Girl Unseen is the third installment in Athena Daniels' Beyond The Grave series. I also reviewed the first two books in the series, The Seer's Daughter and The Alchemist's Son. While those two books really needed to be read as a pair, Girl Unseen works quite well as a standalone; though characters and events from the first two books are referenced, it is not done so much as to bemuse a reader new to the series.
The book should probably have a few trigger warnings; kidnapping, child sexual abuse and murder are all referenced, though not graphically described. The haunting around which the story occurs is extremely spooky and I found myself getting goosebumps more than once at Athena Daniels' wonderfully atmospheric descriptions.
Pia Williams has always been different. A powerfully gifted psychic and medium, she has spent her entire life knowing most people think she is either a charlatan or a freak. Finally finding her niche with a team of paranormal investigators who have a popular TV show, she was a key character in the events of the first two books in the series and now gets her own story, along with Nate Ryder, an ex-Special Forces operator now with the elite private investigations team known as Taipan.
Things go horribly wrong for Pia and her crew when they are called in to investigate a haunting at a former lighthouse-keeper's cottage at scenic Cape Leeuwin in the far southwest corner of Australia. The spirit of a terribly wronged young girl is out for vengeance, and Pia is caught in the crossfire when she falls under suspicion for a murder that the powerful spirit commits. Nate Ryder is the only person she can think of who might be able to help.
Girl Unseen is a powerfully emotional book; the story of Sarah, the spirit who Pia has to help find peace, is absolutely heartwrenching. Athena Daniels has a genuine gift for writing supernatural events fitting into the everyday in a believable way, and for writing two people finding love with each other in the midst of extraordinary events.
I loved Girl Unseen just as much as I loved the first two in the series, and I will highly recommend them to anyone who likes romance and the paranormal.
Five stars.
