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.

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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Alex Craft, Tome 5

Résumé (traduction personnelle) : Grave witch Alex Craft s’y connait bien en conversation avec les morts. Elle soulève des ombres, travaille avec des fantômes et rencontre la mort elle-même. Mais des morts qui marchent ? Ce n’est pas censé se produire. Et pourtant, des cadavres réanimés commettent des crimes dans la ville de Nekros.

L’enquête d’Alex la plonge dans une toile de magie sinistre. Lorsque Briar Darque du Bureau des enquêtes sur les crimes magiques s’implique, Alex se retrouve avec une sorte d’alliée inattendue. Mais comme les morts continuent à augmenter et à faire des ravages sur les vivants, Alex peut-elle découvrir ce qu’il se passe à temps ?

Avis : J’ai toujours beaucoup apprécié tous les tomes de la série et j’étais curieuse de me lancer dans ce nouveau tome. Bon, c’est vrai que ma mémoire flanche un peu par rapport à l’histoire mais je passe toujours un très bon moment.

Nous retrouvons Alex pour une toute nouvelle histoire. Elle qui pensait avoir tout vu va être confrontée à de nombreux problèmes. En effet, il semblerait que des corps se baladent avec des âmes qui ne sont pas à eux. Et bien sûr, Alex est souvent dans les parages quand cela arrive ! Passant de suspecte à conseillère pour la Police, la jeune femme va attirer plus d’attention qu’elle ne l’aurait voulu. Elle va d’ailleurs devoir pousser ses pouvoirs au maximum pour découvrir la vérité !

J’ai beaucoup apprécié suivre l’enquête et j’étais curieuse de connaitre les raisons de toutes ces expérimentations. Tout ce que font ces corps semble très étrange et c’est vrai que je ne m’attendais pas à une telle explication. Alex doit aussi faire face aux problèmes de sa vie personnelle et notamment à Falin, ou même Death. On sait que sa relation avec Death est délicate et on verra à quel point les limites sont fines aussi. C’était toutefois un plaisir de les voir tous les deux.

La fin de l’histoire m’a attristée mais je suis curieuse de voir ce qu’il adviendra à présent. Un nouveau très bon roman.

PS : Les premiers tomes sont sortis en Français chez J’ai Lu

Alex Craft, Book 4

Synopsis: If you want to hear voices from the dead in Nekros City, you call Alex Craft. She’s a Grave Witch with reasonable rates and extraordinary powers, who specializes in revealing the secrets of the dead. But now she’s the one fighting to keep her own secret. She’s not human—and her newly discovered heritage is causing havoc for her both in the human realm and in Faerie. But her status as an unaffiliated fae also makes her an ideal candidate to investigate a new street drug that has surfaced in several of the spaces between the human and fae worlds.

This glamour-infused drug causes hallucinations that turn real—at least for a while and often with deadly consequences. Searching for the source of this drug—and its purpose—lands Alex front and center in the conflict brewing in Faerie and she must find answers before she’s dragged so deep she loses her freedom.

Review: It’s been a long time since I was expecting the release of this novel, and I must say that the wait was rather complicated when you consider that the date has been postponed several times. But there it is and this fourth volume is definitely there for our pleasure! And I can tell you that once again the author manages to draw us into her world and to keep us in suspense throughout the chapters! She presents, in fact, a volume to the height of the previous ones and we greatly enjoy reading it!

I was impatient to see Alex Craft and her world and even if I did not remember all the details of the series, it was very nice to see all the characters. I must say that our beloved heroine is found once again at the center of many problems! Without really desiring it, Alex finds herself in a much more terrible and complicated story than she would have hoped. Indeed, a new drug has been raging in the city, featuring nightmares becoming reality and killing the persons who are ingesting the substance. This is a rather difficult history, especially when the faes are related to that. In addition to this, our witch is also involved in an investigation for the Winter Queen and solving it could allow her to be free while waiting to choose which court wishes to turn to. Something else? Yes, because it is not finished! New characters enter the scene, wanting Alex as she is as always an asset of choice and it is true that we’re still looking forward to her decisions in relation to this. Because of that, she goes through difficult times and weigh the consequences of all her actions.

