Cassidy Blake Trilogy by Victoria Schwab

includes City of Ghosts, Tunnel of Bones, Bridge of Souls

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Move over Percy, Annabeth, and Grover! You have competition for my favorite MG fantasy trio. Cassidy, Jacob, and Lara are all so vivid and curious and loyal and brave in the face of their fears. It’s hard not to love them.

Cassidy can see ghosts. She has been able to ever since she nearly drowned. Her best friend, Jacob, pulled her out of the river, only he wasn’t her best friend then. However, he was (and still is) a ghost. Cassidy finds herself in (super haunted) Edinburgh with her parents as they film their new, ghost hunting TV show. In Edinburg, she meets Lara - another In-betweener - and learns that the reason she can see ghosts is to send them beyond the Veil.

In Edinburg, Cassidy catches the attention of a sinister, local ghost, the Raven in Red. In trying to do her new job, Cassidy loses a crucial part of herself and, with her friends’ help, battles the Red Raven to retrieve it. And if she loses, it’s not just the battle. It’s her life.

Her adventures continue in Paris (Tunnel of Bones) and New Orleans (Bridge of Souls.) As Cassidy encounters more and more ghosts, and sends more beyond the veil, she starts to question what she should do about Jacob. He is her best friend, but he also does not belong in the world of the living, and she sees first hand what happen when a ghost stays too long. Will she one day have to protect the world from her friend?

Cassidy had me laughing out loud and Jacob’s observations constantly take me by surprise.

Cassidy is the kind of hero that readers of all ages will love. She is bravest when she’s fighting to protect her friends. She simultaneously feels so much older than and EXACTLY twelve-years old. She makes a lot of mistakes and those mistakes have consequences. Even mundane consequences like parents being so worried that they refuse to let you out of their sight. Which makes it hard to do your ghost-hunting job, especially when those parents don’t know that you can move between the world of the living and the dead.

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Cassidy’s world centers around her friendship with Jacob. Her loyalty reminded me of how protective I am of my friendships. And her friendship with Lara was so satisfyingly hard-won, especially in the face of Lara and Jacob’s distrust and slight dislike of each other.

I shouldn’t have been surprised at the very real stakes that come into play at the end of City of Ghost (because this is Schwab), but I was. They snuck up on me underneath the banter and sarcasm and misadventures. In her showdown with the Red Raven, I watched Cassidy learn to be a different kind of brave. It was inspiring and exciting and made me want to be friends with her. This growth continues throughout the books, and not just within Cassidy. Jacob’s journey tugged at my heart as he and Cassidy both questioned where he truly belonged.

There is a subtle shift as the trilogy progresses from a “friends-hunting-ghosts” story to a “how-do-I-save-my-friend-while-hunting-ghosts.” Even in the face of these sinister ghosts and ghouls, losing her friends remains the most terrifying thing.

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They are haunted differently, and the people of those cities have different attitudes towards ghosts. My favorite city that Cassidy visits was New Orleans. I loved the idea of this city that had the living and the dead layered atop each other so closely. It was a perfect setting for the final installment of this adventure. (I also couldn’t help imagining Luc and Addie wandering through Cassidy’s New Orleans too. I guess this is what happens when you read an author’s body of work in three months.)

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