The Medium by C.J. Archer

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Category: Young Adult
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Ghost Story
Content: Clean


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.

This is the first book in a YA paranormal trilogy. I'm a sucker for stories about ghosts, so this was right up my alley. Overall I really liked this. I thought Emily was very likable, and Jacob as well, even though he got grumpy a few times.

I was a little disappointed that Emily and Jacob didn't take a more active role in chasing the demon down and finding it's victims. I was expecting more demon hunting than we got. Instead they end up investigating who summoned the demon instead of hunting it down. I guess that was a logical way to eventually find it, but it lacked the demon hunting action I was looking for.

The romance in the story was pretty good. I liked the forbidden love aspect of a living girl and a ghost falling for each other, and the fact that Emily is able to actually touch Jacob as well, worked nicely in the story, otherwise the romance would have been very limited. That being said this was a clean romance with nothing more than kissing. It is YA, so I wasn't expecting more than that.