it isn't a ghost that Cassidy runs afoul of, it an Emissary of Death, who has come to take Cassidy back to the place of the dead. She actually got a glimpse of this being at the end of the second book in the series, Tunnel of Bones, where it appeared to her as a person dressed all in black and wearing a skull mask. 

Cassidy is in serious danger but fortunately a magical society in New Orleans and her friend Lara from Scotland and Jacob, of course, are there to help. But even all that help may not be enough to save her from Death's Emissary. Who is really angry that Cassidy escaped death when she nearly drowned. 

I didn't care for this premise. Maybe because I'm old and haven't much time left on this earth. But lifetimes are so short. Why is Death so impatient? In a few short decades, Cassidy will be dead. Death is eternal. Even the sun will eventually die, at least that is what science tells us. In the billions of years that the universe has existed, the lifespan of a human being is virtually nothing. Death needs to chill. Cassidy will be there soon anyway. I just couldn't buy into the idea that Death was so outraged by Cassidy not drowning that it had to send an Emissary to drag her to the land of the dead. Nah.

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

Tunnel of Bones

 

By Victoria Schwab

Cassidy Blake, Book Two

We first met Cassidy and her ghostly friend Jacob (the ghost boy who saved her from drowning) in Edinburgh, Scotland where Cassidy nearly died when she was attack by a desperate ghost woman. While in Scotland, Cassidy made the acquaintance of Lara, a girl about the same age as Cassidy who also has the ability to sense and perceive ghosts. Lara taught her a lot about this ability that Cassidy acquired only after nearly dying.

Cassidy's parents have finished with their work in Scotland and are off to Paris, France, to film another in their videos about ghosts and haunted locations. Neither of her parents can perceive ghosts and even though Cassidy has told them she can, they don't believe her and dismiss her claims about Jacob as being an imaginary friend.

Paris is an ancient city and has its share of ghosts and haunted locations, one of which is surely the Catacombs. It is one of the locations her parents are planning to film and the parents bring Cassidy along enjoy a private tour of this massive underground storage depot of human bones. But, with her usual bad luck, Cassidy attracts the attention of a poltergeist. And this poltergeist follows her out of the Catacombs and starts causing mischief, as poltergeists are wont to do. It's their thing. 

Trying to deal with this poltergeist, Cassidy discovers that the mirror trap trick that she learned from Lara doesn't work on this poltergeist. Lara thinks it is because it has been dead for so long it has forgotten who it is and until it remembers, the mirror trap won't work. The poltergeist will continue to rampage in Paris until Cassidy can find out who it was, how it died and reveal those details to it and then deal with it and send it to its eternal destination.

This was an OK story. I find that Cassidy is a little too precocious for a twelve year old and I would like her better if she was a teen and not an adolescent. She is very sneaky and a liar, both things she probably wouldn't have to do and be if she were four or more years older in the stories. Also she makes friends with a young girl and Cassidy is able to display her ghostly talents quite easily to this child but somehow can't convince her own parents?

Anyway, kids and young teens probably would enjoy this series a lot.

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

City of Ghosts

By Victoria Schwab

Cassidy Blake, Book One.

Cassidy Blake nearly died drowning. But she was rescued by a boy who became her best friend, Jacob. And ever since that near-death experience, Cassidy can sense and see ghosts. The first ghost she ever saw was Jacob. Jacob was already a ghost when he saved her from drowning.
Now Cassidy's parents are traveling to Edinburgh, Scotland to film a TV show and Cassidy will be with them along with Jacob the ghost who has attached himself to her. How and why he has done this, he can't or won't
say. But Cassidy doesn't mind since Jacob is the only friend she has.
Together the two teens, one living and one dead, will take on one of the most haunted cities in the world, Edinburgh, with the help of local teen,
Lara, the ghost hunter.

This was an okay story. Intended for teens and older children, it was a fast and easy read. This book is the first in a series. Although this first book was okay, I didn't find it interesting enough to continue on with the series. It ought to appeal to its intended audience, though.

Review by Kirkus Reviews.

