The Retreat, by Sherri Smith ~ 4.0 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Child Molestation//Rape, LGBT, Mystery, Self-harm, Substance Abuse, Suspense

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review. 

Release Date: August 13th, 2019

 

352 Pages

Synopsis: Sherri Smith illuminates the dark side of the self-care and wellness industry in a thrilling ride of revenge perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty’s Nine Perfect Strangers. The Retreat is a twisting, bone-chilling suspense that asks: how well do you really know your friends?

Four friends.

Four secrets.

A weekend that will change them forever…if they survive.

Kate Manning was a beloved child star until her mid-teens when her manager attacked her and permanently scarred her face, effectively ending her career and sending her on a path of all-too-familiar post-Hollywood self-destruction. 

Now twenty-seven, Katie wants a better answer to those clickbait “Where Are The Now?” articles that float around online. An answer she hopes to find when her brother’s fiancée invites her to a wellness retreat upstate. Together with Katie’s two best friends—-one struggling with crippling debt and family obligations, one running away from a failed job and relationship—-Katie will try to find the inner peace promised at the tranquil retreat. But finding oneself might just drudge up more memories than Katie is prepared to deal with.

Each woman has come to the retreat for different reasons. Each has her secrets to hide. And at the end of this weekend, only one will be left standing.

At about 50 pages in to The Retreat, I thought it was going to be a campy take on a familiar theme and that this was going to turn out to be a “meh” review. But then it took some twisty turns down the dark side, and I wound up enjoying this much more than I originally thought.

This is both a plot driven and character driven tale. No one here is very likable, at least at first. However, all the characters turn out to be much more complicated than they first appear to be. The story is told from former child star and scandal-ridden Katie’s POV, as well as those of her sister-in-law-to-be, Ellie-Rose, and her two best friends, Carmen and Ariel. All four women have secrets that they’re desperately trying to protect, and the way Sherri Smith teasingly reveals each backstory was mesmerizing.

The mystery itself was tantalizing and made for a true page turner with its shocking twists. While I was pretty sure who the villain was by the halfway point, I couldn’t figure out their motivation, so when the big reveal came I was caught by surprise. While the ending for the most part tied up Katie’s story, there were other loose ends that left me with some questions.

Overall, The Retreat is an entertaining and quick read that will make you think twice before going on a wellness retreat. There are several issues that come up that could prove a trigger for some readers. These include: child molestation/rape, substance abuse, gory violence (near the end) and self-harm. This is the first book I’ve read by Sherri Smith, but it certainly won’t be the last!

 

 

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Good Girl, Bad Girl, by Michael Robothom ~ 4.0 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Attempted Rape, Attempted Suicide, Child Abuse, Mystery, Substance Abuse, Suspense, Torture

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: July 23, 2019

368 Pages

Synopsis: From the bestselling author of The Secrets She Keeps, the writer Stephen King calls “an absolute master…with heart and soul,” comes a fiendishly clever suspense novel about a dangerous young woman with a special ability to know when someone is lying—-and the criminal psychologist who must outwit her to survive.

A girl is discovered hiding in a secret room in the aftermath of a terrible crime. Half-starved and filthy, she won’t tell anyone her name, or her age, or where she came from. Maybe she is twelve, maybe fifteen. She doesn’t appear in any missing persons file, and her DNA can’t be matched to an identity. Six years later, still unidentified, she is living in a secure children’s home with a new name, Evie Cormac. When she initiates a court case, demanding the right to be released as an adult, forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven must determine if Evie is ready to go free. But she is unlike anyone he’s ever met—-fascinating and dangerous in equal measure. Evie knows when someone is lying, and no one around her is telling the truth.

