The Tenth Ghost

The Tenth Ghost
Jennifer St. Clair
Foremost Press
ISBN: 187696233X
Fiction, Young Adult, Paranormal Fantasy
Reviewed by Katherine Maria Scott

Ms. St. Clair’s Young Adult novel, The Tenth Ghost delivered an awesome tale with a serious message delivered in a subtle manner. In this tale, the issue of gender roles is questioned by the idea that girls/women may be witches, but never wizards. Well as it so happens, the main character, Jacob, is a girl sporting a traditional boy’s name. This anomaly actually causes some interesting mistakes and misunderstandings throughout the book. Jacob’s relatively normal life, if you consider having a ghost as a best friend normal, is disrupted when her parents disappear one night. Fortunately, Jacob is saved by the quick thinking and actions of her best friend, Emma, the ghost, who manages to hide Jacob under an apple tree in the yard. When Jacob wakes up, hours later, her two aunts, Flora and Agnes, both witches, have arrived and are searching for her. Repairs are made to the house as they inform Jacob her parent are gone, presumed killed by dragons.
The next thing Jacob know, she and he ghost fried Emma are shipped off to magic boarding school, Darkbrook, by the Family and wouldn’t you know it, the first person she meets, rather the first dead person she meets, is a victim of murder and everyone who has seen him so far has died. There’s just one glitch, all the previous victims have been wizards and everyone knows a girl cannot be a wizard, so Jacob should be fine. Right? Then again, times have changed and Jacob and Emma don’t want to take any chances. Armed with research, a ghost free to roam about and interrogate the previous nine ghost victims, and a new friend Ophelia, who has a few secrets of her own, Jacob decides to be proactive and embarks on a campaign to solve the mysterious deaths no one seems to have noticed over the years. She is determined not to be The Tenth Ghost. And if that weren’t enough to keep her occupied, along with her studies, there was still the matter of the dragons that killed her parents, and of course Darkbrook had a few enrolled that year. Was it possible any of the dragon students knew which dragons killed her parents and why they would break the treaty?
The Tenth Ghost moves at a brisk pace with lots of action and Jacob constantly discovering people who have secrets, including an Uncle Lucas who conveniently appears for a visit in the middle of her investigation, bearing secrets of his own. Jacob proves to be a brave young lady determined to find the killer, so the spirit victims may finally rest in peace; and if she can determine who killed her parents as well that would just be grand. This is a fantastic read and I can see Jacob and her friends stumbling across other adventures during their educational journey at Darkbrook. I’ll be anxiously awaiting Ms. St. Clair’s next novel.