Off the Bookshelf: REMEMBRANCE, Meg Cabot

The most recent Mediator novel.

Jesse and Suze are getting on with their lives. Or at least, they're trying to. He's doing his internship, on his way to being a doctor. She's earning her counseling degree and working at her former high school. Unfortunately, a former ghost and the mediator who time-traveled to bring him back to life aren't allowed to settle down into happily-ever-after. At least, not without some complications and ghostly bumps along the way.

An old, egotistical nemesis returns. He's using his millions and his power and influence to force Suze to team up with him. And if he can send Jesse back to the world of the dead, even better. Then there's the very angry, protective ghost who doesn't seem to understand that Suze is trying to help her very trouble, best friend from elementary school. Then to make things even more complicated, Suze's step-nieces seem to take after her side of the family ... but they aren't blood relatives, so how did that happen?

Another fun romp with some serious, more grown-up overtones. I hope this won't be the last Mediator book, now that Cabot has returned to the trials and tribulations of the mediator and her (former) ghostly true love. I was disappointed to read that she has stated there will be no more 1-800-where-r-u books (Hint: read them!) but since she hasn't stated there are no more Mediator books ... hope remains!

Off the Bookshelf: PROPOSAL, A Mediator Novella, Meg Cabot

The other day I was talking to someone about books, comparing what we'd read, what we liked, making recommendations, and I mentioned Meg Cabot's Mediator series. On a whim, I checked B&N -- because I have a gift card waiting to be spent -- and to my joy I found a new novella and a new novel in the Mediator series. Joy!

Essential points to know: Mediators can see and talk to and fight with the dead. They also have other powers that our heroine, Susannah Simon, learns about as she goes through her various adventures.

She's a Buffy-type tough girl from New York, transplanted to California when her widowed mother remarries. Fish-out-of-water story, with complications and culture shock. The most important element in her story, right from the first, is when she moves into her bedroom in her new home and finds it haunted by a young man who was killed in the 1800s.

I'm not gonna give away their trials and tribulations, vengeful ghosts, psychotic rival Mediators, time travel and other problems, but by the end of the series, they're in love, Jesse is alive again and you'd think -- you'd hope -- the two of them would have earned a happily ever after.

Flash forward to PROPOSAL. Susannah is in college, Jesse is a medical student, there's a really pissed-off ghost who's been falsely accused of murder, and is tearing up the cemetery on a regular basis. The novella is fun, a good segue into the story line after several years' absence. I love Meg Cabot's snarky narrative voice, comments on the stupidity of the TV shows that don't tell the truth of what it's like to be a Mediator-type person, her frustrations of having a secret life, a boyfriend who's too good to be true, and oh yeah, that psychotic other Mediator is threatening to return to her life.

The next full-length Mediator novel is REMEMBRANCE. Will they make it to the altar? Read and find out -- that's what I'm doing. Among other books I have on various devices and in print. Yeah, I read several books at the same time. 1 on my iPhone, 1 on my iPad, 1 print book on my bedside table. Something wrong with that?

Off the Bookshelf: ABANDON

Don't you hate it when you pick up a book to read, and you realize it's the middle or last book in a series? Ever have that moment when you're torn between reading it anyway, putting it aside until you can find the first book/s, or immediately giving up and putting it on the stack to go to the used bookstore to trade in for credit, because you told yourself you were NOT buying any more new books for the rest of the year -- or at least until you reduced the to-be-read stack by a few feet?

This happened to me last year, when I got UNDERWORLD, the second book in the Abandon Trilogy, by Meg Cabot, as a freebie at RT in Chicago. But see, I like Meg Cabot, even if she does write YA and I'm ... well ... not in that category. But hey, it's a state of mind, right? Besides, I write YA once in a while, so I should see what other authors are doing. (That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it!)

Anyway .... I read UNDERWORLD, so when I saw ABANDON in a raffle basket at the recent NEORWA conference and realized it was the first book in the series, I had to have it. Just to see what happened before.

What's it about? Honey, this ain't the Princess Diaries! Thumbnail sketch: Pierce is a rich girl. Wouldn't say she's spoiled, but she has problems. Like, when she was 15, she hit her head, fell into a pool in the winter, and drowned herself dead. And came back. Of course. This isn't a zombie or vampire book. The thing is, she went somewhere between dying and reviving. And it changed her. People think she's nuts sometimes. "Disturbed." Now she's in a "special" program at her new school. Someone (yes, hunkalicious, but dangerous!) is following her around. And he's in love with her. And he has some really nasty, Greek-mythology-type enemies who want to use her to destroy him.

Ever read the Persephone myth? That should give you a clue what Pierce is up against.

I love Meg Cabot's voice. I think I'd be willing to read almost anything she wrote. I found some of her older books -- The Mediator series and the 1-800-Where-R-You? books. Keepers. Try her. You'll find something you'll like.