Meanwhile, Cyrus is called in to investigate the murder of a high school figure-skating champion, Jodie Sheehan, who dies on a lonely footpath close to her home. Pretty and popular, Jodie is portrayed by everyone as the ultimate girl-next-door, but as Cyrus peels back the layers, a secret life emerges—-one that Evie Cormac, a girl with no past, knows something about. A man haunted by his own tragic history, Cyrus is caught between the two cases—-one girl who needs saving, another who needs justice. What price will he pay for the truth? Fiendishly clever, swiftly paced, and emotionally explosive, Good Girl, Bad Girl is the perfect thrilling summer read by internationally bestselling author Michael Robothom.

Good Girl, Bad Girl is the first book I’ve read by Michael Robothom, and while there were a couple of issues I ran into, I still really enjoyed it. 

The best part of the book are Cyrus and Evie. I loved both their backstories and the mystery surrounding Evie, I found especially compelling. I confess I thought her ability of being a “truth wizard” would be more of a focus of the book and was disappointed that it wasn’t. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the same emotional investment in discovering who was behind Jodie’s death. Don’t get me wrong, it was a solid mystery. I think I was just so captivated by the developing relationship between Cyrus and Evie, and the shared traumas between them, that I found Jodie’s story almost distracting. 

All of the characters are extremely well-written, with plenty of flaws amongst them, which serves to make them relatable (although there was one who I found thoroughly detestable and who didn’t get the just desserts they should have.) But again, it’s Cyrus and Evie who are the standouts here and raise this story above others in the same genre.

Good Girl, Bad Girl was an entertaining and quick read, and from the way it ends I will be very surprised if this doesn’t turn into a series. Both Cyrus and Evie are characters I easily grew attached to and I’d love to see more of them. I do want to caution though, there are triggers which some people may have a difficult time with. These include: Descriptions of torture, child abuse, substance abuse, attempted suicide, self-harm, and attempted rape. Otherwise, I highly recommend this to fans of mystery, suspense, and character-driven stories.

 

 

Old Bones (Nora Kelly #1), by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child ~ 4.5 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Suspense

Thanks to the Grand Central Publishing for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: August 20th, 2019

384 Pages

Synopsis: #1 bestselling authors Preston & Child bring  the true story of the ill-fated Donner Party to new life in a thrilling blend of archaeology, history, murder, and suspense.

Nora Kelly, a young curator with the Santa Fe Institute of Archeology is approached by historian Clive Benton with a once-in-a-lifetime proposal: to lead a team in search of the so-called “Lost Camp” of the tragic Donner Party. This was a group of pioneers who earned a terrible place in American history when they became snowbound in the California mountains in 1847, their fate unknown, until the first skeletonized survivors stumbled out of the wilderness, raving about starvation, murder, and cannibalism. 

Benton tells Kelly he has stumbled upon an amazing find: the long-sought diary of one of the victims, which has an enigmatic description of the Lost Camp. Nora agrees to lead an expedition to locate and excavate it—-to reveal its long-buried secrets.

Once in the mountains, however, they learn that discovering the camp is only the first step in a mounting journey of fear. For as they uncover old bones, they expose the real truth of what happened, one that is far more shocking and bizarre than mere cannibalism. And when those ancient horrors lead to present day violence on a grand scale, rookie FBI agent, Corrie Swanson is assigned the case…only to find that her first investigation might very well be her last.

The bad news for fans of Aloysius Pendergast, is that he doesn’t make an appearance in Old Bones until the epilogue. The good news is that while I personally deeply missed him, Preston & Child have taken one of my favorite secondary characters in the Pendergast series, and given her wings.

Nora was actually the main character in Thunderhead (1999). As the Pendergast series took off, she became a strong supporting character, featuring predominantly in the Diogenes trilogy. If after waiting for a year for a new book by the authors, I couldn’t have this feature my Pendergast, I couldn’t have asked for a better person to take the reins. 

Joining Nora is another Pendergast supporting character, Corrie Swanson, who having been mentored by Pendergast, is now making her solo debut as an FBI agent. Both Nora and Corrie are strong-willed women, so to say they initially bump heads is putting it mildly. Nora is much more established and comfortable in her career, whereas Corrie is eager to prove herself and as a result, doesn’t always play well with others. I liked the way their relationship developed and by the end of the book they turned into quite a formidable team. I’m hoping Corrie makes more appearances in future books because they make quite a dynamic pairing.

