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The Unseen #1
It Begins
Out walking alone one rainy night, Lucy becomes convinced that someone—or something—is following her. Spooked, she ducks into a cemetery to try and lose her stalker. Panicking in the darkness, she slips and stumbles into an open grave—only to discover she is not alone in there. . . . Lucy manages to escape, but she doesn’t get away unscathed. She begins having terrifying visions and dreams—and she still can’t shake the feeling of an unseen presence, always watching, waiting. . . . Who was the girl in the grave? And what has she done to Lucy?
296 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published August 1, 2003
24 people are currently reading
1661 people want to read
About the author
Richie Tankersley Cusick
50 books796 followersRichie Tankersley Cusick is the bestselling young adult author of over 25 titles, including two adult horror titles, Scarecrow and Blood Roots. Her popularity grew at the height of the horror/YA boom in the late '80s/early '90s, particularly with books like Lifeguard , Trick or Treat and Teacher's Pet, just to name a few, allowing her to keep company on the bestseller paperback lists with the likes of R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike. Her fan base expanded about the time she changed publishers to Archway/Pocket Books with titles like Vampire and Someone at the Door.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 93 reviews
February 28, 2017
The Unseen Quartet, by Richie Tankersley Cusick: 1 “Not a Keeper” Star.
(BTW: The puppy gif’s are for you VAL. Thanks for the great status updates! ;D)
Anypooch... I promised to bore you and I shall. So here it is:
I’M A SUCKER FOR CHEAP, USED BOOKS.
I snap them up for a song at garage sales and used bookstores, carefully group them into visually pleasing arrangements on my bookshelves, stand back and admire them for a minute or two, and (save for a weekly dusting) forget all about them.
In short, I am to books what Mr. Dursley is to Harry Potter: A deplorable guardian.
UNINTERESTING? Sure. But also relevant.
Because every few months I go on a de-cluttering binge, which means I read a few neglected book orphans and (hopefully) dislike them enough to return them to the cold, cruel world from whence they came. My latest victim: The Unseen Quartet, by Richie Tankersley Cusick.
That’s right folks! I now have four less books to dust. And here’s why…
OR NOT, as the case may be.
And it is.
The case, I mean.
For, The Unseen Quartet isn’t very scary. Or very well plotted. Or very interesting. Though, to be fair, it’s not entirely uninteresting either (which accounts for the extra star). It also suffers from the strangest case of insta-love ever documented, as the heroine falls instantly in love with 2 guys she barely interacts with AT ALL.
So… yeah! That about covers it. Now... who wants cupcakes?
For information about my rating system, see my profile page.
(BTW: The puppy gif’s are for you VAL. Thanks for the great status updates! ;D)
Anypooch... I promised to bore you and I shall. So here it is:
I’M A SUCKER FOR CHEAP, USED BOOKS.
I snap them up for a song at garage sales and used bookstores, carefully group them into visually pleasing arrangements on my bookshelves, stand back and admire them for a minute or two, and (save for a weekly dusting) forget all about them.
In short, I am to books what Mr. Dursley is to Harry Potter: A deplorable guardian.
UNINTERESTING? Sure. But also relevant.
Because every few months I go on a de-cluttering binge, which means I read a few neglected book orphans and (hopefully) dislike them enough to return them to the cold, cruel world from whence they came. My latest victim: The Unseen Quartet, by Richie Tankersley Cusick.
That’s right folks! I now have four less books to dust. And here’s why…
OR NOT, as the case may be.
And it is.
The case, I mean.
For, The Unseen Quartet isn’t very scary. Or very well plotted. Or very interesting. Though, to be fair, it’s not entirely uninteresting either (which accounts for the extra star). It also suffers from the strangest case of insta-love ever documented, as the heroine falls instantly in love with 2 guys she barely interacts with AT ALL.
So… yeah! That about covers it. Now... who wants cupcakes?
For information about my rating system, see my profile page.
February 24, 2018
Fantastic book! It has everything I want-- horror, suspense, a sprinkle of drama, a tease of intimacy, and the mystery of wondering what one of the characters is. I love the role the rain played in this book. Excellent use of the sense to keep me drawn into the story. It was easy to remember why Richie is one of my favorite authors.