Vicious

By V.E. Schwab

Two college boys, Eli and Victor have a secret project. They want to become EOs: people with Extra-Ordinary powers. Their research led them to try a dangerous experiment and Eli ended up dead, but only briefly. When he was revived, he revived with an extra-ordinary ability: he automatically healed from any injury. As time passed, it became apparent that he was ageless too. But despite his apparent resurrection, Eli felt he not the same person, that something basic was missing. He became convinced that people brought back from death were unnatural and wrong and he set out on a new mission in life. He would hunt down and kill all those revived from a near death experience who came out of it with an extraordinary ability.
But before Eli left college to go hunting and murdering, there was Victor. Victor had been the first to undergo the experiment, but in his case it didn't work. So he tried again, against Eli's wishes. He enlisted the help of his ex-girlfriend (and now Eli's girlfriend) but the procedure didn't go as planned. The girlfriend ended up dead and Victor, framed by Eli, in prison for her murder. But Victor did get a super-power out of it, namely the ability to inflict or remove pain. Which meant his time in prison went fairly well for him, since everyone was terrified of him. Except for his cellmate, Mitch, who became his follower. Once the two of them were out of prison, Victor got another follower, Sydney, a young teen girl on the run from Eli and Eli's partner in murder, Sydney's older sister, Serena.
Both Serena and Sydney were EOs. They had both drowned together and been brought back. Serena's power was her voice. Whatever she told anyone to do, they would do it. Even to killing themselves, if she told them to. Sydney's power was the gift of life. She could bring the dead back to life. Serena met Eli when he tracked them down, planning to kill both the girls. But Serena simply told him not to kill her and he couldn't. Eli explained to Serena what he was doing and she agreed with him. The next victim was to be her little sister, Sydney. But Sydney escaped with a bullet wound to her arm.
That is when Victor found her, on the roadside, bleeding and running away from Eli and Sydney. And when Victor understood the possibilities of Sydney's gift, he knew she would be a powerful ally against Eli and Serena. Because she hated Eli almost as much as Victor did. Together, with the faithful Mitch, they would attempt to bring down two ruthless killers who believed themselves to be on a mission from God to rid the world of those like themselves and Victor and Syndey.

This was a pretty good story. I enjoyed it, although it is kind of hard to tell who really are the bad guys. Eli and Serena are totally certain that the EOs are an affront to nature, based on what they perceive to be lacking in themselves. And, towards the end of the story, Victor admits to himself  that he has no real feelings, he just pretends to have them:

Victor didn't feel guilt, or fear, or even a sense of consequence, not like normal people. All those things had been dead—or at least dulled to the point of uselessness—for years. But he'd trained his mind to reconstruct those feelings from memory as best he could, and assemble them into a kind of code. 

So it kind of boils down to a battle between monsters. But Victor has Mitch on his side and Mitch is clearly a good guy. Sydney brings a dying dog back to life and adopts it, which makes her a good guy too. But Victor is most definitely in much the same league as the deadly Eli and Serena.
I am looking forward very much to the next book in the series, Vengeful.

A Darker Shade of Magic

By V.E. Schwab

Four Londons: Black London, White London, Red London, Grey London, existing in separate universes with few similarities. Doors connect these Londons but only special people, antari, can access the doors by using magic.
Black London has been overrun by magic and to protect the other Londons, it was sealed off. White London is starving for magic and, as a consequence, its people are twisted and corrupt. Red London has bountiful magic and people are happy and prosperous. Grey London is ordinary and not magical, although magic is available to those with talent.
Kell is from Red London and he is an antari. He serves as a messenger, traveling between the Londons, enabling the rulers of each London to stay in contact.  But Kell, who is a bit resentful of his fate, has turned smuggler too, bringing trinkets from one London to another, although this is forbidden. It is his smuggling that brings him to grief in Grey London, when he falls into a trap and is nearly killed but is saved in the nick of time by Lila Bard.
Lila is a thief and a pickpocket. She stole a stone from Kell, an stone that the rulers of White London desperately want. It is a stone from Black London and it is saturated with powerful magic, magic so strong even Lila is able to conjure using it. When she stole it from Kell, he tracked her down and retrieved the stone. Holland, who is the antari for the rulers of White London, takes advantage of Kell's sympathetic nature and tortures Lila, expecting that Kell will come to her rescue, which he does. Holland then nearly kills Kell, trying to get him to give up the stone and Lila simply bonks Holland on the head and knocks him out and saves Kell from certain death.
Now it is up to Kell to figure out why Holland and his White London bosses are ready to commit murder to possess the stone. Together he and Lila will discover a vile and sneaky plot that threatens to destroy Red London.

This was a good read, if a bit convoluted at times. The only thing I found disappointing was that we never get to see Black London for ourselves, even though it is constantly referred to in the story. This book seems like the first in a new series, so perhaps the author is saving Black London for a later book.
I also think the book is aimed at young adult readers more than a general audience. Both the main characters are quite young, Lila is nineteen and Kell is in his early twenties. And there is no "mature content," just a couple of chaste kisses.