Darcy Coates

He'll never let go...

Keira, hired as Blighty Graveyard’s new groundskeeper, lives surrounded by the dead. They watch her through the fog. They wordlessly cry out. They’ve been desperately waiting for help moving on—and only Keira can hear them. But not every restless spirit wants to be saved.

Sometimes the dead hate the living too much to find peace.

As Keira struggles to uncover the tangled histories of some of the graveyard’s oldest denizens, danger seeps from the darkest edges of the forest. A vicious serial killer was interred among the trees decades before, his spirit twisted by his violent nature. He’s furious. Ravenous. And when Keira unwittingly answers his call, she may just seal her fate as his final intended victim.

Gravekeeper, #2

The Ravenous Dead

A decent sequel in a Cozy Paranormal Mystery series a bit lacking in depth

 series about a woman with amnesia who can see ghosts and solves mysteries while dodging the mysterious evil organization out to recapture her.

Gee, that sounds corny when I type it out. The jury is still out on whether it actually is a cheesy and clichéd as it sounds.

 picked up two days after the first book and jumped right into the mystery. A ghost of serial killer is now causing other ghosts to vanish, and Keira is determined to stop it. In terms of the evil organization and Keira’s secret past, this installment felt like a placeholder in the series with no real changes in the characters, their situations, or relationships. The mystery was interesting though.

First of all, I have no idea why the top tag for this series is Horror. Yes, there are ghosts and murders and a “scary” shadow organization. But the “scary” stuff is told not shown. And 

frankly, these books feel entirely like cozy mysteries.

 I would never describe these as Horror. They are scary in the way that family feature Halloween movies are scary: just a little spooky but nothing to alarm the chillens.

Other than the bad guys, the characters have that hollow feeling of underdeveloped characters. They are quirky and nice and each provide a specific and obvious counterpoint to Keira’s character. But none of them felt like complete people. It felt like they would cease to exist if Keira left town. For example, I remember the basics of their personalities and purposes (the love interest, the quirky best friend, the mentor), but I have completely forgotten all of their names. Actually, I had to look up Keira’s name too in order to include it in this review. So I can’t say that any of the characters were impactful.

This series has been promoted by Amazon, so I figured it might be from one of their imprints – which may affect my decision to continue with the series if I’m on the fence. I don’t outright boycott Amazon’s imprints, but I feel icky supporting them despite the many authors who are essentially indentured to them. Anyway, the publisher is listed as Black Owl Books. But when I looked them up, Coates is the only author listed on their site. But there seem to be a lot of her titles that are Amazon exclusives, so I guess she’s just signed a deal with them.

 series well enough, but I also feel like they need more meat on their bones. They feel like they were rushed to press in the aim to fill quantity over quality. I’ve certainly noticed a trend in novella series being promoted. I’d like them a lot more if they were a little darker, a little longer, and a lot more fleshed out. I may continue with the series at some point, but I’m not officially putting the next book on my TBR list. So there is a high chance that this one will fade into the obscurity of my memory and become an abandoned series by default of not caring enough to remember to read the next book.

Characters and Character Development: 3 Stars

Colleen

A decent sequel in a Cozy Paranormal Mystery series a bit lacking in depth


The Ravenous Dead is the second book in the Gravekeeper series about a woman with amnesia who can see ghosts and solves mysteries while dodging the mysterious evil organization out to recapture her.

Gee, that sounds corny when I type it out. The jury is still out on whether it actually is a cheesy and clichéd as it sounds.

The Ravenous Dead picked up two days after the first book and jumped right into the mystery. A ghost of serial killer is now causing other ghosts to vanish, and Keira is determined to stop it. In terms of the evil organization and Keira’s secret past, this installment felt like a placeholder in the series with no real changes in the characters, their situations, or relationships. The mystery was interesting though.

First of all, I have no idea why the top tag for this series is Horror. Yes, there are ghosts and murders and a “scary” shadow organization. But the “scary” stuff is told not shown. And frankly, these books feel entirely like cozy mysteries. I would never describe these as Horror. They are scary in the way that family feature Halloween movies are scary: just a little spooky but nothing to alarm the chillens.