May 20, 2011
While I was searching the library for Afterlife by Claudia Gray (which totally hurt my feelings because they didn’t have it), I came across this series of books. I was totally skeptical by the appearance but I’m getting a little desperate for a well-written novel without a vampire/werewolf/faery centered plot. Don’t get me wrong, I completely love those characters but hey how many different versions can a girl take? I thought maybe I would find it in this novel. WRONG! To be perfectly honest, I don’t think I found anything within this plot… whatever it was.
See, there’s Lucy and of course we go down the same ole beaten path—her mother dies, she’s never known her father, she’s goes to live with her Aunt in the little town where everybody knows everybody, yada… yada….yada…. Oh yeah, and her cousin is spiteful hateful B****. So, in the beginning we have this really strange prologue with this weirdo guy talking about how some chick found out about him and despite the fact that he loved her, he had to kill her (I would like to point out that I never found the point where it was mentioned or shown in the rest of the novel where he loved her in any way), then we’re thrust into this scene with Lucy walking and being followed then she’s in an open grave with a girl who’s dying and she touches her and gives her this weird gift…. Umm, yeah, ok! Then there’s a bunch of random events that fail to raise any interest on my part (if hadn’t been such a small book I wouldn’t have been able to finish).
For me it was very staccato—meaning there was no flow. It was like an endless array of adjectives. The descriptions were seriously over exaggerated. I prefer more showing and less describing but that’s just me. The character development wasn’t too bad but there wasn’t any one character that stood out to me or even interested me for that matter. I understand a lot of really bad things were happening to Lucy but she simply came across as severely paranoid and irritating. Then there was the ending that made no sense and left me no information or intrigue to continue with the series.
See, there’s Lucy and of course we go down the same ole beaten path—her mother dies, she’s never known her father, she’s goes to live with her Aunt in the little town where everybody knows everybody, yada… yada….yada…. Oh yeah, and her cousin is spiteful hateful B****. So, in the beginning we have this really strange prologue with this weirdo guy talking about how some chick found out about him and despite the fact that he loved her, he had to kill her (I would like to point out that I never found the point where it was mentioned or shown in the rest of the novel where he loved her in any way), then we’re thrust into this scene with Lucy walking and being followed then she’s in an open grave with a girl who’s dying and she touches her and gives her this weird gift…. Umm, yeah, ok! Then there’s a bunch of random events that fail to raise any interest on my part (if hadn’t been such a small book I wouldn’t have been able to finish).
For me it was very staccato—meaning there was no flow. It was like an endless array of adjectives. The descriptions were seriously over exaggerated. I prefer more showing and less describing but that’s just me. The character development wasn’t too bad but there wasn’t any one character that stood out to me or even interested me for that matter. I understand a lot of really bad things were happening to Lucy but she simply came across as severely paranoid and irritating. Then there was the ending that made no sense and left me no information or intrigue to continue with the series.
December 19, 2017
Interesting read. I started with just reading a chapter to find out my next book to read. Had this book for awhile. After that first chapter I kept going I was into the story wanted to know more where the story was going. Interesting to see more about Lucy and to know more about this mysterious killer. Then of course you can't have a young adult book without tossing in a mysterious boy name Byron. Lucy moves to her aunt's house after her mom dies and she finds herself running and falling to a grave and it takes off from there. 3.5 to me interesting, suspense but nothing like wow to me but I'll continue with the series since I have all the books and I want to see where else this storyline goes.
October 27, 2012
I read this book in one sitting, it was very interesting and I couldn't stop reading it!
July 13, 2019
I truly do not want to be sitting here writing this review. Mostly because it means acknowledging that I loved a series that was poorly written, poorly plotted, and poorly executed. The concept is that a girl named Lucy moves in with her aunt and cousin in Pine Ridge after her mother dies and mysterious things happen. One night on a walk through her new city she feels someone following her and runs into the nearest hiding place–which just so happens to be a cemetery where a girl is dying. Supernatural elements, mystery elements….etc. But the whole thing is so badly written that it feels like walking around in circles. We discover early on that Lucy develops powers and she is possibly being stalked. But for the next 200 pages we’re constantly standing in one spot going no where with any of it.
