Cassidy Blake's parents are The Inspecters, a (somewhat inept) ghost-hunting team. But Cass herself can REALLY see ghosts. In fact, her best friend, Jacob, just happens to be one.

When The Inspecters head to ultra-haunted Edinburgh, Scotland, for their new TV show, Cass—and Jacob—come along. In Scotland, Cass is surrounded by ghosts, not all of them friendly. Then she meets Lara, a girl who can also see the dead. But Lara tells Cassidy that as an In-betweener, their job is to send ghosts permanently beyond the Veil. Cass isn't sure about her new mission, but she does know the sinister Red Raven haunting the city doesn't belong in her world. Cassidy's powers will draw her into an epic fight that stretches through the worlds of the living and the dead, in order to save herself.

Cassidy Blake isn't like every other kid her age. It’s pretty hard to be normal when your parents write a series of stories about ghosts, or when your best friend is actually dead. You see, a year ago, Cassidy almost drowned in a river, but was pulled out by Jacob – her best friend, and a ghost. Ever since that near-death experience, Cassidy can do something no one else could (or so she thought so xd), and cross to the space between two worlds. She calls it “the Veil”. The Veil is the space between the world of the living and the world of the dead, and ghosts who can be found there are usually stuck in some loop from their past, waiting something that will never come.

Cassidy is can’t wait to go to the vacation and finally get away from all the ghosts and their constant tapping and pulling her into the Veil, but her parents have other plans for her. They have just gotten a proposition for filming a series about their books, and they are going around the world to travel the most haunted cities. In Edinburgh, Cassidy is about to see much more than just some old castles and British culture. She will get to know others like her and realize her role in the world of ghosts, as well as it’s dangers and traps that lay there.

I can’t believe I always seem to keep forgetting the pleasure of reading a short, but excellent book. This book reminded me why Schwab is one of my all-time favorite authors – I just love her style. Always providing amazing and inspiring worldbuilding, breathtaking but not too complicated and easy to grasp. This is so not an average ghost/ghost-hunters book. I totally adored the concept of spirits, stuck somewhere in between, who cannot leave the Veil unless a hunter frees them. There isn’t any kind of rivalship or hate between ghosts and their hunters, it’ just how things work there. Well, except for the evil spirit feeding of children who want to steal Cassidy’s soul to become alive again. Brilliant.


Schwab’s descriptions and vivid illustrations of her world and things happening in it are what gives her books an extra dose of excellence. She manages to create every scene or object, no matter how abstract or hard to imagine, creating a picture of her world in readers head that just makes so much sense to me I could even picture things actually being this way. Never had I read her book and was left rereading some scene because it wasn’t well described or clear enough.

While the readers keep getting deeper into the world of modern ghosts and ghost hunters and get a picture of how things work, the mystery of Cassidy and Jacob’s bond is something left for the sequel. I really loved their friendship, easy going and pure, but still complicated because of the two worlds between them. I really can’t wait for the sequel to see what happens with the characters and their abilities xd