Shadowland recap

Sixteen-year-old Susannah Simon moves from Brooklyn to Carmel-by-the-Sea when her widowed mother remarries, acquiring a stepfather, three stepbrothers and a bedroom that already has an occupant: Jesse, the ghost of a young man who died there in the nineteenth century. Suze is a mediator, able to see the dead and help them finish what holds them here, and her new school is haunted by Heather Chambers, a student who shot herself on the grounds after a breakup and refuses to move on. The principal, Father Dominic, turns out to be a mediator too, but he wants Heather reasoned with while Suze wants her fought. When Heather's attacks put Suze's classmate Bryce in hospital, Suze secretly assembles an exorcism and performs it where Heather died. The rite goes badly and nearly kills her, but with Jesse's help Heather is driven out for good. Suze and Father Dominic agree to work together, and Jesse remains in her room.

Susannah Simon leaves Brooklyn for Carmel-by-the-Sea when her widowed mother marries Andy Ackerman, a local contractor with three sons. Suze is a mediator: she can see and speak with the dead, who come to her for help finishing whatever keeps them here, and she has never told her family. The bedroom she is given in Andy's half-restored Victorian house turns out to be occupied already, by Jesse, the ghost of a young man who died in that room well over a century ago and who is entirely unbothered by acquiring a roommate. On her first day at the Junipero Serra Mission Academy she is taken up by CeeCee and Adam, sized up by Kelly Prescott, and confronted by Heather Chambers, the ghost of a student who shot herself on the school grounds after her boyfriend ended their relationship. Heather has no intention of accepting that she is dead, and she turns on Suze the moment she understands that she can be seen. Suze answers the way she always has, with her fists.

The school's principal, Father Dominic, turns out to be a mediator as well, the first Suze has ever met, and their methods could not be less alike: he has spent decades talking the dead into leaving, and he is horrified to hear how she handles them. He orders her to stay away from Heather and let him reason with her. Heather has other ideas. Bryce Martinson, the senior she was seeing before she died, notices Suze and asks her out, and Heather's jealousy makes her stronger and more destructive. Suze keeps coming home bruised and keeps having to account for it. Jesse, watching from her bedroom, tells her plainly that she is out of her depth, and her own father's ghost turns up to say much the same thing. Suze ignores both of them, and she and Father Dominic settle into an uneasy alliance built mostly on arguing.

Heather escalates from damage to real harm. She attacks Suze directly and turns on Bryce, who is hurt badly enough to be taken to hospital. Father Dominic's attempts to reason with her achieve nothing; she is angrier and stronger every day. Suze, who has been keeping the worst of it from him, concludes that Heather cannot be talked down and will keep hurting people until somebody stops her, and she starts looking for a way to force her out. Jesse, who has watched Suze come home injured over and over, argues against it. CeeCee's appetite for school history fills in what happened the day Heather died, and Suze begins working out what an exorcism would require and where it would have to be performed.

Suze commits to the exorcism. She goes behind Father Dominic's back to assemble what the rite needs and settles on performing it at the place Heather died, knowing the priest would forbid it and that Jesse believes it will get her killed. Around all of this, ordinary life keeps demanding attention: her mother's questions, her stepbrothers, school, and Bryce's slow recovery. Heather, aware that something is being prepared against her, becomes openly dangerous and no longer confines herself to the school grounds. The confrontation the two of them have been building toward can no longer be put off, and Suze goes back to the school at night to finish it.

The exorcism goes wrong. Heather is far stronger than Suze had allowed for, the confrontation turns violent, and Suze is badly hurt and close to being killed before Jesse intervenes. Between them the ghost is finally forced out, and Heather is gone for good. Suze survives with injuries she has to explain away at home, and the school's haunting is over. Father Dominic, learning what she did, is appalled by her methods but accepts that the two of them are stuck with each other; they agree to work together in future and to keep what they are to themselves. Bryce recovers. Jesse stays exactly where he has always been, in Suze's bedroom, still unwilling to say why he never moved on, and Suze, who arrived in California determined to hate it, finds she is in no hurry to leave.

Suze performs the exorcism at the school without telling Father Dominic, and Heather, far stronger than expected, comes close to killing her before Jesse intervenes. Between them the ghost is forced out, and the haunting of the Mission Academy is over. Suze is left with injuries she has no intention of explaining at home. Father Dominic learns what she did and disapproves of every part of it, but accepts that there are now two mediators in one small town and that arguing with her is better than working without her; they agree to keep each other's secret and to handle whatever comes next together. Bryce recovers from his injuries. Suze's mother and stepfather remain entirely unaware of what their daughter does at night, and her stepbrothers have settled into treating her as a fact of life. Jesse stays where he has always been, in Suze's bedroom, still without explaining why he never moved on, and the wary truce between them has become something closer. Suze, who arrived expecting to hate California, ends the book with no wish to leave it.