It doesn’t help that there is zero world building anywhere in the novel. And it really doesn’t help that the characters are so flat. The mystery itself isn’t that mysterious because we’re given a couple of chapters in another perspective which clears up some of the mystery. I just feel so disappointed because I remember loving it as a teenager and now 16 years later I just think it’s garbage. Maybe it’s because I didn’t read much more than Harry Potter from 10 to 14 years old so I didn’t understand other genres and how they’re supposed to work. But now that I’m 30 and I’ve read a lot of different authors and genres this story really does not work at all.
It doesn’t help that there is zero world building anywhere in the novel. And it really doesn’t help that the characters are so flat. The mystery itself isn’t that mysterious because we’re given a couple of chapters in another perspective which clears up some of the mystery. I just feel so disappointed because I remember loving it as a teenager and now 16 years later I just think it’s garbage. Maybe it’s because I didn’t read much more than Harry Potter from 10 to 14 years old so I didn’t understand other genres and how they’re supposed to work. But now that I’m 30 and I’ve read a lot of different authors and genres this story really does not work at all.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 31, 2022
Interesting read but I feel like the plot is very stretched out with a lot of unnecessary details. Books 1 and 2 could've really just been one book if all the fluff had been taken out.
August 10, 2025
3 stars
You know when the FMC is confused, and the plot is all over the place—so nobody really knows what's going on? Yeah, this was that kind of book.
You know when the FMC is confused, and the plot is all over the place—so nobody really knows what's going on? Yeah, this was that kind of book.
May 24, 2022
Great read! Kept me guessing and on the edge of my seat, I couldn't put it down!
March 6, 2025
Very spooky and fast paced! Kept me questioning till the very end and ended on a cliffhanger!
February 10, 2015
For a book that I grabbed at random of a library shelf because I just needed SOMETHING to read, I actually wasn't disappointed by what this book had to offer. The book wasn't anything amazing by any means, but it was a fun, quick read. The short chapters made it easy to get a chapter in here or their in between my classes instead of having to force myself to find a stopping point in the middle of the chapter's action and close it.
In terms of the character development, I understand when the other people reviewing this novel say the character's are relatively flat, and I have to agree. Aside from Lucy, the characters are even not in the plot line enough to show any development, or they're taken out of the book entirely just when they're starting to show any development. On top of this, there truly isn't that many characters to this book that stick around long enough to be noted. We only really have Lucy, her cousin (Angela), her aunt (Irene), a classmate named Byron, and the Big Bad to keep the plot line going.
The plot was also pretty cut and paste at points though. Girl ends up where she shouldn't be, comes across something, is confused and now chased after by villain. Pretty straightforward.
The author managed to make it work to where I wasn't bored though. She tried to give twists in the plot to surprise the reader, and while some were cliche and easy to guess, some actually surprised me, as I did not see them coming.
Also, while the author does drag on with her descriptions at times, making the reader want to tell her to just move on already, and Lucy may constantly bring up her mother or the novel's opening scene over and over again, to the annoyance of the reader, the author makes up for it in the scenes that are intended to make the reader uncomfortable or carry the feel of a paranormal or horror novel.
Some of the best chapters in the book come from the Big Bad of all people. The chapters do a decent job at showing just how creepy the person can get and work at unsettling the reader.
The ending was also frustrating but wanted me to keep going, the way it ended on a complete cliffhanger, with no ends tied or questions answered.
Bonus points to this book for not having the same cliche love triangle we see in other big named novels at the moment
So in short, while the characters were pretty 2-D and plot wasn't amazing, the book was still a really fun quick-read and can keep the reader on the edge of their seat. I will definitely be grabbing the second book soon to continue the story.
In terms of the character development, I understand when the other people reviewing this novel say the character's are relatively flat, and I have to agree. Aside from Lucy, the characters are even not in the plot line enough to show any development, or they're taken out of the book entirely just when they're starting to show any development. On top of this, there truly isn't that many characters to this book that stick around long enough to be noted. We only really have Lucy, her cousin (Angela), her aunt (Irene), a classmate named Byron, and the Big Bad to keep the plot line going.
