Kickass. Witty. Magical ~ School Spirits by Rachel Hawkins

School Spirits (School Spirits #1)
By Rachel Hawkins

Rating: 5 

'Mom and I looked for her for six months. Six months of tracking down leads and sleeping in motel rooms and researching other cases like Finley's, and it all led nowhere. My sister was just...gone.

And then one day, Mom had just packed up our things and announced we were going home. "We have a job to do," she'd said. "Brannicks hunt monsters. It's what we do, and what we need to get back to. Finley would want that."

That had been the last time Mom had said Finley's name.'

Strong of mind. Strong of heart.

Izzy Brannick fights monsters - it's in her blood. Dealing with witches, brandishing weapons..she's done it all. Occasionally, she even puts down dorky vamps named Pascal who need to learn how to hold off on the body glitter. 

But what she can't fight are the demons in her head. The memories. The pain. The guilt. 

Missing Finley terribly, Izzy clings to the hope that they'll manage to discover what happened to her older sister, and get her back, safe and sound. But with her mother adamant to keep forging ahead, holding the Brannick flame high, Izzy may have no choice but to let go of the little flicker of hope she keeps buried away.

The hope that the Brannick women will be together again. 

Welcome to Ideal, Mississippi. Watch out for the not-so friendly ghosts.

Izzy and her mum settled down in Ideal, news of what seems like a haunting of a local high school reaching their ears. Izzy's mother insists that the mission will be good for her; it's a chance for Izzy to prove that she's worthy of the Brannick family name, and to deal out justice on her own. 

From daggers to dodgeball.

In order to fully investigate the haunting, Izzy was go undercover as a human high school student. Which seems easy enough, right? Except for a few crucial details.

Izzy has never been to human school.
Izzy has never had human friends.
Izzy has never sat in a maths class.
Izzy has never watched Ivy Springs.

But a Brannick never backs down from a challenge. 

Izzy's fought nasty supernaturals, and managed to hold onto her life by the skin of her teeth on more than one occasion. So how hard can attending a human high school really be?!

Mirror, mirror on the wall.

But the deeper Izzy delves into the mystery surrounding the high school, the darker the case becomes. She's no longer dealing with your cranky, average ghost. Oh no. She may have just stumbled across something much, much worse. 

Something that could cost her and her new friends their lives.

Trust is a fragile trinket.

The lines between mission and loyalty blur as Izzy begins to care more than she should about the friends she makes and the case she's knee-deep in. A Brannick needs a clear head. A Brannick doesn't belong in the human world. But as much as Izzy knows these things, she can no longer deny that the human world has its attractions. 

That she's found people she cares about. Maybe even someoneshe cares about enough to risk everything for.

The mystery thickens. The tension heightens. The action sharpens. The road ahead darkens.

With a case to solve, a sister to find, and a heart to decipher, Izzy will have to trust blindly, disobey the rules she's lived by her whole life, and somehow manage to keep her identity a secret in the midst of the paranormal chaos which the mundane world is oblivious to.

But Brannick's are survivors. And as one of the last of the Brannick's Izzy is a fighter by blood - and nothing will stop her from getting the job done.

Not even the next season of Ivy Springs!