Review: FIRST GRAVE ON THE RIGHT

First Grave On The Right by Darynda Jones
Read by Lorelei King
Book 1 of Charley Davidson series
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: paperback, audiobook

About First Grave On The Right:

A smashing, award-winning debut novel that introduces Charley Davidson: part-time private investigator and full-time Grim Reaper.

Charley sees dead people. That’s right, she sees dead people. 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 (i.e. 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 her life...and it turns out he might not be dead after all. In fact, he might be something else entirely.

Source: Info in the About First Grave On The Right was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8788554-first-grave-on-the-right on 22/12/12.

[IMAGE CREDIT: pickyme]

My Thoughts:

I love this fan-made digital art of the character in the book, Reyes. The artist took a bit of artistic license, but still befitting! Speaking of Reyes.... I wondered in my review of Grave Witch by Kalayna Price, if reaper or Death is the new vampire? And again, I wondered in this book... It seems to me that the reaper idea is gaining momentum and popularity in the current market... what do you think?

When I first started reading/listening to this book I wondered that if Charley is a portal... no, THE portal... then where do the souls from the other countries go? Does that mean that China or Timbukto is chuck full of souls? So, she is so very bright that she is like a worldwide beacon, does that mean that souls stream towards her to cross to the other side every minute of every day? Because people die every day and if you count the dead all over the world that is a lot of dead people. I like the way Darynda Jones answered my questions as the plot unfolded and make things sound all reasonable. Kudos to the logical world building in this book! Plus, I do like the thought of a grim reaper helping the cops catch bad guys. I think that is why I like the Grimm TV series despite it's pitfalls. It's those fantasy elements which pulls at my interest and pulls hard!

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4.5
Character development = 4.5
Story itself = 4
Ending = 4
World building = 4
Cover art = 4.5
Pace = N/A (9.5 hours listening time)
Plot = 4

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries


Other Books In Charley Davidson Series: