Review: Betrayal by Lee Nichols

Betrayal (Haunting Emma #2) by Lee Nichols
Published: 5th September 2011
Publisher: Bloomsbury


Goodreads description:


Emma Vaile is the most powerful ghostkeeper in centuries. Which is great for battling the wraith-master Neos and horrible for her social life. Emma knows fellow ghostkeeper Bennett Stern is her soul mate, but when ghostkeepers fall in love, the weaker one loses all power. And until Neos is defeated, Bennett and Emma can't risk it.

When the temptation of being with Emma gets to be too much, Bennett disappears, pursuing a dangerous path to increase his powers. Heartbroken and alone, Emma tries to lose herself in school. But when the Knell, a secret ghostkeeping society, sends two new ghostkeepers to Echo Point—one a snarky teen guy, the other a British scholar—Emma throws herself into training to battle Neos. But as the team grows stronger, so do the ghosts. And worse, one of their own will betray them. One Emma never suspected. . . .


My thoughts:


Another great installment in this series; I'm loving ghostkeepers so much right now. I definitely felt more attached to Emma in this book than in the last which was great. I felt myself warming to her character more and I found her less naive and a bit more mature. I loved the new characters we got to see, Lee Nichols is very clever at maintaining many characters with distinct personalties; I never mix her characters up. I can't help but wonder how Emma gets so attached to people so quickly; it seems a bit unnatural to me. But I wonder if it's down to the absence of her family, or that they bond due to shared circumstances. Eitherway, I hope it doesn't become a consistent theme because I'm not a huge fan. I thought it was good how Sara and Harry weren't forgotten about; we got to see their pain and their rage towards Emma and I felt that aspect of the story was dealt with very well. Emma has to deal with the consequences that the situation has caused, which was very realistic. 


The plot was definitely as action packed and well paced as the last. I felt the fight scenes packed a bit more of a punch than in the previous book which was a great improvement for me. I loved how this plot is developing, inching forward so you feel as though you're slowly but surely piecing all the parts together. What I didn't like as much were a few predictable elements. The betrayer for example, was fairly easy to work out, as was Emma's 'condition'. I also was not a fan of the turn Bennett took in this book, I found it really distasteful and to be honest I think the whole ghostkeeper relationship thing was added more to further this plot point rather than as a genuine aspect of their mythology.  A few aspects of the plot confused me slightly, I'm not sure if I read them wrongly or if they just weren't very clear, but altogether this was another enjoyable and gripping read, one that kept me up until the early hours because I was desperate for the end.


I can't wait for the third book to find out more about what happens to Emma and the other ghostkeepers, and this book gets a solid 4/5 from me.