The Madness Underneath: Shades of London, bk. 2 by Maureen Johnson

Rory Deveaux can see dead people, and it’s no picnic in the park. After a run in with a homicidal ghost in the bathroom of her boarding school that almost made her ephemeral, (see Shades of London, bk. 1) Rory is back at Hawthorne and struggling to pick up the pieces of her academic and social life after being Exhibit A in the scandalous Ripper murders. And the worst part is not being able to tell anyone the truth about what really happened.”You cannot tell your therapist you have been stabbed by a ghost. You cannot tell her that you could see the ghost because you developed the ability to see dead people after choking on some beef at dinner. If you say any of that, they put you in a sack and take you to a room walled in bouncy rubber and you will never be allowed to touch scissors again.” But the past won’t leave her alone. When she discovers that the owner of a nearby tavern was brutally murdered under suspicious circumstances, she teams up with her old ghost hunting team: Steven, Boo and Callum to find out if the perpetrator was paranormal. Meanwhile, she’s trying to keep up her grades, maintain a romantic relationship with her crush object Jerome and deal with the fact that since her recent brush with death, she suddenly has the ability to zap ghosts into oblivion. Which makes Rory of great interest to the many different shady organizations around London who would like to harness her power for themselves. My only beef with this second book in the Shades of London series is that there wasn’t enough BLOOD. This time around there is much more about Rory and her relationships, which is great because I quite enjoy Rory’s sarcastic voice, but I did long for more, well, HORROR. However, the book ends on such a gruesome cliffhanger which promises more madness and mayhem to come, that I felt a bit better about the lack of glorious GORE. Intrigued? You should be, these books rock. All your questions will be answered when The Madness Underneath comes to a library, bookstore or e-reader near you February 2013.