The storyline itself is fascinating and vintage Preston and Child. Taking the historical tragedy of the Donner Party, and blending it with a modern-day sinister conspiracy was sheer genius. While it was obvious after only a few chapters in, that the shadowy organization behind grave robbings and killings were interested in a particular member of the doomed pioneers, I was in the dark until the last part of the book as to the question of why. Likewise, I was completely surprised regarding the unmasking of the villains who Nora and Corrie come into personal contact with. Once the big reveal came though, I had one of those “Aha!” moments because everything came together and made sense.

The only reason why I’m not giving this 5 stars is because as enjoyable as the characters and the blending of history with a contemporary conspiracy thriller were, there was a certain multi-layered complexity that are always a big part of the Pendergast books, that was missing here. Also, I’m usually literally chewing my nails while devouring a Pendergast tale but here, while I definitely had an avid interest in what was going on, I wasn’t quite so desperate about it. That said, Old Bones is a fun and entertaining introduction to this new series, and I’m looking forward to more (hopefully after a new Pendergast novel comes out though!) For those of you who haven’t read the Pendergast series, but are getting tired of my ravings about it, this is an excellent place to begin your introduction into the wonderfully weird, creepy, mysterious, always intriguing and exciting world of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child! 

 

 

 

The Turn of the Key, by Ruth Ware ~ 4.5 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Mystery, Suspense

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: September 5th, 2019

384 Pages

Synopsis: When she stumbles across the ad, she’s looking for something else completely. But it seems like too good an opportunity to miss—a live-in nannying post, with a staggeringly generous salary. And when Rowan Caine arrives at Heatherbrae House, she is smitten—by the luxurious “smart” home fitted out with all the modern conveniences, by the beautiful Scottish Highlands, and by this picture-perfect family.

What she doesn’t know is that she’s stepping into a nightmare—one that will end with a child dead and herself in prison awaiting trial for murder.

Writing to her lawyer from prison, she struggles to explain the unraveling events that led to her incarceration. It wasn’t just the constant surveillance from the cameras installed around the house, or the malfunctioning technology that woke up the household with booming music, or turned off the lights at the worst possible time. It wasn’t just the girls, who turned out to be a far cry from the immaculately behaved model children she met at her interview. It wasn’t even the way she was left alone for weeks at a time, with no adults around except for the enigmatic handyman, Jack Grant.

It was everything.

She knows she’s made mistakes. She admits that she lied to obtain the post, and that her behavior toward the children wasn’t always ideal. She’s not innocent, by any means. But she’s not guilty—at least of murder. Which means someone else is.

Turn of the Key is bestselling author Ruth Ware’s imaginative modern day adaptation of the Henry James classic Turn of the Screw, and trust me. It’s just as creepy, disturbing, and suspenseful. As Rowan relates her tale through a series of letters to her lawyer, it’s a slow burn until about halfway into the book and then the pace really picks up. This isn’t a criticism though, because as Rowan is an unreliable narrator I was constantly guessing as to what really happened and happily, the supporting characters are just as mysterious and intriguing as Rowan. There were many twists and turns that I never saw coming, which kept me mesmerized and turning the pages. The only reason I’m not giving this a full 5 stars is because I thought the ending was too rushed and left some loose ends. Otherwise, I highly recommend this contemporary gothic suspense to both fans of Ruth Ware and readers who haven’t tried her yet. And, I just have to say that I’m going to be truly disappointed if this isn’t adapted into a movie!

 

 

Slash, by Hunter Shea ~ 4.5 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Suspense

Thanks to NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review. 