The plot was also pretty cut and paste at points though. Girl ends up where she shouldn't be, comes across something, is confused and now chased after by villain. Pretty straightforward.
The author managed to make it work to where I wasn't bored though. She tried to give twists in the plot to surprise the reader, and while some were cliche and easy to guess, some actually surprised me, as I did not see them coming.
Also, while the author does drag on with her descriptions at times, making the reader want to tell her to just move on already, and Lucy may constantly bring up her mother or the novel's opening scene over and over again, to the annoyance of the reader, the author makes up for it in the scenes that are intended to make the reader uncomfortable or carry the feel of a paranormal or horror novel.
Some of the best chapters in the book come from the Big Bad of all people. The chapters do a decent job at showing just how creepy the person can get and work at unsettling the reader.
The ending was also frustrating but wanted me to keep going, the way it ended on a complete cliffhanger, with no ends tied or questions answered.
Bonus points to this book for not having the same cliche love triangle we see in other big named novels at the moment
So in short, while the characters were pretty 2-D and plot wasn't amazing, the book was still a really fun quick-read and can keep the reader on the edge of their seat. I will definitely be grabbing the second book soon to continue the story.
May 14, 2015
Actually I've read one of these books, really liked the creepy factor (funny I was at an age where I really disliked anything horror/thriller like and yet...) and the story, only I can't remember which one of it is (and seeing at the time I just picked it up because it sounded good, I didn't realise til halfway through that it wasn't the first book--I think) so I think I'll actually read this series again, right from the start.
Not the world's best novel. Not bad, but could have been better. It's very short and brief and lots of things happen. Though predominantly, Lucy is very paranoid and scared most of the time.
Ends on a cliffhanger.
I did get a wave of creepiness at one stage, but overall this is not a really creepy novel.
Well. Not yet :P.
Not the world's best novel. Not bad, but could have been better. It's very short and brief and lots of things happen. Though predominantly, Lucy is very paranoid and scared most of the time.
Ends on a cliffhanger.
I did get a wave of creepiness at one stage, but overall this is not a really creepy novel.
Well. Not yet :P.
February 3, 2017
Why did it take until page 215 out of 296 to get ANYWHERE with this plot?!?! There were back-to-back chapters of the same, exact circular conversation. I hate starting a series I don't like because I'm not a quitter and now I have to finish these next three books. We are presented with our mystery box at the very beginning and have next to zero answers by the end of the book. It like a season LOST but 1000x worse.... and I really loved LOST and I really did not enjoy this book. I am thankful the font is big and the margins on the pages are bigger. It's an easy read that I feel obligated to finish to fuel this hate fire. Onto Book 2. Woof.
May 4, 2012
Main character Lucy has more problems than good times in this book (heavy on the angst, light on the friends and crushes), and the ending is super-abrupt and not very clear, but it was so fun reading Richie Tankersley Cusick again (I was a big fan in my teens.) But she can do better than this. Try classic Cusick, like The Mall, Vampire, or even her earlier foray into the supernatural, The Locker.
September 16, 2015
Seriously though...what in the hell did I just read?? There...nothing happened!!! I mean, very minimal things happened and it was just...no character development. Literally every single character was unlikable and I just...was there even any plot? I just...what was this book even about, because I don't have a dam clue. The only reason I'm going to continue with this series is because I already bought the rest of the books. Ugh. This is going to be painful.
January 18, 2017
Things that go bump in the night, oh my. At first, I did not like the main character, Lucy. I found her a bit too ditzy, but then the character grew on me and I started to like her. The book hooked me about a quarter of the way through and then the next thing you knew I was done. Will be reading more books in this series.
June 6, 2010
LOVED LOVED LOVED THIS BOOK...all the details and how the chapters were set up...everything about it...I enjoyed reading it a lot...and this was one of those books that kept me up at night because I just couldnt put it down...
July 8, 2011
Ok so this book is totally different than anything I have read before. I read it really quick- less than 3 hours! I was hooked right from the start. There is a lot of strangeness that can't be explained, but I am hoping that I will understand more as I read the rest of the series!
