Book Review: First Grave on the Right (Charley Davidson, #1)

About The Book:

  Title:  First Grave on the Right (Charley Davidson, #1) 

  Author: Darynda Jones 
  Pub. Date: February 1st, 2011 
  Publisher: St. Martin's Press 
  Pages: 310 

  Genre: Adult, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance 

  Rate: 3.5/5 stars 

Synopsis :

This whole grim reaper thing should have come with a manual.
Or a diagram of some kind.
A flow chart would have been nice.

Charley Davidson is a part-time private investigator and full-time grim reaper. Meaning, she sees dead people. Really. And it's her job to convince them to "go into the light." But when these very dead people have died under less than ideal circumstances (like murder), sometimes they want Charley to bring the bad guys to justice. Complicating matters are the intensely hot dreams she's been having about an entity who has been following her all her life...and it turns out he might not be dead after all. In fact, he might be something else entirely. But what does he want with Charley? And why can't she seem to resist him? And what does she have to lose by giving in?

Review:

I picked this book up for the sole reason that I heard it was similar to the Sookie Stackhouse novels. Which as everyone knows, is my favorite book series! I enjoyed this read even though i didn't think it was super similar to that series. I enjoyed Sookie because I loved the small-town charm and interesting characters. Charley Davidson is more akin to Sookie in the fact that bore are sort of mystery/crime-based.

Charley is the grim reaper, only she isn't the grim reaper as we know it. Instead of being the harbinger of death, she sort of assists in letting the dead who are in limbo pass to other other side. So she does have the ability to talk to the deceased, which makes it really convenient when she helps her uncle solve crimes. Which is exactly the plot of this book. Basically, she helps her uncle solve a string of murders that happened while she also tries to figure out who this handsome man is who comes to her in her dreams. The plot was good for an urban fantasy and I liked the writing. I didn't care much for the whole solving crimes thing just because detective books aren't really my preference, so I'm hoping that falls to the wayside as the series progresses.

I hated Charley as a character. I found her extremely irritating. She was arrogant, flippant, and an airhead. She flirted with everyone and wasn't particularly good at fighting crime, she was just good at evading getting hurt. When people would question her abilities, she was so pretentious in her responses as if this sort of thing happened every day and she shouldn't justify herself to anybody. I did love the other characters, though. Her love interest, Reyes, was most certainly swoon-worthy and made up for some of her characters. At least in my eyes, it did. I also loved her caring and fun-loving neighbor, Cookie.

This series will not replace my love for the Sookie Stackhouse series, but I did enjoy it. I'm hoping to pick up the second book soon. I'm also hoping Charley Davidson becomes a lot less annoying because I think that will make me enjoy the series more. Sometimes I get an urge to read a good urban fantasy, and this is definitely the new series I'm going to binge. What are your favorite urban fantasy reads? Mine are The Sookie Stackhouse novels and The Fever series. Both are amazing!

- Jocelyn