#speak evil

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Lisa is an extraordinary teenager. For her, every day is about life and death. Because she can hear the dead talking, and they never leave her alone. But on a short break in London, a brilliantly planned kidnapping thrusts Lisa into the role of reluctant rescuer alongside Michael, a famous TV psychic. Together they set out to find a missing girl and walk straight into mortal danger.

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Gideon and Luke are spending some quality family time, playing at being normal teenagers for once. They have no real reason to use their telekinetic powers in the small seaside town, and there are enough bodyguards around to keep them safe, right? Wrong. Someone is stalking them. A man with the cool, calm air of a brutal killer and Gideon and Luke are in his sights.

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With his supernatural ability to conjure spectacular illusions, Spook Williams knows he is destined for greatness. So when he's kidnapped by a celebrity magician claiming to be his real father, he can't help but be intrigued. But when he is asked to take part in a daring heist, will Spook be able to resist this opportunity to flex his powers?

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One moment Alex Teller is joking around with his brother Jacob. A split second later he finds himself thousands of miles away in the Dominican rainforest. Impossible, right? That's what Alex thinks. Until he meets Olu - a teenager with the paranormal ability to teleport anywhere in the world. With Olu, Alex can experience something he's not had for years - freedom. But at what price?

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When Mia washes up on a remote beach, barely alive and suffering from amnesia, there's only one thing she knows for certain – everyone she loves is dead. Sheltered by a tiny Irish community, her healing warmth brings joy and relief to strangers, but her returning memory tells a different story; of terrible things she's done. All she wants is to disappear forever, but she can't stay hidden for long…

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I’ve said for a long time that the Shapeshifter books are some of my favourites from when I was a kid – hell, I reread them all earlier this year and found that most of them held up pretty well. That is, except from the most recent addition to the series, which I had never read before and which is by far my lowest rated from the main six. These books are a kind of spin-off series, following on from the fifth book and setting up the sixth, and I have a lot of issues with that.

Firstly, I shouldn’t have to read an entire extra set of books to get context for the main series; while there are elements of that sixth book which make more sense now, it feels very reminiscent of trying to watch the more recent Marvel films only to realise that to get the full plot experience you need to have watched all of the shows on Disney+. Secondly, over half of the books in this series have doomed romantic subplots that even the characters are aware can’t go anywhere - they even state as much on the page in multiple books!

Thirdly, and most importantly imo, these books were much shorter than those in the main series except the sixth – the first five were all in the 300-400 range, whereas the sixth and these spinoffs were all in the low 200s –  and it shows with how rushed some of the plots feel, especially the ones that have the romantic subplots shoehorned in. In comparison to the first five, all these books really did was set up the new conclusion of the main series, which didn’t do them any favours in my eyes.

I was never going to be the biggest fan of this series, because as far as I’m concerned the original five Shapeshifter books ended on a perfect note, no follow-up needed, but I at least would have liked for the plots to have more time to breathe, especially as the Unleashed series is written from the perspectives of some of the minor Shapeshifter characters – there wasn’t enough time for the characterisation and the plots to both shine in each book, which is a real shame!