Reviews
4 Stars rounded up from 3.5 stars for audiobook. I am re-reading this series, but this time the audiobooks. Same reader as the first book - actually they keep the same narrator throughout the 4 book series (Alyssa Bresnahan). I like her. Does she have it easier, because it is written in the first person (Harper)? She doesn't really have to do voices? No matter, she does a good job. In this second book, Harper is hired by a college professor, Professor Nunley to read the dead people in the graves in an older cemetery on his college campus in Memphis. He wants to debunk her abilities using a log of the graves contents that were recently discovered. Not only is Harper correct for all of the graves she reads, but she finds a new body that has been buried on top of an older grave. She determines that it is a young girl, Tabitha who had gone missing 2 years earlier in Nashville. Harper and her step-brother, Tolliver are very familiar with Tabitha. They were hired by the family to try to find Tabitha, however Harper was unable to find her, until now. This is paranormal, because of Harper's abilities, but not scary, monster paranormal (vampires, werewolves, etc.). Nor is it psychic or at least Harper does not label herself as a psychic. She describes it like this - "Psychics—honest psychics—do receive a lot of information when they touch something a crime victim owned. The bad part is, quite often they receive information so vague it’s almost useless (“The body’s buried in the middle of an empty field”), unless you have a good idea what you’re looking for to begin with." She just finds dead bodies or as she stated once - “The closer I get, the more intense the buzz, the vibration, is. When I’m on top of them, I can reach down and tell how they died. I’m not a psychic. I’m not a precognate, or a telepath. I don’t see who killed them. I only see the death when I’m near the bones.” So this mystery - who put Tabitha's body in a grave in Memphis? Was it Harper? Why? Was she set up if so, by whom? I can't really comment on the mystery, since I read it before and I don't know if I guessed it correctly because it was obvious or was it obvious because I vaguely remembered? Harper and Tolliver have an interesting relationship. They are step-siblings but not blood related. Harper's mother married Tolliver's father. They met when they were young teens. Because their parents were drug addicts, they raised their younger sisters while in their teens. That is until the authorities discovered their living situations when Harper's sister, Cameron went missing walking home from High School. Cameron was never found by authorities or Harper. Their two youngest sisters, were taken by their Aunt and Uncle, Harper going into the Foster system, Tolliver was already 19 or 20. Harper and Tolliver are best friends, business partners and support system. But in this book, Harper realizes after all these years that Tolliver is more than just a BFF to her... though she never states it out loud - to herself or to him. On to book 3, An Ice Cold Grave.
It was pretty good but there were a few inconsitancies between the first and second book. Plus the brother/sister relationship between Tolliver and Harper is getting a little weird. I know they're step siblings but it's still a little weird. The actually mystery story, itself, was good though.
