Blurb: One bullet is all it took to transform eighteen-year-old New Yorker Jordan Amador into the last hope for souls of the dead. However, it also transformed her into a cantankerous asocial waitress with a drinking problem.

Jordan accidentally shot and killed a Seer: a person who can communicate with ghosts, angels, and demons. Worse still, she did so on the eve of her own awakening, making her the last Seer on Earth with no one to guide her. As penance, God gives her two years to help one hundred souls with unfinished business cross over from Earth to the afterlife or she will go to Hell. Just as she approaches the deadline, Jordan finds her hundredth soul: a smart-mouthed poltergeist named Michael whose ability to physically touch things makes him distinct from her usual encounters with the dead. However, the deeper she delves solving his sudden death, the more she realizes something sinister is on the horizon.

With time running short, Jordan stumbles across a plot that may unravel the fragile balance among Heaven, Hell, and Earth. Her life is plunged into chaos as she is hunted by demons that want to use her valuable Seer blood to bring about the end of the world and discovers that these creatures have a frightening connection to her family bloodline. Plus, the budding romance between Jordan and Michael makes it harder for them to let go of each other so he can become part of the eternal black parade.

My Review:

I really enjoyed this book. It had fantastic character development and a plot that just kept on coming at you. In fact, I really felt like I read an entire series by the time I got to the end. Not in a bad way, the book is divided into three different parts, and the author completely could have split the story into a trilogy and probably expanded and done a few short stories as well instead of selling it as all one novel, so this was actually a surprisingly good deal. Each part had fantastic build up, great world building, and characters that kept you invested. I loved Jordan and Michael and actually, now that I think of it, all the minor characters. The villains were suitably evil and scary, and the final resolution was epic.

My only complaint was something I actually liked most of the time. This book is full of pop culture references. The ones I got, I loved, but there were times when I felt like I was missing something because I didn’t understand the reference.

Otherwise, a fantastic read. It’s urban/Christian fantasy, but I at no point felt like I was being preached at. I don’t think the book went as irreverent as Supernatural did with its angels, but it’s more along those lines then say…a Peretti novel. In a bookstore it would more likely be found next to Kim Harrison (and let me tell you, it ranks right up there with the Hollows, seriously, if you enjoy Urban Fantasy, give this book a try.) And while it’s not in the YA genre, I’m pretty confident any of my readers that enjoyed Persephone would enjoy The Black Parade. Give it a try. It’s completely worth the read.