Review: Deception

Deception

By Lee Nichols

Publication date: June 8, 2010

My review:

When her parents disappear while on an antique buying trip, Emma Vaile must move across the country to stay with Bennett Stern, her brother's ex-best friend and her self appointed guardian. Emma is worried about her parents and the strange visions she keeps having. Then Bennett tells her that they are both ghostkeepers, people who can summon, compell, or dispell ghosts. As Emma learns about her new abilities a dangerous enemy from her past comes back to haunt to her.

Emma is a sympathetic character who experiences a lot of loss at the beginning of the novel. Her parents are missing, her brother seems to have abandoned her, her friends betrayed her, and then she starts having scary visions. Even though she has gone through all of this pain, Emma is brave. She trains as a ghostkeeper and looks for answers about her missing parents and the creature that is murdering ghostkeepers. I also really liked how kind Emma is to the ghosts. Unlike Bennett and other ghostkeepers she treats the ghosts like they are still people. The ghosts themselves were some of my favorite supporting characters, especially the ones that live at the Stern mansion and the ghost teacher who distracts Emma during her math classes. Bennett is also suitably mysterious. He can be really nice to Emma but at the same time he seems to have his own agenda.

Deception combines suspense, romance, and the paranormal. I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. It was refreshing to read a YA paranormal romance novel about ghosts and I thought the ghostkeeper lore was very well developed. I enjoyed the romance almost as much as the suspense. Bennett and Emma have great chemistry together! The ending is something of a cliffhanger so hopefully we won't have to wait long for Betrayal, the next book in the Haunting Emma series.

Readalikes: The Soul Screamers series by Rachel Vincent, Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins, Once a Witch by Carolyn MacCullough, Meridian by Amber Kizer

I received an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review