Grave Ransom by Kalayna Price + Giveaway

Alex Craft, Book 5

Synopsis: Grave witch Alex Craft is no stranger to the dead talking. She raises shades, works with ghosts, and is dating Death himself. But the dead walking? That’s not supposed to happen. And yet, reanimated corpses are committing crimes across Nekros City.

Alex’s investigation leads her deep into a web of sinister magic. When Briar Darque of the Magical Crimes Investigation Bureau gets involved, Alex finds herself with an unexpected ally of sorts. But as the dead continue to rise and wreak havoc on the living, can Alex get to the soul of the matter in time?

Review: I always enjoy all the volumes of the series and I was curious to launch myself in this new volume. Well, it’s true that my memory wasn’t that good regarding the story, but I still had a great time.

We therefore find Alex for a whole new story. She, who thought she already saw everything, will face many new problems. Indeed, it would seem that bodies are wandering with souls that are not theirs. And of course, Alex is often around when this happens! Passing from suspect to police adviser, the young woman will attract more attention than she would have liked. She will have to push her powers to the maximum to discover the truth!

I enjoyed following the survey and I was curious to know the reasons for all these experiments. Everything that these bodies do seems very strange and it is true that I did not expect such an explanation. Alex also has to deal with the problems of her personal life and especially with Falin, or even Death. We know that her relationship with Death is tricky and we will see how fine the limits are as well. It was, however, a pleasure to see them both.

The end of the story saddened me but I am curious to see what will happen now. A very good new novel.

4

mellianefini

EXCERPT

Chapter One

The first time I realized I could feel corpses, I had nightmares for a week. I was a child at the time, so that was understandable. These days I was accustomed to the clammy reach of the grave that lifted from dead bodies. To the eerie feeling of my own innate magic responding and filling me with the unrequested knowledge of how recently the person died, their gender, and the approximate age they were at death. When I anticipated encountering a corpse, I tightened my mental shields and worked at keeping my magic at bay. Usually that was only necessary at places like graveyards, the morgue, and funeral homes—places one might expect to find a body.

I never expected to feel a corpse walking across the street in the middle of the Magic Quarter.

“Alex? I’ve lost you, haven’t I?” Tamara, one of my best friends and my current lunchmate, asked. She sighed, twisting in her seat to scan the sidewalk beyond the small outdoor sitting area of the café where we were eating. “Huh. Which one is he? I may be married and knocked up, but I know a good-looking man when I see one, and girl, I don’t see one. Who are you staring at?”

“That guy,” I said, nodding my head at a man in a brown suit crossing the street.

Tamara glanced at the squat, middle-aged man who was more than a little soft in the middle and then cocked an eyebrow at me. “I’ve seen what you have at home, so I take it this is business. Did you bring one of your cases to our lunch?”

I ignored the “at home” comment, as that situation was more than a little complicated, and shook my head. “My case docket is clear,” I said absently, and let my senses stretch. When I concentrated, I could feel grave essence reaching from corpses in my vicinity. All corpses. There were decades of dead and decaying rats in the sewer below the streets, and smaller creatures like insects that barely made a blip on my radar, but like called to like, and my magic zeroed in on the man.

“He’s dead,” I said, and even to me my voice sounded unsure.

Tamara blinked at me, likely waiting for me to reveal the joke. Instead I pushed out of my seat as the man turned up the street. Tamara grabbed my arm.

“I’m the lead medical examiner for Nekros City, and I can tell you with ninety-nine point nine percent certainty that the man walking down the street is very much alive.” She put extra emphasis on the word “walking,” and on any other day, I would have agreed with her.

My own eyes agreed with her. But my magic, that part of me that touched the grave, that could piece together shades from the memories left in every cell of a body, disagreed. That man, walking or not, was a corpse. Granted, he was a fresh one—the way he felt to my magic told me he couldn’t have been dead more than an hour. But he was dead.

So how the hell had he just walked into the Museum of Magic and the Arcane?

I dropped enough crumpled dollars on the table to cover my portion of the bill and tip before weaving around tables and out of the café seating. Behind me, Tamara grumbled under her breath, but after a moment I heard her chair slide back as she pushed away from the table. I didn’t wait for her to follow me out as I all but sprinted across the street to catch up with the walking corpse.

The museum’s wards tingled along my skin as I stepped through the threshold. I’d been inside the museum a few times, and the collection of rare and unusual artifacts from both pre- and post-awakening was impressive, but I was a sensitive, capable of sensing magic, and between all the security wards and the artifacts themselves, the museum tended to be overwhelming. Definitely migraine-inducing in large doses. I noted that the magic in the air was particularly biting today, like one of the security wards had recently been triggered. I sucked in an almost pained breath, trying to adjust to the sudden crush of magic all around me. The extra sting of the deployed ward didn’t help.

I should have walked the extra few steps to clear the entrance wards.

 

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27 thoughts on “Grave Ransom by Kalayna Price + Giveaway

  1. You know, I’m a little worried that I won’t remember what is going on in this story. It has been so long since I read the last one. It is a fun series, though. Glad you enjoyed it. Makes me excited to get the audio (which should be coming soon)

  2. Je n’avais pas vu la sortie de ce tome. Il ferait un super cadeau d’anniversaire (ce vendredi). Je participe avec plaisir. J’aime beaucoup cette série.
    Merci pour ce concours.

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