In terms of the resolution of the case, I confess that I suspected the culprit from the beginning but I still had a great time with the story, to see how our heroine was going to get by, especially with this sword of Damocles constantly above her head. Indeed, the investigation is really interesting and it was complicated enough to bind all the events taking place. It is in any case always very interesting to follow the tracks of Alex and see how she would solve it all. I was also curious to see what she would decide to do about her sentimental relationships even if everything gets even more complicated here. Yes, do not worry, Falin is there, as well as Death and nothing will be easy! In any case, after such an end, I’m really curious to see what will happen and what the consequences will be.

Finally, Kalayna Price takes us once again in her story, and I couldn’t put the novel down before finishing it! It’s always a pleasure to follow Alex and to learn about her adventures and I hope we will not have to wait as long for more because I am eager to read it. This is a very good series full of ideas and I recommend you to read it if you do not know it yet!

Alex Craft, Tome 4

Résumé (traduction personnelle) : Si vous voulez entendre la voix des morts de Nekros City, vous appelez Alex Craft. C’est une sorcière de cimetière avec des tarifs raisonnables et des pouvoirs extraordinaires, qui se spécialise dans la révélation des secrets des morts. Mais maintenant, elle est celle qui se bat pour garder son secret. Elle n’est pas humaine et son héritage nouvellement découvert est à l’origine des ravages à la fois dans le domaine humain et en Faerie. Mais son statut de fae non affilié fait d’elle une candidate idéale pour enquêter sur une nouvelle drogue de rue qui a fait surface dans plusieurs endroits entre le monde des humains et faes.

Cette drogue infusée de glamour provoque des hallucinations qui transforment le réel au moins pour un certain temps et souvent avec des conséquences mortelles. La recherche de la source de cette drogue et son but – place Alex au centre des conflits en Faerie et elle doit trouver des réponses avant de perdre sa liberté.

Avis : Ça fait très longtemps que j’attendais la sortie de ce roman, et il faut dire que l’attente a été plutôt compliquée quand on sait que la date a été repoussée plusieurs fois. Mais ça y est, ce quatrième tome est bel et bien là pour notre plus grand plaisir ! Et je peux vous dire qu’encore une fois l’auteure réussit à nous attirer dans son univers et à nous garder en haleine tout au long des chapitres ! Elle nous présente, en effet, un tome à la hauteur des précédents et que l’on prend grandement plaisir à lire !

J’étais impatiente de retrouver Alex Craft et son monde et même si je ne me rappelais pas tous les détails de la série, c’était très agréable de revoir tout ce beau monde. Il faut dire que notre très chère héroïne se retrouve encore une fois au centre de nombreux problèmes ! Sans vraiment le désirer, Alex se retrouve dans une histoire bien plus terrible et compliquée que ce qu’elle aurait espéré. En effet, une nouvelle drogue fait rage en ville, mettant en scène des cauchemars devenus réalité et tuant les personnes ingérant la substance. C’est une histoire assez difficile, notamment quand les faes y sont liés. En plus de cela, notre sorcière est aussi impliquée dans une enquête pour la Reine d’Hiver et la résolution de celle-ci pourrait bien lui permettre d’avoir un livre arbitre le temps de comprendre vers quelle cour notre héroïne désire se tourner. Encore autre chose ? Oui, parce que ce n’est pas fini ! De nouveaux personnages entrent en scène, convoitant Alex qui est comme toujours un atout de choix et c’est vrai qu’on reste impatient de voir les décisions qu’elle prendra par rapport à tout cela. A cause de cela, elle va traverser des moments difficiles et peser les conséquences de toutes ses actions.

