Charley Saves the World for a Little While........

SUMMONED TO THIRTEENTH GRAVE
Charley Davidson # 13
Darynda Jones
St. Martins Press
January 15, 2019


Summoned to Thirteenth Grave brings to an end the long-running series of the adventures of Charley Davidson, Grim Reaper and so much more. I started with the beginning book, First Grave on the Right, which captivated me with its humor and sheer imaginative power. To all appearances, Charley is an ordinary twenty-something who is trying to start a private investigation business. She lives upstairs over her retired cop father's restaurant in Albuquerque. Her main sidekick is Cookie Kowalksi, researcher extraordinaire, and Charley's secretary. Only those recently deceased and those who can see into the supernatural realm can also see Charley's light, a beacon summoning them to "pass-through" her into the next world. Enter Reyes Farrow, the devastatingly handsome, compelling new neighbor at the end of Charley's hall. Reyes is Charley's lifelong Guardian and the Son of Satan. The arc of the series follows Charley and Reyes through to the culmination of Charley's mission to save the world. Along the way, Charley and Reyes acquire more companions who help or hinder her mission. Some are family, others are friends and neighbors. All are quirky and believable, whether dead or alive, human or non-human. Most important is their baby daughter, nicknamed "Beep," whose mission in her turn is to again save the world from Satan's machinations.

I got a bit bogged down in the most recent books, to be truthful. It often seemed to me that the story just added more twists and turns and did not progress much. However, the final book ties together all the loose ends into a very satisfactory resolution. It's not quite the happy ending I was looking for but a good one, paving the way for the future of "Beep."

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martins for an advance digital copy. The opinions are my own.

RATING- 4 Stars

Atmospheric and Absorbing Southern Gothic Paranormal

THE AWAKENING (Graveyard Queen #6)
Amanda Stevens
MIRA Books
March 28, 2017


The Awakening brings an end to The Graveyard Queen series. While paranormal Southern Gothic is not my usual reading choice, the imaginative and atmospheric writing of Amanda Stevens sucked me in from the first novel in the series, The Restorer. Amelia Gray is a restorer of forgotten and often historic graveyards throughout the South, and she has been able to see ghosts since she was a small child. Her father also had that ability and warned her to never let a ghost know that she sees it. Amelia began breaking that rule in The Restorer and has been led into many life and soul threatening situations since, as well as learning more about her ability, her family history and perhaps her destiny. She has been hired to restore Woodbine Cemetery, just outside her home base of Charleston. She is happy to be working close to home but unhappy to be so near to John Devlin, scion of an aristocratic Charleston family. The two were lovers, and it was to save John Devlin that she first broke her father's rule. It has been about a year since John broke with her abruptly and returned to his family. His engagement to a Charleston beauty has made her lose hope of a reconciliation.

On her first day at Woodbine, Amelia discovers that the site is the burial ground for the secrets of Charleston society. She is drawn to one monument, in particular, that of a child with the inscription, "Shush...lest she awaken...". Something wakes up for sure, the ghost of an angry little girl who follows Amelia home and shows her visions of the girl's murder. Who is the child and can she have a connection to the Devlin family? Amelia's suspicions only increase when she discovers that she got the job through the machinations of John Devlin's grandfather. 

The Awakening conjures all the ominous and foreboding atmosphere of the previous books and brings to a satisfactory close the story of the Graveyard Queen and John Devlin. I have to say that following The Graveyard Queen has been an uneven experience for me. There have been many times that I thought Amelia was walking into danger even when it was clearly the wrong move. Each of the preceding books seemed to end with more questions than answers. But still, I kept reading to see where Stevens was going with the story. These are definitely not books to be read in the dead of night! I recommend it for fans of the occult and all around spooky events. Thanks to MIRA and NetGalley for an advance digital copy. The opinions above are my own.