Release Date: October 10th, 2019

288 Pages

Synopsis: Five years after Ashley King survived the infamous Resort Massacre, she’s found hanging in her basement by her fiancé, Todd Matthews. She left behind clues as to what really happened that night, clues that might reveal the identity of the killer the press has called The Wraith.

With the help of his friends, Todd goes back to the crumbling Hayden Resort, a death-tinged ruin in the Catskill Mountains. What they find is a haunted history that’s been lying in wait for a fresh set of victims. The Wraith is back, and he’s nothing what they expected.

For the last couple of years I’ve come to rely on Hunter Shea for good, old-fashioned, fun, gory, horror and with Slash I was not disappointed. Shea put his expected unique twist on the familiar slasher trope and turned it into a one-sitting page-turner. Despite the book being under 300 pages, the characters are pretty well-developed, as is the plot. And there’s a fantastic twist regarding The Wraith in the last third of the book which I didn’t see coming at all. As with all his books, Slash doesn’t have a happily-ever-after ending, but with this being my third book by him, I wasn’t expecting one.

If you’re a horror fan and haven’t tried Hunter Shea, I highly recommend him. His books don’t require any deep thinking, they’re just pure entertainment. As for Slash, its publishing date of October 10th makes it a perfect Halloween read.

The Swallows, by Lisa Lutz ~ 4.0 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Boarding Schools, Satire, Sexual Harassment, Suspense

Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: August 13th, 2019

368 Pages

Synopsis: A new teacher at a New England prep school ignites a gender war—with deadly consequences—in a provocative novel from the bestselling author of The Passenger and The Spellman Files series.

What do you love? What do you hate? What do you want?

It starts with this simple writing prompt from Alex Witt, Stonebridge Academy’s new creative writing teacher. When the students’ answers raise disturbing questions of their own, Ms. Witt knows there’s more going on at the school than the faculty want to see. She soon learns about The Ten—the students at the top of the school’s social hierarchy—as well as their connection to something called The Darkroom.

Ms. Witt can’t remain a passive observer. She finds the few girls who’ve started to question the school’s “boys will be boys” attitude and incites a resistance that quickly becomes a movement. But just as it gains momentum, she also attracts the attention of an unknown enemy who knows a little too much about her—including what brought her to Stonebridge in the first place.

Meanwhile, Gemma, a defiant senior, has been plotting her attack for years, waiting for the right moment. Shy loner Norman hates his role in the Darkroom but can’t find the courage to fight back until he makes an unlikely alliance. And then there’s Finn Ford, an English teacher with a shady reputation who keeps one eye on his literary ambitions and one on Ms. Witt. 

As the school’s secrets begin to trickle out, a boys-versus-girls skirmish turns into an all-out war, with deeply personal—and potentially fatal—consequences for everyone involved.  Lisa Lutz’s blistering, timely tale shows us what can happen when silence wins out over decency for too long—and why the scariest threat of all might be the idea that sooner or later, girls will be girls. 

I’ve enjoyed all of Lisa Lutz’s books, so when I was approved for The Swallows , I was over the moon. I easily breezed through it in two sittings and while it’s not my favorite book by her I still liked it for the most part. 

While the whole “boys against girls” trope has been done many times, especially in the #MeToo” era, Lutz puts her own unique and darkly comedic spin on it. In a perverse way it’s nice seeing girls using dirty tactics. 

I do think the storyline needs some tightening up though. There are some extraneous characters and scenes which bogged down the story here and there, and they could have easily been done away with. However, these didn’t slow things down too much and the last few chapters in particular are quite exciting and the haunting ending will stay with you for a long time.

Overall, The Swallows is a successful satirical look at how frequently women and girls are sexually objectified by men, both intentionally and unintentionally. While some have classified this as a YA novel because of its boarding school setting, it’s really not (although I don’t see any reason why older teens couldn’t read this). It’s a character-driven story told from the perspectives of four participants that I think will have wide appeal, and I can easily see it being adapted into a movie.

