I won a $10 credit to The Book Depository and Grave Witch, by Kalayna Price is the book I chose to purchase with it.
Grave witch Alex Craft can speak to the dead, but that doesn’t mean she likes what they have to say.
As a private investigator and consultant for the police, Alex Craft has seen a lot of dark magic. But even though she’s on good terms with Death himself—who happens to look fantastic in a pair of jeans—nothing has prepared her for her latest case. Alex is investigating a high profile murder when she’s attacked by the ‘shade’ she’s raising, which should be impossible. To top off her day, someone makes a serious attempt on her life, but Death saves her. Guess he likes having her around…
To solve this case Alex will have to team up with tough homicide detective Falin Andrews. Falin seems to be hiding something—though it’s certainly not his dislike of Alex—but Alex knows she needs his help to navigate the tangled webs of mortal and paranormal politics, and to track down a killer wielding a magic so malevolent, it may cost Alex her life…and her soul.
I generally enjoyed this. It suffers from many of the faults of Urban Fantasy/PNR published a decade ago—the hero/love interest is an asshole for half the book, the cast isn’t very diverse, there’s a possible love triangle thrown in at the end—as well as some just generally questionable things like solutions presenting themselves in easy and coincidental fashions. But I liked Alex. The writing is super readable. I was invested in the story and would happily read more of the series.
This wasn’t bad, but I think it was a little overly long, the plot could have been tightened up a bit, and there were some super cliched elements. However, having said that, I liked the characters, liked that females (at least females of note to the story) were shown to be as capable, blood-thirsty, and powerful as men, and liked the general world (even if it’s not deeply developed).