July 27, 2017
I'm not convinced that I like this, but it's intriguing enough that I have to continue. There's a lot of tension, but I don't love the characters or the action. I do want to know what happens... I just hope I don't regret it. It's a fast read, for sure.
February 19, 2009
wonderful!!!
July 14, 2009
Awesome!!!
June 15, 2010
Scary!
June 18, 2010
a little slow in the begining but it picked up and thoroughly creeped me out.lol major cliff hanger. The story is told from two perspectives... the possible victim and the murderer.
December 20, 2010
I was skeptical about this series at first, but after truding on, I was hooked. Full of suspense.
Read
June 15, 2011Original YA fiction yay!
October 17, 2020
Creepy in a good way. No gore, which is a good thing but instead relies on other effective devices to keep readers scared.
Read
November 28, 2010I LOVED IT :D
October 21, 2019
2.5*
There was a time in my early teens when I would regularly go to WHSmith after school with my friend Sarah. Our purpose was to root around on the bottom shelf of their Young Adult section, where we might find new Point Horror books -- we'd read all of our library's PH stock, so had to spend our pocket money on buying them. To be more economical, Sarah and I would swap our books with each other to ensure we got as much out of our £5 as possible.
Towards the end of my reading these shitty horror books, just before I went on a family holiday, The Unseen appeared on the shelf and I dutifully bought it. There was a strict rule in my house: you couldn't bring books on holiday if you'd already started reading them.
But I couldn't resist The Unseen, and ended up getting caught reading it the day before our holiday began. I was so engrossed and so creeped out that there was no way I could wait a whole fortnight to finish it, so I had to stay up all night with a little torch, tearing through it. It was an anxious two weeks before we got back to London, and I had to constantly watch WHSmith for the rest of the series to come in, which luckily happened quicker than usual. I was hooked right up until the end of the series, and I still remember my tingling excitement when the 4th finally came out.
This is all a very long way to say that this series holds a lot of heartwarming memories for me, and so when a friend and I were discussing the truly terrible books we used to read as preteens and teens last week, I started thinking about The Unseen. And once I started thinking about it, I needed to reread it, so I ordered a copy of eBay and devoured it in a single day.
And you know what? I thought it would be so-bad-it's-good or just so bad I couldn't finish it, but it was neither. It was just...solidly mediocre. Certainly, not the worst Point Horror I've reread as an adult -- looking at you The Forbidden Game. It did, however, have all the hallmarks of early 00s YA in the form of long description of clothes, instalove, barely repressed sexuality, everyone keeping secrets for literally no reason other than to create suspense, and hearty amounts of slut-shaming.
But it was also incredibly fun to reread, to laugh at the things I thought were scary, once, and to be shocked by how much I actually remember of the plot. And it wasn't so bad that I won't be reading the rest of the series -- on the contrary, I've already ordered the 3 other books because it was nice to get caught up in these silly books again. They are fast-paced and take themselves so seriously that it's hard not to admire their earnestness.
Do I recommend the book? Not at all, it's garbage, unless you, like me, are revisiting memories.
There was a time in my early teens when I would regularly go to WHSmith after school with my friend Sarah. Our purpose was to root around on the bottom shelf of their Young Adult section, where we might find new Point Horror books -- we'd read all of our library's PH stock, so had to spend our pocket money on buying them. To be more economical, Sarah and I would swap our books with each other to ensure we got as much out of our £5 as possible.
Towards the end of my reading these shitty horror books, just before I went on a family holiday, The Unseen appeared on the shelf and I dutifully bought it. There was a strict rule in my house: you couldn't bring books on holiday if you'd already started reading them.
But I couldn't resist The Unseen, and ended up getting caught reading it the day before our holiday began. I was so engrossed and so creeped out that there was no way I could wait a whole fortnight to finish it, so I had to stay up all night with a little torch, tearing through it. It was an anxious two weeks before we got back to London, and I had to constantly watch WHSmith for the rest of the series to come in, which luckily happened quicker than usual. I was hooked right up until the end of the series, and I still remember my tingling excitement when the 4th finally came out.
This is all a very long way to say that this series holds a lot of heartwarming memories for me, and so when a friend and I were discussing the truly terrible books we used to read as preteens and teens last week, I started thinking about The Unseen. And once I started thinking about it, I needed to reread it, so I ordered a copy of eBay and devoured it in a single day.
