Unleashed: A Life and Death Job

Fans of Ali Sparkes's best-selling Shapeshifter saga will enjoy her new five-book series. Each book features one character, A Life and Death Job focuses on Lisa, the spoilt rich girl, who happens to be a medium. (It's a rare medium who tells unquiet spirits to 'get over it' or that they have BO.)

Lisa is one of the COLA, Children Of Limitless Ability, a sort of secret service college. Exhausted from her work dealing with the dead all day, 'like a post office counter clerk with no relief staff,' Lisa is allowed a shopping holiday in London with paranormal pal, Mia. There's scarcely a flash of gold credit cards before Lisa clashes with insufferable heiress Stacey Volkova in Harvey Nicks. Stacey mistakes the trendy telepath for a shopgirl, and minutes later, the two are embroiled in a terrifying kidnap. 

Ali Sparkes knows teenagers and their obsessions inside out, and her COLA girls spend as much time channelling spots and shopping as they do the dead. The text is sprinkled with designer brands, boys and bitchiness. This fast-paced tale is a shade darker and more young adult than the Shapeshifters books, and its deadpan (forgive the pun) wit is what makes it a real winner.