Other than the bad guys, the characters have that hollow feeling of underdeveloped characters. They are quirky and nice and each provide a specific and obvious counterpoint to Keira’s character. But none of them felt like complete people. It felt like they would cease to exist if Keira left town. For example, I remember the basics of their personalities and purposes (the love interest, the quirky best friend, the mentor), but I have completely forgotten all of their names. Actually, I had to look up Keira’s name too in order to include it in this review. So I can’t say that any of the characters were impactful.

This series has been promoted by Amazon, so I figured it might be from one of their imprints – which may affect my decision to continue with the series if I’m on the fence. I don’t outright boycott Amazon’s imprints, but I feel icky supporting them despite the many authors who are essentially indentured to them. Anyway, the publisher is listed as Black Owl Books. But when I looked them up, Coates is the only author listed on their site. But there seem to be a lot of her titles that are Amazon exclusives, so I guess she’s just signed a deal with them.

I like the Gravekeeper series well enough, but I also feel like they need more meat on their bones. They feel like they were rushed to press in the aim to fill quantity over quality. I’ve certainly noticed a trend in novella series being promoted. I’d like them a lot more if they were a little darker, a little longer, and a lot more fleshed out. I may continue with the series at some point, but I’m not officially putting the next book on my TBR list. So there is a high chance that this one will fade into the obscurity of my memory and become an abandoned series by default of not caring enough to remember to read the next book.


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 4 Stars
Writing Style: 2 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 3 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 3 Stars
Level of Captivation: 3 Stars
Originality: 3 Stars

Victoria

This was a whole lot better than Book 1. Can’t wait for the third installment. In the mean time, I’m gonna go ahead and read this author’s backlist.

Jasmine

Thanks so much to NetGalley, Poisoned Pen Press, and Darcy Coates for this ARC in exchange for an honest review! 

I wasn’t sure what to expect going into The Ravenous Dead. The first book in the series, The Whispering Dead, was a bit horror-lite for my tastes but was still a fun read. This book isn’t much different in tone, but I did find myself enjoying the material a bit more. It'll be interesting to see where Coates takes this story to next, and I'll be requesting it as soon as humanly possible. 

I guess the only issue with the story is that there are still a few loose threads continuing from the last book, but one could assume those are there to push the hesitant series readers to read further. I'd also like to see some of the relationships progress a bit more. 

I will recommend Darcy Coates to our horror readers always. It's nice that she has varying levels of horror, as this allows more readers to appreciate her work. If one of her books isn't a good fit, id almost bet she has another that would be. It's 3.5-4 stars from me.

Logan Schenk

3.5 rounded up

As is typical for me I had no idea this was a second book in a series, but that did not stop me from enjoying this book at all! We follow Keira as she has accepted the position as groundskeeper in order to continue work helping ghosts move on. A fascinating concept that I really did enjoy. I found even at times I was wanting more about the side characters however. Mason was sweet and caring, sort of the mother of the group providing the “Hey, that’s crazy. How about we don’t do that?” side to things. Zoe was so fun as the quirky, conspiracy nut who in a nutshell is probably one kind of friend you really want or need. 
I found in the story however, I almost wanted a bit more about Keira? We had a whole part that played really big into her story and her past, but almost brushed away from it too soon? I appreciate we got closer in the ghost story side of this and I understand it is the second in a series, but it was only a handful of pages for the whole scene and then suddenly we are back to the ghosts? Otherwise, I found it to be a fun paranormal horror novel!
It could easily be read as a stand-alone if you don’t mind missing out on a few things such as how Keira got to Blighty and how she has no memories of her life before finding herself there. I’m definitely going to have to go back and read the first one. I’m also excited to see what will happen next to our trio. 

Thank you Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review! #Netgalley #TheRavenousDead

The Ravenous Dead Gravekeeper, #2

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