Review: Deception by Lee Nichols

Deception (Haunting Emma, 1) by Lee Nichols
Young Adult Paranormal Thriller
Bloomsbury USA Children's (June 8, 2010)
ISBN-13: 978-1599903088
336 pages

When Emma Vaile's parents leave on mysterious business trip, it gives her the perfect excuse to be a rebellious teen. Throw some parties, get a tattoo (or maybe just a piercing), and enjoy the first few weeks of her junior year. Then her best friend stops talking to her, the cops crash her party, and Emma finds herself in the hands of a new guardian—her college-age "knight in J.Crew armor," Bennett Stern—and on a plane to his museum-like mansion in New England.

After enrolling at Thatcher Academy, Emma settles in by making friends with the popular legacy crowd. But she can't shake the strange visions that are haunting her. She has memories of Thatcher she can't explain, as if she's returning home to a place she's never been. Emma doesn't trust anyone anymore—except maybe Bennett. But he's about to reveal a ghostly secret to Emma. One that will explain the visions . . . and make Emma fear for her life.

It's been two weeks since I first started Deception and I've just now finished. For some, two weeks may be the norm and, therefore, they wouldn't understand what the big deal is with my declaration. For those who are used to getting through a novel within a day or two however, I'm sure the magnitude of my statement is clear.

There were at least two, maybe three, times that I made myself put the book down. See, my frustrations derived from one element of the novel; a character, in fact. Despite this, I was still mostly enjoying the book. So, for the my sake and the sake of this review, I decided to put the novel aside to prevent my judgment of it as a whole from being clouded by my opinions of said character. Who's this character, you ask? Why, that would be Bennett - our main character Emma's love interest - but I'll get to that issue in a bit.

Overall, Deception is a very engrossing tale. It's full of intrigue, danger, teenage angst and drama, woo-woo supernatural stuff and, much to my pleasure, humor. Emma is a very likable heroine. Despite her tendency for melodrama, she is smart, funny and sympathetic. She's also not one to sit idly by or let people get away with keeping her out of the loop. The circumstances that she's found herself in are lonely and desperate, but she manages to make the best of everything and refuses to let others take charge of her life. Of course, her decisions often land her in a deeper mess but (THANK GOD!) she's not TSTL (too stupid to live) like so many other heroines I can name. She knows when to retreat and consult the more experienced.

This is why her desire for Bennett is so confusing. He's her main obstacle for much of the story! He hinders her from learning about the situation she's in and demands full disclosure from her in return. In addition, he is often rude, he's constantly away during much of the novel and he offers her little support or affection. Sure, he somewhat redeems himself there in the end with a certain admission and revelation, but it's still hard to get over his initial impression. But this is clichéd teenage love-at-first-sight we're dealing with here (complete with a few corny lines!) and, in fiction, nothing can touch that.

The secondary characters (mostly new acquaintances of Emma's) are all just okay. They serve purposes and aren't all too stereotypical, but I never really connected with any of them. One thing that I loved about the book was the mystery surrounding Emma's family and history - it adds greatly to the direness of her circumstances. The supernatural elements were interesting and unlike anything that I've read before, but I do wish that there had been more explanation about the powers of ghostkeepers. While her abilities are made clear enough and we're told that Emma receives some training, we never actually see any of it until she's presented with danger. So when Emma starts to fling power around its sort of surprising and a touch confusing.

In all, Deception had a lot of great elements but fell a bit short of its full potential. Nichols did her job though - I enjoyed it and am interested to find out what will be revealed next in Emma's world.

Grade: B-/C+

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