 

 

 

 

The Lady Rogue, by Jennifer Bennett ~ 4.0 Stars

Tags

Historical Fiction, Humor, Mystery, Romance, Suspense, Vlad the Impaler, YA Fiction

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon Pulse for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: September 3rd, 2019

384 Pages

Synopsis: The Last Magician meets A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue in this thrilling tale filled with magic and set in the mysterious Carpathian Mountains where a girl must hunt down Vlad the Impaler’s cursed ring in order to save her father.

Some legends never die…

Traveling with her treasure-hunting father has always been a dream for Theodora. She’s read every book in his library, has an impressive knowledge of the world’s most sought-after relics, and has all the ambition in the world. What she doesn’t have is her father’s permission. That honor goes to her father’s nineteen-year-old protégé—and once-upon-a-time love of Theodora’s life—Huck Gallagher, while Theodora is left alone to sit in her hotel in Istanbul. 

Until Huck arrives from an expedition without her father and enlists Theodora’s help in rescuing him. Armed with her father’s travel journal, the reluctant duo learns that her father had been digging up information on a legendary and magical ring that once belonged to Vlad the Impaler—more widely known as Dracula—and that it just might be the key to finding him.

Journeying into Romania, Theodora and Huck embark on a captivating adventure through Gothic villages and dark castles in the misty Carpathian Mountains to recover the notorious ring. But they aren’t the only ones who are searching for it. A secretive and dangerous occult society with a powerful link to Vlad the Impaler himself is hunting for it too. And they will go to any lengths—including murder—in order to possess it.  

The Lady Rogue is the first book I’ve read by Jenn Bennett, but I knew as soon as I saw the gorgeous cover and read the premise that I had to get my greedy hands on it!

While it was a lot fluffier than I expected, it was a fun read which I found somewhat reminiscent of Romancing the Stone. The pacing was a little uneven at times with a few sections making me want to cheat and skim over them, but other than that, everything worked. The banter between Theodora and Huck had me laughing out loud several times, and I loved the chemistry between the two of them. The storyline with its sinister society, coded journals, and wonderful train rides through early 1900s Romania kept me turning the pages. And while the mystery itself was a trifle predictable, everything else was just so much darn fun that I didn’t care. The ending ties everything up neatly but I’m hoping this isn’t the last we see of Theodora Decker and Huck Gallagher. I think this could be the beginning of a fun and exciting series. 

 

 

 

Blog Tour ~ Too Far Gone (Lucy Kincaid #14), by Allison Brennan ~ 5.0 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Mystery, Police Procedural, Suspense

Thanks to St. Martin’s for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: Available Now 

496 Pages 

Synopsis: Things finally seem to be going well for FBI Agent Lucy Kincaid. She’s just finished training for Hostage Rescue, her husband’s relationship with his son is back on track, and her tense relationship with her boss, Rachel Vaughn, has become much more bearable.That is, until her first hostage case throws everything off track.

When a man who appears under the influence and mentally unstable holds a group of people hostage and dies in a shootout with the FBI, Lucy is assigned to investigate what happened. His descent doesn’t make any sense—he was an upstanding citizen a year ago and only started declining after a series of blackouts and strange occurrences. Even his autopsy seems suspicious, and the body has been cremated without the proper approval. As Lucy investigates, she realizes that this story may be more complicated than she thinks, and her own life might be in danger.

You know a series is good when you’re fourteen books in and still loving it. What starts a standard hostage situation quickly turns into something much more complex involving corporate corruption, greed, manipulation and cover-ups. Add to that a bit of family drama, and you have an intriguing and compelling read. Too Far Gone is an excellent addition to the Lucy Kincaid series, but if you haven’t read the previous books, it can also be read as a standalone. I highly recommend this for readers who enjoy intense suspenseful mysteries, and interesting and relatable characters.

