Name: The Death and Romancing of Marley Craw
ISBN: 9781949222173

Brindi Quinn

Marley Craw is dead. Dead as a deadbolt DEAD. But death is only the beginning for our deceased heroine. When it comes to the afterlife, Marley's fate is unclear. Having lived a good-but-not-GREAT, selfish-but-not-WICKED life, Marley's landed herself on the UNDECLARED list. Now, this before-her-prime beauty will spend her nether-days under the watchful eye of two grim reapers. And the reapers? They're hot as Hell. Two sexy reapers, one unfortunate ghost, and enough heat to wake the dead. WHO will win Marley's SOUL?

The Death and Romancing of Marley Craw

Paige Green

Rating: 3.5/5

Genre: YA Fantasy

Pages: 223

Amazon

Author

I was provided a free copy of this book by the author! All opinions are my own.

Marley Craw is dead. Dead as a deadbolt DEAD. But death is only the beginning for our deceased heroine. When it comes to the afterlife, Marley’s fate is unclear. Having lived a good-but-not-GREAT, selfish-but-not-WICKED life, Marley’s landed herself on the UNDECLARED list. Now, this before-her-prime beauty will spend her nether-days under the watchful eye of two grim reapers. 

And the reapers? 

They’re hot as Hell. 

Two sexy reapers, one unfortunate ghost, and enough heat to wake the dead. WHO will win Marley’s SOUL? - Amazon.com

I want to start this review by saying that this book was outside of my normal realm of reading. I have been burned by many angel/devil/afterlife tales like Hush Hush, The Lovely Bones, and Firstlife and so I was very hesitant to read this book. But Brindi Quinn wrote this book and she's one of my faves so I gave it a try. I will say that the first half of the book I was not feeling it. It focused a lot on the love triangle and ever since Firstlife by Gena Showalter I have hated love triangles. But I kept with it and it got a ton better in the second half of the book. Marley was not a lovestruck girl anymore, she had amazing character development in the second half of the novel and I felt for her. I can't really say anyone else had character development, but Marley... omg my heart broke for her. I felt the pacing of the book was also really good and the writing was excellent. While this book wasn't my favorite by Brindi I can't fault her on her writing. The book is wrote from the inner monologue of Marley and her writing is how a 17 year old girl would talk. 

However, I did feel that while this book was good it could have been better. I think this book really could benefit from a prologue from the viewpoint of Pine and/or Minx to explain more about the rules of this universe and I think there could have been more of Beck in the novel as well. He seemed to just be a plot device and I don't really like plot device only characters lol. I only say that the book needed a prologue because I spent the whole first half of the novel very frustrated with the book. It felt like a typical love triangle book and I know Brindi does better than that. What saved the book was the explantion of the rules, Marley's backstory, etc. and I think that if we had that before the second half of the novel I would have liked it more. 

Verdict: Overall, it's a decent story, I've just been burned by one too many love triangle books. If you like afterworld books this book is for you and it's a very sexy tale, but it didn't light up any fires for me unfortunately. Brindi has other amazing books if you don't think you'd be a fan of this one though that you should totally check out. Here's the review links for Zillow Stone and Lightborne to highlight the other two I've read and reviewed.

The Death and Romancing of Marley Craw

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