Previous SFF Author: James Branch Cabell
(1967- )
After earning a Fine Arts degree at Indiana University, Meggin Patricia Cabot moved to New York City to pursue a career in freelance illustration. After the death of her father in 1994, she dusted off one of the many manuscripts she had penned in her spare time and began to look for representation. Where Roses Grow Wild, her first historical romance was published under the name Patricia Cabot. Two other romances followed, and then prompted by her mother moving in with one of her former art professors, she wrote both The Princess Diaries and The Meditator, books about, among other things, teenage girls dealing with unsettling family issues. Meg Cabot lives in Key West with her husband. Learn more at Meg Cabot’s website. Meg Cabot also writes as Jenny Carroll.
Suze is a mediator — she can see the ghosts of people whose souls have not been able to move on. She helps them resolve their earthly issues so they can go wherever they’re supposed to go. She doesn’t know what happens to them after they go — just that it’s her job to facilitate their departure.
Because of her weird ability, Suze is not a normal teenager. People find her a little strange and she has trouble making friends and fitting in. Now she’s moving away from New York,
Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Meg Cabot | Audio, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Ninth Key is the second book in Meg Cabot’s MEDIATOR series about Suze, a high school student who can interact with restless ghosts. She helps them settle their affairs on Earth so they can move on to wherever they’re supposed to go (she doesn’t know what happens after they leave Earth). In Shadowland, the first MEDIATOR book, Suze and her mom had just moved from New York to northern California so her mom,
Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Meg Cabot | Audio, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Reunion is the third book in the Mediator series by Meg Cabot/Jenny Carroll, centering around a young woman named Susannah ‘Suze’ Simon, who is a Mediator: someone who guides unquiet spirits to their eternal rest (whether they like it or not!) Having recently moved from New York to California to live with her mum’s new husband, Suze has had to learn to cope with a new Catholic school and putting up with three new stepbrothers as well as the supernatural antics of the ghosts she has to control.
Rebecca Fisher and Kat Hooper´s rating: 2 | Meg Cabot | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
“You really have the most alarming way, Susannah, of getting yourself into scrapes.”
Darkest Hour is the fourth book in Meg Cabot’s MEDIATOR series. It’d be best to read the previous books, Shadowland, Ninth Key, and Reunion before picking up Darkest Hour. While each short book has a stand-alone story,
Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Meg Cabot | Audio, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Haunted (2003) is the fifth novel in Meg Cabot’s MEDIATOR series. You’ll want to read the previous books first: Shadowland, Ninth Key, Reunion, and Darkest Hour.
In my review of Darkest Hour I said that the series was getting more complex after we meet a guy named Paul (super rich and super hot,
Kat Hooper´s rating: 2 | Meg Cabot | Audio, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Twilight (2006) is the sixth novel in Meg Cabot’s MEDIATOR series. The first five books are Shadowland, Ninth Key, Reunion, Darkest Hour, and Haunted. I’ll assume you’ve read them (though, as I explain below, I think you could have skipped Haunted).
Kat Hooper´s rating: 2 | Meg Cabot | Audio, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Warning: This review will contain spoilers for the previous MEDIATOR books. If you’re interested in this series, please don’t read this review, but take a look at the first book, Shadowland, instead.
Remembrance (2016), the seventh novel in Meg Cabot’s MEDIATOR series, was published 11 years after fans thought the series was finished with Twilight (though Cabot prepared readers for reentry with the novella Proposal,
Kat Hooper´s rating: 1.5 | Meg Cabot | Audio, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Fans of Meg Cabot’s MEDIATOR series thought it was over back in 2005 with Twilight, but in 2016, Cabot published this novella as book “6.5” before publishing another full novel (Remembrance) that year. This review will have some spoilers for the series, so please don’t read further if you intend to read MEDIATOR.
Suze is now in college and Jesse is in med school.
Kat Hooper´s rating: 2 | Meg Cabot | Audio, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
For much of her life, Pierce has been haunted by a mysterious young man. She first met him when she was a little girl, but was told he was a figment of her imagination. When she was fifteen, she had a near-death experience and met him again in a strange landscape. Several times since, when she was threatened, the man appeared and put the threatening party in a world of hurt. Now, Pierce and her mother have moved to Isla Huesos, Florida — Mom’s hometown — for a fresh start.
Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 2 | Meg Cabot | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Zombies vs. Unicorns edited by Holly Black & Justine Larbalestier
Back in 2007, Holly Black and Justine Larabalestier got in an argument about which fiction creature was superior — zombies or unicorns. Spurred on by that debate, they each recruited some of their author friends to write short tales in which they present the storytelling possibilities of the two mythic beasts. With header notes for each story in which they discuss the historical background for the different takes on the creatures, Holly Black heads up Team Unicorn,
Previous SFF Author: James Branch Cabell
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…
this sounds like a fun one
These weird westerns are always interesting and have been popping up more in recent times (it seemed like there was…
Looking forward to reading the review.