Betrayal by Lee Nichols.

I finished Betrayal by Lee Nichols last week and haven't had a chance to post my review. Betrayal is the second installment in the Haunting Emma series. I'll start off by saying that I liked this book much better than the first book. I had a really hard time getting past the fact that Emma so willingly went with Bennett in the first book and didn't have a million questions and reservations. It annoyed me so much I couldn't get past it. I pushed those thoughts away before jumping into this book and I actually liked Emma this time around.

A quick overview from Lee Nichols website:

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. . . .

I really liked the new characters that were brought into the story. Lukas and Simon mix things up. Lukas is your typical teenage boy while Simon is older and the one who watches over the group. They add to the story rather than distract and I especially liked the relationship between Lukas and Natalie. I hope there is more of them to come in the next installment.

Now I don't know if it's me but this book reminded me of two other books. Emma and Bennett cannot be together because if they are the weaker ghostkeeper will lose their power. Reminiscent of Alyson Noel's Immortal series where Ever and Damen cannot be together or it will kill him. In Betrayal Bennett's answer to this problem is leaving. He leaves her just like Edward did in New Moon. Now again it might be me but it had so many similarities to other books and I was just hoping for something fresh.

However, with that said the ending had a nice twist. A twist I was not expecting. Someone was leaking information to Neos about Emma and her friends and Nichols has you guessing right up to the dramatic reveal. She is definitely good with keeping the reader guessing and this is only one example of many.

If you read the first book Deception and liked it you will most likely love Betrayal. If you read Deception and didn't like it so much then Betrayal will surprise you.

Have you read either of the books in the Haunting Emma Series? What are your thoughts?

Currently Reading: