The Awakening

What's inside (8 sections)

1. Chloe Saunders Is a Necromancer Whether She Likes It or Not
2. The Escape From Lyle House Does Not Feel Like Freedom
3. Derek, Simon, Liz, Rae and Tori Make a Bad Plan Work
4. The Edison Group Wanted Better Monsters
5. Ghosts Crowd In and Chloe Has to Learn Control
6. What Kept Me Reading and What Bugged Me
7. Key takeaways
8. FAQ

I finished The Summoning on a Sunday night and ordered The Awakening the next morning. That almost never happens for me. I usually take a break between series books. With Chloe Saunders I could not. She had just run from Lyle House with three other kids, no money, no plan, powers misfiring, and Armstrong ended book one before anyone was safe. I needed to know if they survived the night.

The Awakening is book two in the Darkest Powers series. It came out in 2009 from HarperCollins, and the edition cited here runs 384 pages. It starts almost where The Summoning stops. Same narrator, same group, same cold company behind them. I read it in hungry chunks on lunch breaks and late at night, which suited it. The kids in it never get to sit still.

Chloe Saunders Is a Necromancer Whether She Likes It or Not

Chloe is fifteen and she sees the dead. In book one she thought she was sick because adults told her she was sick. By the start of book two she knows better, but knowing helps very little.

A necromancer in this series can see ghosts, hear them, raise them by accident when scared, and later call them on purpose and send them on. Chloe manages the first three without trying. The last two frighten her. When she panics, spirits crowd closer. When she tries to ignore them, they get louder. Early on she has to walk through an ordinary public place while smiling at the living as the dead press at the edge of her sight. Polite girl outside, static in her head. That split defines her.

What I like about Chloe is that she stays careful rather than turning bold overnight. She was raised by an aunt after her mother died, in a house where manners covered silence. She loves film and keeps thinking in camera terms when afraid. A hallway becomes a tracking shot. A parking lot becomes a wide angle. It steadies her when the supernatural part refuses to make sense.

This book pushes her gift harder. In The Summoning the ghosts were mostly warnings. Here they want things. Release. Company. Revenge. Saying no is sometimes impossible, and saying yes can leave her with a nosebleed, shakes, and hours of heavy sleep. Armstrong never lets the power feel cool for long. Every new skill costs calm.

The hardest idea for me was how fear feeds the trigger. The more afraid Chloe is, the more ghosts rise. Which means the Edison Group had reason to keep her uneasy for months while taking notes. A kid kept nervous on purpose. That stayed with me longer than any chase.

The Escape From Lyle House Does Not Feel Like Freedom

Lyle House looked like a group home for troubled teens. Beds, therapy circles, staff with clipboards. It was a cover. The staff answered to the Edison Group, and the kids were subjects, not patients. Book one ended with the mask slipping and the kids running.

The Awakening opens inside that run. Night, on foot, whisper arguments about which way to go. No recap chapter holds your hand. Armstrong does not make the escape clean. Doors stick. Plans change. Chloe, who spent book one trying to follow rules, has to lie within the first hour. Fake name. Keep your head down if a car slows.

Money rules everything. They count bills twice, skip meals, then eat badly at fast food places where they can watch the door. They sleep in shifts in a cheap room with damp clothes and phones off. Tori complains. Derek paces. Simon tries to joke and nobody laughs right.

Outside, trust frays fast. Inside Lyle House they had walls to push against. Outside every choice is theirs. Should they call for help. Split up or stay visible as a group. Chloe wants an adult to fix it. There are no safe adults left.

Armstrong writes paranoia through small touches. A car that passes twice. A clerk who stares a second too long. Chloe starts checking windows without deciding to. She learns that habit in a day, which tells you how young they are and how fast they have to grow.

Derek, Simon, Liz, Rae and Tori Make a Bad Plan Work

The group is messy in a way I enjoyed. Derek Souza is big, scarred, quick to growl, a werewolf whose body wants to Change before he is ready. Simon Baumann is his foster brother, warm and easy, a sorcerer who can work spells when he remembers the words under pressure. Chloe holds them together by noticing things. Tori Enright is sharp and angry, a witch whose power spikes with temper. Rae is with them early on, talkative and scared, good with small magics that sometimes flare into fire.

