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The Mediator is a series of seven young-adult paranormal romance novels written by Meg Cabot. The first four novels were originally published under Cabot's pseudonym Jenny Carroll by Simon and Schuster. The next two books were published by HarperCollins and under Meg Cabot's name. Eleven years later, HarperCollins published the seventh and last book under its adult division, William Morrow.

Cabot stated that she originally planned the series as an eight-book arc, but because of poor sales only got the chance to write six. In several posts on her blog and forums she stated that she had the plot of an "epilogue/sequel" on file, and needed only the time to write it out. The final book would eventually occur in 2016.

The series is told from the first-person point of view of Susannah "Suze" Simon, a teenage Mediator - a person who has abilities to see, touch and talk to ghosts, and whose main goal is to help them to the "Great Beyond" (afterlife). As the series goes on, she discovers she can also travel to the Shadow Land (Land of Damnation). In the sixth book, Suze finds out that she is actually a Shifter, a type of Mediator with more advanced powers, including the ability to remove someone's soul from their body (effectively killing them) and replace it with someone else's, to travel through time, and into the corridor between worlds.

Over the course of the series, Suze falls in love with Jesse, a nineteenth century ghost whom she soon learns is really named Hector de Silva, but prefers to go by the nickname his mother gave him. Since he is a ghost, no one other than Suze and other Mediators (Paul, Father Dominic, Dr Slaski and Jack) can see him. Suze frequently recalls that she cannot even introduce him to her parents. Jesse's rival is Paul, a fellow Mediator (later revealed to be a Shifter like Suze) whom Suze greatly dislikes and calls "The Spawn of Satan". Paul frequently taunts Jesse about his mortality, and states that he is a better person for Suze.

Novels[]

  1. USA: Shadowland/UK: Love You to Death (November 2000)
  2. USA: Ninth Key/UK: High Stakes (February 2001)
  3. USA: Reunion/UK: Mean Spirits (July 2001)
  4. USA: Darkest Hour/UK: Young Blood (December 2001)
  5. USA: Haunted/ UK: Grave Doubts (January 2003)
  6. USA: Twilight/ UK: Heaven Sent (December 2004)
  7. Proposal (January 2016)
  8. Remembrance (February 2016)

Author's Note[]

I first got the idea for The Mediator series after my father died in 1994. My brother and I kept thinking we saw him out of the corners of our eyes. I know it was just a trick of our unconscious, but it did seem a little like Dad-who had a good sense of humor, and played a lot of pranks-was haunting us, in a joking way. That got me thinking-what if there WERE such a thing as ghosts? And what if, instead of just the ghost of someone YOU happened to know and love, you were someone who could see EVERYONE's ghost?

When I mentioned this to my brother, he groaned, "You're not going to write a book about this, are you?" I started writing one that day-a book that eventually became SHADOWLAND, the first book in The Mediator series, about a sixteen year old girl who can see and speak to ghosts (only no one in her family knows this) and who moves, with her mother, from Brooklyn to live her new stepfather and brothers in California, where she encounters Jesse, a spirit like no other-and to whom she later proves to be bound by destiny.whether she likes him or not.

And she definitely does.

I chose Carmel as a setting because when my brothers and I were kids, our father taught at the Naval Academy in Monterey, CA, and we lived in Carmel, CA, and went to the Junipero Serra Mission School, just like Susannah Simon, the series. I've never forgotten the beauty of Carmel, or the haunting mystery of the mission, so I based the books there (although all the characters at the Mission School and in the Carmel of the books are fictional).

I originally planned there to be 8 books in the series in all. Simon and Schuster contracted me for 4 books, but the books didn't end up selling at all, and after the publication of DARKEST HOUR, they chose not to buy my proposal for the next four books in the series (in other words-I got fired).

I was devastated. But life goes on. Happily, The Princess Diaries series WAS selling well, and when I broached the subject of continuing The Mediator series with HarperCollins my Princess Diaries publisher, they agreed to not only publish two new books in the series, but purchase the previous books in the series and reprint them. I'm eternally grateful to HarperCollins for breathing new life into The Mediator series, and allowing me to finish it up the way I'd planned to.

I have no plans on continuing The Mediator series past six books at this time. I'm happy with where I've left Suze and Jesse in TWILIGHT, and hope readers are as well. To continue the series would mean to introduce further conflict into Suze's world, and I feel like she deserves a rest after everything she (and I) has been through with this series. I'm grateful to all the readers who've stuck by this series, and hope you'll look forward to the new paranormal series I'll be writing in the future!

Thank you!

Love,

Meg

Adaptations[]

The Mediator series rights have been sold to producer Julia Pistor, and will be made into a movie in the near future.[citation needed]

In 2011 and 2012, Cabot discussed on her personal blog the possibility of a seventh Mediator novel, which would eventually come to pass, and the series becoming a TV show instead of a movie.

In a 2020 blog, Cabot confirmed that a draft for a possible series adaptation of The Mediator had been shown to her by a Australian writer and director named Sarah Spillane. It is currently in plans to be adapted into a one-hour movie series for each of novels.[1]

References[]

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