About the Author: Allison Brennan is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over thirty novels. Most recently she was nominated for Best Paperback Original Thriller by the International Thriller Writers and is a two-time winner of the Daphne du Maurier Award by Kiss of Death. A former consultant in the California State Legislature, Allison lives in Northern California with her husband, five kids, and assorted pets. Visit her website at:

http://www.allisonbrennan.com

 

The Dark Days Club Blog Tour ~ The Dark Days Deceit (Lady Helen #3), by Alison Goodman

Tags

Dark Days Blog Tour, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Paranormal Fiction, Regency England, Romance, Suspense

This is the third and final part of The Dark Days Club Book Tour, hosted by Penguin Young Readers.

Release Date: November 20th, 2018

527 Pages

Synopsis: The thrilling genre-bending conclusion to Lady Helen’s demon-hunting adventures, set in the Regency world.

Lady Helen has retreated to a country estate outside Bath to prepare for her wedding to the Duke of Selburn, yet she knows she has unfinished business to complete. She and the dangerously charismatic Lord Carlston have learned they are a dyad, bonded in blood, and only they are strong enough to defeat the Grand Deceiver, who threatens to throw mankind into chaos. But the heinous death-soaked Ligatus Helen has absorbed is tearing a rift in her mind. Its power, if unleashed, will annihilate both Helen and Carlston unless they can find a way to harness its ghastly force and defeat their enemy.

In the final book of the trilogy that began with THE DARK DAYS CLUB and continued with THE DARK DAYS PACT, Lady Helen’s story hurtles to a shocking conclusion full of action, heartbreak, and betrayal.

I have one word after finishing The Dark Days Deceit: BRILLIANT! Okay, I have a few more like perfect, exciting, heartbreaking, etc. Everything came together perfectly in this thrilling conclusion. I honestly couldn’t have asked for anything more.

It had plenty of action and jaw-dropping plot twists which gave me a couple of late nights because I simply couldn’t put the book down. Looking back at the previous two books it’s obvious how much the characters have grown, especially Helen and Darby.

The amount of historical detail the author included again without detracting from the storyline again amazed me. She doesn’t shy away from anything including a character preparing to use a chamber pot.

While the romance once again took a backseat to the action, it was a beautiful slow burning one that had some truly swoon-worthy moments. The bittersweet ending tied everything up, yet left open the possibility of perhaps a spinoff series. I’m hoping this isn’t wistful thinking on my part because I’m just not ready to say goodbye to these characters. The Dark Days Club trilogy has become one of my favorites and if you love Regency fiction, the paranormal, and larger than life characters, I HIGHLY recommend these books!

About the Author: 

Alison Goodman writes in a variety of genres, ranging from the genre-bending DARK DAYS CLUB titles to the EON/EONA fantasy duology, to the YA science fiction thriller SINGING THE DOGSTAR BLUES. She was a D.J. O’Hearn Memorial Fellow at Melbourne University, holds a Master of Arts degree and mentors emerging writers. A long-time lover of the Regency period, she has a treasure trove of material to be viewed at https://www.pinterest.com/alisongoodman/ She’s online at http://www.darkdaysclub.com and on Twitter at https://mobile.twitter.com/alisongoodman 

The Dark Days Deceit can be found at:

Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Days-Deceit-Helen-Novel/dp/0670785490/ref=sr_

Barnes and Noble – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-dark-days-deceit-alisongoodman/1128072856;jsessionid=1AEFD2CFCB16

Goodreads – https://goodreads.com/book/show/26061583-the-dark-days-deceit?from_search=true

Week 3 Blog Tour Schedule:

November 12 – Eater of Books ~ https://eaterofbooks.blogspot.com – Favorite Quotes

November 13 – @darkfaerietales ~ https://www.instagram.com/darkfaerietales_/ – Creative Instagram Picture 

November 14 – Darque Dreamer Reads  ~ https://darquedreamerreads.wordpress.com – Review with gifs and Moodboard 

November 15 – My Friends are Fiction ~ https://www.instagram.com/myfriendsarefiction – Review and Creative Instagram Picture

November 16 – By Hook Or By Book ~ https://cadburypom.wordpress.com – Review with gifs

 

Summoned to Thirteenth Grave Blog Tour

Tags

Adult Fiction, Mystery, Romance, Suspense, Urban Fantasy

I can’t tell you how excited I am to be participating in this blog tour (Thank You St. Martin’s Press!). At the same time I’m crushed that Summoned to Thirteenth Grave is the final book in the Charley Davidson series. Seven years ago, the first book in this fantastic series was published and I immediately became a fervent fan. As part of this tour I chose to reread First Grave on the Right and review it.