Then there is Liz. She does not stay long but she changes the book. Liz is a few years older, also a necromancer, living off the grid when they find her. She is the first person who explains Chloe's life from the inside. How to block voices. How to ground after a raising. How to tell a persistent ghost from background noise. Chloe clings fast, maybe too fast, because Liz offers what nobody else can.

I liked Liz at once and dreaded what that meant. A mentor who appears mid chase rarely gets to stay. Armstrong gives her fears and limits and a history with the Group, so she reads as a person rather than a lesson.

The middle runs on group friction. They bicker about bus routes, food, who sleeps near the door. Simon smooths things. Tori spots the flaw in every plan, which annoys everyone and saves them twice. Rae says the scary theory out loud so Chloe does not have to. Derek watches doors, eats enough for two, snaps when pain hits, then walks off alone to suffer where they cannot see.

Derek carries a lot of this book. His senses sharpen until normal noise feels like shouting. He hears heartbeats, smells fear, tracks cars by sound. Useful, until Armstrong shows the price. He cannot turn it off. He sleeps little and fears he will hurt someone when the wolf takes over. In one quiet beat he stays out in the cold rather than crowd inside, because he does not trust his own skin. Chloe brings him a jacket and stands near enough that he knows she is not afraid. That did more for me than any big romantic scene.

Simon and Chloe still have a soft pull from book one. Simon remembers small things and tries to protect her without making her feel helpless. Derek guards her by stepping between her and doors. Chloe notices both and has no time to sort it out. I was glad the book leaves it there. There is too much running for romance to take over.

The Edison Group Wanted Better Monsters

The Edison Group sits at the cold center of the series. Doctors, handlers, and funders decided supernatural traits could be studied and shaped. They found kids from old bloodlines, altered genes before birth or triggered changes later, then placed them where they could be watched. Homes. Clinics. Schools that reported back.

Here we learn the kids were not random. Chloe's necromancy runs in families and hides for years until stress brings it out. Derek and Simon were raised by a father figure tied to the project, which poisons every memory of home. Tori's mother works inside the Edison orbit, polished and professional. Tori is not mad at the world in general. She is mad at a woman who chose work over her.

Armstrong keeps the science vague, and I think that is smart. Talk of injections, early tests, altered DNA, subjects who got sick or Changed wrong. No long lecture. We get files glimpsed, medical visits half remembered, an adult letting something slip and trying to take it back. The kids would not get a full briefing, so we do not get one either.

The motive is clear enough. Edison wanted stable subjects with strong powers. Necromancers who could be directed. Werewolves who Changed on schedule. Witches and sorcerers who followed orders. When kids proved hard to steer, the Group moved them, split friendships, and raised stress to force manifestations. That implication turned my stomach more than any ghost. Childhood moves and therapy sessions as data points.

The adults rarely raise their voices. They speak in care language. Help. Treatment. Safety. A nurse explaining a blood draw while a guard waits outside. A doctor using Chloe's first name while flipping notes about her dead mother. Calm authority scares these teens more than shouting. Chloe spent her life trying to be polite to such people. Now politeness buys nothing.

There is a split among the adults too. Some want containment at any cost. Others think the project went too far and want to shield one child while giving up another. An aunt keeps secrets because silence once felt like protection. A father figure promises safety and may mean it while still leading them toward a lab. Chloe has to decide who earns one phone call with bad information. She usually guesses right and still pays.

Ghosts Crowd In and Chloe Has to Learn Control

This is where the title lands. Chloe's power wakes all the way up. She pulls spirits toward her without meaning to, worst in places heavy with past pain. Hospitals. Old houses. Woods where something bad stuck.

Liz teaches the basics. Picture a wall. Push the voices back. Breathe. Do not invite. If you must call, call one, never the crowd. If you raise someone, you owe them release. Simple to say. Brutal to practice. Chloe trains in short sessions and ends with headaches that last hours. She tries to shut ghosts out and finds one staring back. She calls for help in an emergency and gets five spirits talking over each other.

