Grave Dance, by Kalayna Price

Title: Grave Dance

Author: Kalayna Price

Publisher: Roc

Release date: July 2011

Source: Bought at Transreal Fiction, Edinburgh (local independent book shop)

Notes: Book 2 in the Alex Craft series

Description from back cover: Whoever said dead men tell no tales obviously never met Alex Craft...

After a month spent recovering from a vicious fight with a sorcerer, grave witch Alex Craft is ready to get back to solving murders by raising the dead. With her love life in turmoil, thanks to the disappearance of Fae Investigation Bureau agent Falin Andrews and a shocking "L"-word confession from Death himself, Alex is eager for the distraction of work. But her new case turns out to be a deadly challenge.

The police hire Alex to consult on a particularly strange investigation in the nature preserve south of Nekros City. The strange part: There are no corpses - only fragments of them. A serial killer is potentially on the loose, and Alex has no way to raise a shade without a body, so she'll have to rely on the magic of others to find leads. But as she begins investigating, a creature born of the darkest magic comes after her. Someone very powerful wants to make sure the only thing she finds is a dead end - her own.

My thoughts: I loved the first book in the series, and the second book kept up the high standards.

I really enjoyed getting to learn more about the characters involved, and to watch how Alex changes as she learns more about her power (and where it might have come from). Alex's father is still a bit of a mystery to her after the revelation at the end of book one, and although he only gets a little page time himself in this book, he's there long enough to give Alex just a little more information about himself, and of course raise a whole lot of new questions for her about him. I have a feeling that

Overall, I do think I prefer to 1st book, Grave Witch. There is a little too much build up to pain in this book - one of the situations being built up in this book can not end well for the people involved, and I don't want to see the characters get hurt as it unfolds. I'm looking forward to book 3, but I am a little apprehensive about how much emotional pain might be in store for Alex.

I love the mystery element in this story - they keep finding left feet everywhere, and no bodies or right feet. I won't be able to think of someone dancing 'like they have two left feet' without thinking of this book any more!

I loved Grave Dance - I'll give it 8 stars. Recommended for fans of stories involving fae, mystery solving, and sexy supernatural men ;)

~Ailsa

Grave Witch, by Kalayna Price

From the back cover: 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 a 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 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 who wields a magic so malevolent, it may cost Alex her life... and her soul.

First of all - look at the cover! Isn't it gorgeous? I love it, and it really holds the atmosphere of the book.

I’d never heard of this book before, or the author, but the blurb sounded interesting, and the cover looked cool, so I picked it up. It certainly didn’t disappoint.

Things are exciting from the very first sentence, where Alex admits she first met Death when she was five. Now, she’s trying to talk to a client, while Death hovers behind him, taking his soul before they can finish the conversation. Escaping this situation, Alex heads for the morgue to help her estranged family, and hopefully get paid. Of course it doesn’t turn out that simply, and with one of her friends in a coma in hospital, she has to figure out what’s going on. This all happens in the first 35 pages, and I had to read the rest of the book just as quickly. I took it to lectures with me, reading under the table whenever the lecturer didn’t seem to be saying anything important.

I love a lot of things about this book. There is always something important happening, and it’s always interesting. It’s told from Alex’s perspective, and it was very entertaining to read - I like her sense of humour. I loved how Death was taking a more personal interest in Alex. The coffee-sharing scene, where she has to hold the cup for him - sooo sexy! Drinking coffee will never be the same. I thought Falin was an idiot at first, another annoying cop where there are books full of them. But as we get to know him, I realised as Alex did that Falin isn’t so bad after all, and he’s another yummy guy to read about. I can’t wait to see in future books where these romantic beginnings go. There are a lot of problems with both relationships, and I want to see more about the fallout from certain things revealed about Falin at the end of the book.

My favourite thing was the mystery that Alex is trying to solve, the twists and turns as you try and work out who the bad guy is, and what they’re trying to achieve. Combined with the romance, this is what kept me reading so fast. Alex is a great main character to read about. Even without people trying to kill her, she would have a pretty interesting day to day life. I can’t wait to learn more about her and her world in the sequel, and I wish it came out sooner than July!

9 out of 10