Synopsis:

This whole grim reaper thing should come with a manual.

Or a diagram of some kind.

A flow chart would have been nice.

Charley Davidson is a part-time private investigator and full-time grim reaper. Meaning, she sees dead people. Really. And it’s her job to convince them to “go into the light.” But when these very dead people have died under less than ideal circumstances (like murder), sometimes they want Charley to bring the bad guys to justice. Complicating matters are the intensely hot dreams she’s been having about an entity who has been following her all of her life…and it turns out he might not be dead after all. In fact, he might be something else entirely. But what does he want with Charley? And why can’t she seem to resist him? And what does she have to lose by giving in?

With scorching-hot tension and high-octane humor, First Grave on the Right is your signpost to paranormal suspense of the highest order.

I was still working as a librarian back in 2011, and I remember how reading this on my breaks caused a few embarrassing moments for me because it had me laughing out loud so many times. Charley may be the reaper, but you can take the “grim” out of the equation. She’s sassy and sarcastic, but these are a front for her vulnerability. Having to grow up with abilities that she didn’t understand while being ostracized by friends and family wasn’t easy. And now, having to balance her P.I. job with her Grim Reaper duties, further complicates her life. Thankfully she has her Uncle Bob and her BFF, Cookie to help her out. And she truly needs all the help she can get especially when the mysterious, smokin’ hot Reyes enters the picture!

I found First Grave on the Right to be just as entertaining as the first time I read it. My one critique is that Charley at times comes across as a little immature, but, having read the other books, I know how she grows and develops. I’ve read many urban fantasy series over the years and in my humble opinion the Charley Davidson series is one of the best. I cannot recommend this highly enough to fans of this genre. With its memorable characters, intriguing mystery, steamy romance, and snarky humor, it’s an addictive read that will have you reaching for the next book.

 

~ About the Author ~

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Darynda Jones won a Golden Heart and a RITA for her manuscript First Grave on the Right. A born storyteller, she grew up spinning tales of dashing damsels and heroes in distress for any unfortunate soul who happened by, annoying man and beast alike. Darynda lives in the Land of Enchantment, also known as New Mexico, with her husband and two beautiful sons, the Mighty Mighty Jones Boys.

Website ~ https://www.daryndajones.com

Twitter ~ https://mobile.twitter.com/Darynda

Facebook ~ https://m.facebook.com/darynda.jones.official

~

Here’s a peek at the epic conclusion to this exciting urban fantasy series.

Summoned to Thirteenth Grave (Charley Davidson #13), by Darynda Jones

Release Date: January 15th, 2019

304 Pages

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Synopsis: Grim Reaper Charley Davidson is back in the final installment of Darynda Jones’ New York Times bestselling paranormal series!

Charley Davidson, Grim Reaper extraordinaire, is pissed. She’s been kicked off the earthly plain for eternity—-which is exactly the amount of time it takes to make a person stark raving mad. But someone’s looking out for her, and she’s allowed to return after a mere hundred years in exile. Is it too much to hope for that not much has changed? Apparently it is. Bummer.

She’s missed her daughter. She’s missed Reyes. She’s missed Cookie and Garrett and Uncle Bob. Now that she’s back on earth, it’s time to put to rest burning questions that need answers. What happened to her mother? How did she really die? Who killed her? And are cupcakes or coffee the best medicine? It all comes to a head in an epic showdown between good and evil in this final smart and hilarious novel.