This is the full (rough) draft of a review that ended up in the Galveston County Daily News: 
 The Madness Underneath is the second in a series by veteran YA author Maureen Johnson. The Shades of London series began with the The Name of the Star, which was nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America in 2012. 
 The series follows the unusual adventures of Rory Deveaux, a teenager from small town Louisiana who is spending the last year of high school at a private academy in London. While she's getting used to the British way of doing things - and making friends with a lively (or in one case, not so "lively") group of schoolmates - a Jack the Ripper copycat killer begins to terrorize the city. The police are at a loss - that is, until Rory witnesses something that no one else saw. When the killer that no one else can see comes after her, Rory must rely on a ragtag group of special agents to keep her safe and help her make sense of her new-found abilities. 
 The Madness Underneath picks up almost immediately after the previous book left off, with Rory struggling to come to terms with what happened to her when she can't even tell the whole truth to her parents, her friends, or her therapist. 
 Though classified as a paranormal thriller, these books are written with such wit and frank understanding of the teenaged condition that I don't think that readers who normally shy away from genre fiction would find themselves entirely out of their element. Actually, much of the focus is on Rory's very relatable worries about school and her relationship with her kinda-sorta-maybe boyfriend. Sure, she has this weird new ghost-exploding power (oops, was that a spoiler, sorry not sorry), but what is really bothering her are things that bother just about every high schooler - final exams, awkward dates, authority figures who just don't get it, man, finding one's own true path in the future, assisting secret government ghost busters, that sort of thing. Oh wait, you mean most teens aren't into ghost busting? Well, some of us used our spare time more efficiently than others, I guess. 
 Maureen Johnson is well known in the YA lit world as a witty, down-to-earth, relatable sort of person who rights with a distinctive humor that is just on the edge of sarcasm, but not angstyishly so. And although these books do have brilliantly timed flashes of dry humor, the stories never devolve into slapstick at the expense of the actually very grim and creepy plots. This is paranormal without the camp (or, at least, with a little bit of extremely self-aware camp) and thriller with true goosebumpy creepiness (though never much beyond that). 
 It can't be overlooked, though, that the second book does suffer a bit form Middle Book Syndrome, dreaded plague of even the most beloved series. Where The Name of the Star felt fresh and perfectly paced, The Madness Underneath is sometimes a little trope-y and ... jerky, I guess. Like, the plot progression is just not as smooth as one would expect after having just finished the previous book. In fact, the whole thing feels more like a wrap-up of the previous book + a set-up for the next, with only a little bit of plot glue to hold the whole thing together. Very good plot glue, but still. Perhaps the best thing that can be said about this problem is that the twist ending, ouchy as it is, does leave the reader wanting more and looking forward to the next installment in the series. 
 So why should this all matter to you, wise reader is probably an adult? Well, if you're a parent (or guardian or older sibling or teacher or next door neighbor or whatever) of a young person who is looking for something interesting but not too difficult to read, something fun and definitely nothing like the serious stuff they get assigned as homework, then, the Shades of London series is certainly worth a try, not least because the author herself is so engaging. She blogs and is very active and chatty with her fans and other YA authors on Twitter (@maureenjohnson), which keeps readers engaged and fuels the discovery process. Don't mistake this for "chick lit" or paranormal romance just because the protagonist is a young lady who happens to have an exceptional relationship with deceased beings. There are no dashing heroic sparkly vampires, only relatively realistic characters who populate Johnson's contemporary London in a surprisingly believable way.