And you know what? I thought it would be so-bad-it's-good or just so bad I couldn't finish it, but it was neither. It was just...solidly mediocre. Certainly, not the worst Point Horror I've reread as an adult -- looking at you The Forbidden Game. It did, however, have all the hallmarks of early 00s YA in the form of long description of clothes, instalove, barely repressed sexuality, everyone keeping secrets for literally no reason other than to create suspense, and hearty amounts of slut-shaming.
But it was also incredibly fun to reread, to laugh at the things I thought were scary, once, and to be shocked by how much I actually remember of the plot. And it wasn't so bad that I won't be reading the rest of the series -- on the contrary, I've already ordered the 3 other books because it was nice to get caught up in these silly books again. They are fast-paced and take themselves so seriously that it's hard not to admire their earnestness.
Do I recommend the book? Not at all, it's garbage, unless you, like me, are revisiting memories.
December 30, 2016
I absolutely loved Richie Tankersley Cusick when I was growing up. I think I devoured every book she wrote (with the exception of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer tie-ins). When I saw she wrote a few more books in early 2000 I bought and read those as well.
I feel like her stories written in the last decade sort of struggle against modern day accessibility. In the late 80s and early 90s there weren't cellphones which are pretty much the norm these days. So having a character who doesn't know how to use a cellphone and dealing with it that way (in order to create the sense of isolation) seems a little too unrealistic for the generations younger than me. I think she'd do better to have the heroine accidentally drop her phone into a gutter (yes, that's happened to me) or smash it while running across a parking lot (yep, guilty of that too). There are many believably benign ways to render a cellphone little more than a hugely expensive paperweight. That's a petty gripe though. Most of her stories depend on a certain amount of isolation to get the (usually murder) mystery going. I do understand why she wants to get rid of modern conveniences and go back to the basics.
Anyway, this is one of her more "supernatural" tales. I've read these books a few times and I seem to interpret it differently with every read. Maybe I'll read it again in the new year and see if my feelings change.
I feel like her stories written in the last decade sort of struggle against modern day accessibility. In the late 80s and early 90s there weren't cellphones which are pretty much the norm these days. So having a character who doesn't know how to use a cellphone and dealing with it that way (in order to create the sense of isolation) seems a little too unrealistic for the generations younger than me. I think she'd do better to have the heroine accidentally drop her phone into a gutter (yes, that's happened to me) or smash it while running across a parking lot (yep, guilty of that too). There are many believably benign ways to render a cellphone little more than a hugely expensive paperweight. That's a petty gripe though. Most of her stories depend on a certain amount of isolation to get the (usually murder) mystery going. I do understand why she wants to get rid of modern conveniences and go back to the basics.
Anyway, this is one of her more "supernatural" tales. I've read these books a few times and I seem to interpret it differently with every read. Maybe I'll read it again in the new year and see if my feelings change.
April 16, 2025
I read this series in middle school and have re-read it about 50 times since then. I love this series!!! Such an amazing fantasy thriller/horror story. So many twists and turns.
Lucy moves in with her aunt and cousin, in Pine Ridge, after her mother passes away. On a rainy night she feels as though she’s being followed. She takes cover in a cemetery and stumbles into an open grave… she quickly realizes she’s not alone in there. She has a terrifying encounter with the dying girl in the grave. She begins having intense, terrifying visions and dreams. She can’t seem to shake the feeling of being watched by an unseen presence. She doesn’t know what’s happening to her, what the girl did to her. All she knows is, this is her life now. If you love monster movies/stories, this series is for you!
Lucy moves in with her aunt and cousin, in Pine Ridge, after her mother passes away. On a rainy night she feels as though she’s being followed. She takes cover in a cemetery and stumbles into an open grave… she quickly realizes she’s not alone in there. She has a terrifying encounter with the dying girl in the grave. She begins having intense, terrifying visions and dreams. She can’t seem to shake the feeling of being watched by an unseen presence. She doesn’t know what’s happening to her, what the girl did to her. All she knows is, this is her life now. If you love monster movies/stories, this series is for you!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 93 reviews