The Medium
Emily Chambers Spirit Medium Book 1
By C. J. Archer
Number of Pages: 261
Date Started: July 13, 2016
Date Finished: July 18, 2016
Synopsis: (From Amazon)
Seventeen year-old spirit medium Emily Chambers has a problem. Actually, she has several. As if seeing dead people isn’t a big enough social disadvantage, she also has to contend with an escaped demon and a handsome ghost with a secret past. And then there’s the question of her parentage. Being born an entire year after her father’s death (yes, a year) and without the pale skin of other respectable English ladies, Emily is as much a mystery as the dead boy assigned to her.
Jacob Beaufort’s spirit has been unable to crossover since his death. It might have something to do with the fact he was murdered. Or it might not. All he knows is, he has been assigned by the Otherworld’s administrators to a girl named Emily. A girl who can see and touch him. A girl who released a shape-shifting demon into the mortal realm. Together they must send the demon back before it wreaks havoc on London. It should be a simple assignment, but they soon learn there’s nothing simple when a live girl and a dead boy fall in love.
Review:
I wasn’t sure if I’d find this book to my taste after having fallen so very hard for The Ministry of Curiosities book series by C. J. Archer but I certainly wasn’t disappointed! Emily has a very peculiar talent– she can talk to ghosts. Archer did an amazing job of showing the very different reactions of society in regards to Emily’s abilities, some asking for her help to talk to deceased loved ones while others are adamant that she is a fraud, no matter what type of personal information from a past loved one she can relate. While not everyone’s thoughts and feelings can be seen from Emily’s limited point of view, I found that Emily’s reactions were quite genuine for an inexperienced young adult. Emily is a daring and thoughtful girl, despite knowing she doesn’t have a lot of knowledge about herself, but she doesn’t let being different keep her from doing things, which is a situation most people can relate to being in at one point or another.
I enjoyed this novel and the ending, which leaves the reader with a resolution to the overall problem while leaving questions to wonder about. Though some say that this isn’t a good tactic, I find that many book series are intertwined, with bits of mystery in the first book that might not be fully explained until the last in the series. I definitely recommend this book, and look forward to reading the second and third in the series.
Author Biography: (From Amazon)
C.J. Archer has loved history and books for as long as she can remember and feels fortunate that she found a way to combine the two. She has at various times worked as a librarian, IT support person and technical writer but in her heart has always been a fiction writer. While she has written historical romance in the past, she now writes exclusively in the historical fantasy genre (with a large dose of romance). She has several series which occur in the same Victorian-era “world”, one after the other. Each series can be read alone, but it’s more fun to start at the beginning with THE EMILY CHAMBERS SPIRIT MEDIUM TRILOGY. Follow that up with all 9 FREAK HOUSE books, then the MINISTRY OF CURIOSITIES series. GLASS AND STEELE, her newest series, is set in an entirely different alternate Victorian London.
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Amy S. Brown 