Rachael comes home, aged sixteen, to find that her middle- aged father is aging fast. He could be eighty. The doctors are baffled. But Rachael knows more. A demon is searching for a staff of some kind, and if she doesn't help him find this object of power, she'll end up like her father. A boy called Lock shows up, who has a better grip on matters, and he has to find the staff as well to remove a punishment. His type of being is not allowed into Heaven, but if he finds the staff he can reach the Third Level. Rachael doesn't know what's best to do. A year of trying exorcism didn't help her father, and there is no guarantee that Lock can do any better for her.

MY DEMONIC GHOST is a complicated story, because Lock first saves Rachael from a monstrous troll, then sets out the hierarchies and rules and types of spectral beings, from banished souls (who have killed themselves or others) such as himself, to Royals who are parasitic and can drain other beings. There are Goons and Hunters, and spectrals use people like Rachael and her father to hide in, calling them Hosts. There is a lot of horror-type imagery, from a Hunter called Gargoyle, to graveyards and someone with 'rotting wrinkles', to a man who can paralyse Rachael and stroke her face with icy hands, sending her to oblivion.

Someone who enjoys horrors would get a lot more out of this tale than I would, and from reading a few passages aloud I think it would be a splendid read to a group in a darkened room on Halloween. If you like this genre give Jacinta Maree's book MY DEMONIC GHOST a try.