The crowded scenes are the hardest to read. Whispers build. Cold spots form. Something tugs her sleeve. Chloe must keep her face blank for the living while sorting the dead by need. One ghost wants to pass a message. Another wants to be seen after years ignored. Another is angry and does not care that she is fifteen and tired. She learns to triage, which feels too adult for her and right for the story.

Control comes partial and shaky. She manages to send a ghost through a locked space to scout, then feels guilty for using someone confused and stuck. She manages to release when it counts, using firm words learned from Liz while her hands shake. She also fails. She calls too much and cannot shut it down. She freezes when a strong spirit pushes. Derek stands beside her then, not because he can fight ghosts, but because his breathing gives her something living to hold.

The cost system convinced me. Workings tire her body. Nosebleeds. Blurred vision. Sleep that does not refresh. Ghost helpers can lie, misremember, or panic. Chloe has to ask whether using the dead is fair when they are scared themselves. The book lets that guilt sit instead of wiping it clean with a win.

My favorite chapter is a long night where Chloe holds a room against living searchers and pressing spirits at once. Silent for the living. Naming ghosts one by one and sending each on. No flashy spells, only a girl whispering in the dark while Derek guards the door. I held my breath through it.

By the end she can block, call, and release with effort, yet still floods. That felt honest. Two books in she reads as a kid mid training, never a chosen one handed answers.

What Kept Me Reading and What Bugged Me

Pacing is much better than book one. The Summoning took its time reaching Lyle House and explained a lot through dialogue. The Awakening starts running and keeps moving. Chapters end on small hooks. A phone that should stay silent. A car slowing. A ghost where none should be. I read the last hundred pages standing in my kitchen because I did not want to break the spell.

The friendships feel earned. They fight about stupid things when tired, then share food without being asked. Derek carrying someone who cannot walk. Simon giving up his seat. Tori timing guards while pretending not to care. When they choose to stay together despite chances to split, I believed it.

The dread lands too. Being watched. Being filed. Hearing a calm adult use your full name when you gave a false one. Realizing a safe house has cameras. Chloe dreads labels and tests. Every ghost scene doubles that fear, because only she sees what is happening and saying so risks being called ill again.

Still, a few flaws matter.

Rae fades. She was vivid in book one, fast talking, covering fear with jokes, testing small fires. Here she vanishes for long stretches, then returns for a beat that should hit harder. I missed her. Tori swings too. One chapter she spots every lie. The next she walks into an obvious trap because the story needs tension. Armstrong usually writes teens smarter than that.

The middle repeats its loop. Find shelter. Argue. Scout. Move. Broke kids on the run need bus fare and dry socks, I get why those scenes exist, but after the third cycle I skimmed parking lot descriptions. Thirty tighter pages would have helped.

Exposition still clunks. Liz explains necromancy in talks that sound like lessons. Derek's father explains Edison history in paragraphs no worried parent would say while hunted. I forgave it because I wanted the facts, but I noticed it. Armstrong shows action better than she delivers speeches.

The romance setup stays careful to a fault. Simon is sweet. Derek is steady and gruff. Chloe notices both and commits to neither. Age appropriate, yet Armstrong nudges it so often that it reads like positioning for book three. Readers who live for that tension will enjoy it. I wanted one honest talk instead of five near moments.

Pick this up if you liked The Summoning but found it slow. Powers get used here, the group gels, the ghosts press harder. Do not expect a tidy close. This is a middle book and it ends like one, with partial safety and a larger threat sharpening. I closed it tired in a good way, worried about Liz, worried about Rae, hoping Derek gets one full night of sleep. I started book three the same week.

FAQ

Where does The Awakening fit in Darkest Powers?

It is book two, following The Summoning and before The Reckoning, first published in 2009 by HarperCollins.

What can Chloe Saunders do?

She is a necromancer who sees, raises, calls, and releases ghosts, though control tires her and fear makes crowds of spirits surge.

Who is Liz?

Liz is an older necromancer living off the grid who teaches Chloe how to block voices, ground after workings, and release the dead.