RATING-3 Stars

An Untimely Frost

AN UNTIMELY FROST (Lilly Long #1)
Penny Richards
Kensington Books
July 26, 2016

An Untimely Frost is the first volume of a new series set in 1880's middle America. Lilly Long is a young woman, orphaned at an early age and taken in by a traveling theatrical troupe. Lilly has developed into an accomplished actress but made a bad choice in her scoundrel of a new husband. After he attacks her and absconds with her life savings, Lilly decides that she needs to make a change. She is intrigued by an advertisement by the prestigious Pinkerton Detective Agency. The Pinkertons are looking for a female agent. Allan Pinkerton has hired women before with great success and Lilly thinks her acting experience would be a plus.The two Pinkerton sons, William and Robert, are not so enthusiastic however. Her first interview is a flop but Lilly manages by using her skills to get herself hired anyway. Her first assignment is a missing persons case in the small town of Vandalia, IL. One of the town's preachers and his family disappeared twenty years earlier, leaving a large property derelict. Lilly's client has hired the Pinkertons to find the family in order to purchase the property, Heaven's Gate. People in Vandalia don't want to talk to Lilly and she senses a deeper mystery than a missing persons case. And who is the handsome boxer who seems to turn up wherever she goes? Lilly's first assignment leads her into dark secrets and danger, but she refuses to give up.

Lilly Long is the very definition of "plucky" in her dogged pursuit of the truth. I am not as familiar with the constraints placed on women in 1880's America as I am with Britain's idea of propriety in the same period. It seemed to me that Lilly had a lot more freedom of movement and access that I would have expected. Perhaps the respect given to the Pinkerton badge accounts for her relative ease. She is a likable character who makes the sort of rookie mistakes that I would expect from a fledgling investigator; one who is more innocent than she appears. Penny Richards is obviously an author with a lot of experience in her craft, and one who has done her research. An Untimely Frost is a good read and I look forward to the next in the series.

Thanks to Kensington Books and NetGalley for an advance digital copy in return for an honest review.

RATING- 3.5 Stars

Fun and Chills in Deadwood

THE DEADWOOD MYSTERY SERIES
Better Off Dead in Deadwood #4
Ann Charles
Corvallis Press

The Deadwood Mystery Series by Ann Charles is a favorite of mine and becoming more and more popular with each new book. It is a mixture of mystery, paranormal fantasy, romance and laugh-out-loud humor. Our heroine is Violet Parker, single mom of twins and not so successful realtor in Deadwood, SD. Historic Deadwood is filled with legends of prospectors, gold mining, famous outlaws and more than a few ghost stories. All of the attributes of Deadwood and a quirky cast of characters combine to make the series a hit. 

We first meet Violet in Nearly Departed in Deadwood. For 10 years Violet has toiled away at a dead end job to support herself and her twins, Addie and Layne. Violet discovered the father of her twins in bed with her evil sister Susan, before they were born and kicked him out. He signed away all rights to the twins so Violet has always been their sole support. In hopes of building a better life for the three of them Violet has moved in with her Aunt Zoe, a glass artist living in Deadwood. She has lots of support from Aunt Zoe and her lifelong friend, Natalie Beals, but itches to stand on her own two feet again. Too bad that the realty career is stalled and she really needs to sell a house. Right away. The book introduces us to a whole lot of colorful characters; Ray, sleazy rival at Calamity Jane Realty; Old Man Harvey, her self-appointed side-kick; Mona, her mentor at the realty; Cooper, an irascible detective and Daniel Craig look alike; and Doc, a sexy and mysterious new client.  When Violet discovers that girls Addie's age have been disappearing in the Deadwood area she begins investigating and gets in a whole lot of trouble, some of it paranormal in nature.

The second book in the series, Optical Delusions in Deadwood continues Violet's career as a trouble magnet/part-time sleuth. Still struggling at the real estate game, she takes a listing for the notorious Carhart House, a place rumored to be haunted and the site of multiple murders. Things are heating up with Doc and that's a problem too. Violet's friend, Natalie, thinks Doc is the "one" for her, and Violet can't bring herself to tell her that Doc is taken. More paranormal high jinks ensue and even more off-color commentary from Old Man Harvey.