Pour ce qui est de la résolution de l’affaire, j’avoue que je me doutais depuis le départ du coupable mais j’ai tout de même passé un très bon moment avec l’histoire, à voir comment notre héroïne allait se débrouiller, notamment avec cette épée de Damoclès constamment au-dessus de sa tête. Il faut dire que l’investigation est vraiment intéressante et c’était assez compliqué de lier tous les évènements se déroulant. C’est en tout cas toujours très intéressant de suivre les pistes d’Alex et de voir comment elle allait résoudre tout cela. J’étais aussi assez curieuse de voir ce qu’elle déciderait de faire au niveau de ses relations sentimentales même si tout devient encore plus compliqué ici. Oui, ne vous inquiétez pas, Falin est bien là, de même que Mort et rien ne sera simple ! Dans tous les cas, après une telle fin, je suis vraiment curieuse de voir ce qu’il adviendra et ce que son statut aura comme conséquences.

Pour conclure, Kalayna Price nous emporte une fois de plus dans son histoire, et je n’ai d’ailleurs pas pu poser le roman avant de l’avoir fini ! C’est toujours un plaisir de suivre Alex et de connaitre ses aventures et j’espère que nous ne devrons pas attendre aussi longtemps pour avoir la suite car je suis impatiente de la lire. C’est une très bonne série pleine d’idées et je vous conseille de la lire si vous ne la connaissez pas encore !

PS: La sortie est sortie en Français chez J’ai Lu

Alex Craft, Book 3

Synopsis: When the dead need to talk, Alex Craft is always ready to listen…

As a Grave Witch, Alex solves murders by raising the dead—an ability that comes at a cost, and after her last few cases, that cost is compounding. But her magic isn’t the only thing causing havoc in her life. While she’s always been on friendly terms with Death himself, things have recently become a whole lot more close and personal. Then there’s her sometime partner, agent Falin Andrews, who is under the glamour of the Winter Queen. To top everything off, her best friend has been forever changed by her time spent captive in Faerie.

But the personal takes a backseat to the professional when a mysterious suicide occurs in Nekros City and Alex is hired to investigate. The shade she raises has no memory of the days leading up to his brutal ending, so despite the very public apparent suicide, this is murder. But what kind of magic can overcome the human will to survive? And why does the shade lack the memory of his death? Searching for the answer might mean Alex won’t have a life to remember at all…

Review: It had been a while since I wanted to read this new volume of the Alex Craft’s adventures. I must say that the previous volume left us hungry with many questions about the result of Alex’s relationships with Falin and Death but also in relation to her new condition.

Alexis will have in this novel to deal with several suicides that finally seem to be a series of murders that nobody understood. With the help of Royce and her friends, she will try to solve this mystery without realizing that this case is more dangerous than any she could have worked on before, especially now that the police does not want her mingled with their work. I was immediately intrigued by the unexplained deaths, the assumptions and conclusions of our heroine while we follow her throughout the story, making us doubt and understand about what is happening. By finding the answers we do not expect such repercussions on the Alex life. Grazing death many times, battling each time for survival and even risking everything to save her family. I also looked forward to see what would happen with Falin and Death and I’m really not disappointed. I admit that our heart is broken for our heroine against these impossible two relationships. While she tries to find some solutions, nothing is easy. And when we finally think there is a glimmer of hope, she is quickly brought back to reality. Regarding Falin, our FIB agent, we see soon enough where this story will lead, especially being under the yoke of the Queen of Winter. I didn’t, however, imagine the twisted mind and terrifying ideas she may have, and when she is against our young detective, she is actually very imaginative, especially with this horrible end. What an idea to finish with such an event? How am I going to wait for volume 4 now? My heart will definitely balance for Death, he is really touching and their forbidden relationship attracts me every time. Hopefully he will find a solution to be with her but we doubt that it will not be easy. But it is with pleasure that we see what they are willing to do both for their happiness. But how not to fall for this character when we see who he really is.

We learn much more about the job of Death and what it means, his nature and his powers , which was really interesting because we only had glimpses of it. We’ll understand as well the Fae world and the person that Alex is becoming gradually. I also look forward to see what status she will eventually choose. The problems are just beginning and I can not wait to see what will happen.

As always I was totally carried away with this new adventure, as the story is well written. Alex Craft is one of my favorite series and I am never disappointed by the Kalayna Price’s ideas. A nice mix of mystery, conspiracy and love.