Dead Case in Deadwood finds Violet with a couple of sales under her belt and a bad case of nightmares left over from her previous adventures. A new client comes along, an Abe Lincoln look alike and self proclaimed "ghost whisperer" who wants to buy a reputedly haunted hotel. There are some funny happenings at the Mudder Brothers Funeral Home and since Ray Underhill, sleazy rival at the realty, seems to be involved Violet and Natalie become fixtures at all funerals in town trying to find out what is going on. Detective Cooper is madder at Violet than ever, as she seems to be at the center of all the unsolved and weird crimes in Deadwood. Besides that, Doc is pressuring her to tell Natalie about their relationship.

I was delighted to be a beta reader for the 4th book in the Deadwood series and Better Off Dead in Deadwood did not disappoint. Still suffering from nightmares, Violet is stressed out over the rift in her friendship with Natalie and a haunted hotel sale that appears to be falling through. Some new characters are introduced, none of them what they appear to be. The weird supernatural events keep on coming. Thank goodness Violet has the support of a lot of people, despite her new nickname of "Spooky Parker". Add on a Zombie Wedding musical put on by the local little theater group and you have a recipe for hilarious chills.

The Deadwood Mystery Series is pure entertainment; smart, funny and complex. With illustrations from C.S. Kunkle, they are available in both eBook and print form. Ann Charles has a delightful sense of the absurd that never fails to entertain. The books must be read in order, as each builds on the last. I predict more explosive events in the next book and am betting Violet's evil sister Susan, will be at the bottom of them. Highly recommended!

RATING-4.5 Purple Boots

The Black Dagger Brotherhood-Paranormal Romance on Steroids

The Black Dagger Brotherhood, a mega-selling mass-market Paranormal Romance series by J.R. Ward is a publishing phenomenon. These books sell like the proverbial hotcakes. As of this writing, there are ten books published and more to come. Ward has brewed a heady mixture of the standard Gothic Romance conventions- tortured hero, female in jeopardy, suspense, adventure, hero redeemed by love for same female in jeopardy- added in large doses of somewhat kinky erotica and violence and put the whole mess on a steroid regimen- with vampires!

The basic premise is this- the vampires of mythical Caldwell, NY are a separate species, not at all the undead but pretty much immortal, at least until someone slaughters them. A centuries long war with a group called the Lessening Society is being fought to save the vampire race. Enter the Black Dagger Brotherhood, lethal, mega-sized, leather-clad, trash-talking, booted and vice-ridden vampires who battle the evil Lessors, who really aren't all that scary, especially since they are colorless and smell like baby powder(?). No kidding. You want tortured heroes with hideous childhoods-these brothers are the ones for you. But they mate for life and are redeemed by the women they love. Well, not really, but they do cut down on their self-destructive behaviors and come to terms with their various hideous childhoods.

I really don't know how I stumbled across the first book in the series, Dark Lover, but to say that I was underwhelmed is an understatement. First of all, I laughed my way through the glossary of terms that appears at the beginning and does so in every book. I'm still snorting my way through that glossary. Then, there are the names of the original brothers: Wrath, Rhage, Zsadist, Vishous, Phury and Tohrment. Are you seeing a pattern here? Throw in some extraneous letters- they still sound the same. After the original six brothers are dealt with in the series, we have Rehvenge, Dhestroyer and John Matthew (huh?). As the series progresses, female warriors have been added, along with a quasi-religious and social system that is mired somewhere circa 1174. The most recent entry introduces a cadre of Slayers from Europe who are even more anti-social than the original Brothers. I counted Dark Lover as a waste of good trees. However, I kept hearing buzz and decided that I must have missed something. No, not really.

So, after my snide comments-why am I still reading them? Well, I don't really know. Despite the names, the weak world-building, the egregious "branding" sprinkled throughout each book, the street lingo that I can't believe is spoken anywhere on this planet and the general silliness, I am hooked. Enough to download them free from the library, anyway. In spite of, or maybe because of all their faults these books are oddly compelling. Ward is one heck of a story-teller and the Black Dagger books have a breakneck narrative flow that just drags you with it. The best analogy I can come up with is the compulsion to rubber-neck a traffic accident. It's a guilty pleasure and so is the Black Dagger Brotherhood.