Title: Graveyard Shift
Series: Not Dead Yet: Book Three
Author: Jenn Burke
Publisher: Carina Press
Length: 259 Pages
Category: Urban Fantasy
At a Glance: Burke handles the plethora of danger and suspense in this novel with nothing less than finesse. The only overwhelming element to the entirety of the story were the emotions provoked by the events that occurred. What might have been too much was, in the end, just right.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Shifting Into High Fear
Ghost/god Wes Cooper and his not-life partner, vampire Hudson Rojas, have settled into cohabitation in an upscale part of Toronto. So what if their hoity-toity new neighbors haven’t exactly rolled out the welcome mat for the paranormal pair? Their PI business is booming, and when a suspect they’ve been tailing winds up in the morgue, it’s alongside a rash of other shifters in apparent drug-related fatalities.
Now Wes and Hudson must connect the dots between the shifter deaths and an uptick in brutal vampire attacks across the city. Throw in a surprise visit from Hudson’s niece—who may or may not be on the run from European paranormal police (who may or may not exist)—and guardianship of a teen shifter who might be the key to solving the whole mystery (if only she could recover her memory), and Wes and Hudson have never been busier…or happier.
But when a nightmare from Hudson’s past comes back to haunt him, their weird, little found family is pushed to the brink. Mucking this up would mean Hudson and Wes missing their second chance at happily-forever-afterlife…
Review: Reconciling himself with godhood wasn’t something Wes Cooper could possibly have fathomed when he achieved mostly dead/slightly alive status decades ago. It’s a reality he’s forced to confront now, however, because his failure to do so might mean the difference between life and death—in the most literal sense. He is not alone, though, which becomes a critical factor in the eleventh hour of Graveyard Shift.
An unexpected visit from Hudson’s niece Priya seems innocuous enough on the surface, and it awakens something in Hud, namely how much he regrets losing a connection to his brother. The one positive effect of her arrival is that it prompts Hud to see his place within the family he and Wes have built around them, but that isn’t an auto-response based on the clear evidence before him. The questionable element in Priya’s presence is the trouble she invites to their doorstep, and the enigma that she becomes when she scarpers as suddenly as she arrived. Hud and Wes are then faced with the subsequent mystery of how and why she turned to Hud in the first place, which prompts Wes, once he discovers her secret, to make a unilateral decision that had the potential to backfire spectacularly if it’d come to fruition.
Jenn Burke puts Hud through some things (does she ever) in this final installment of the series. The tension throughout the book from various sources is targeted and on the mark. Dangerous interlopers abound, both from Hud’s past and Priya’s presence, which causes nothing but grief and chaos, something Burke metes out with the expertise of a storyteller who knows her audience and how much we’ve come to love these characters. The concurring mysteries and threatening elements in this novel converge from several angles, the primary target being Toronto’s shifter population. The vamps created for the sole purpose of shifter genocide is a statement in and of itself, but Priya’s involvement in a crime with an unexpected—and for Wes, wholly unwelcome—element invites nothing but additional chaos. There were, by necessity, some life…existence…altering changes for Wes, unexpected and untimely, but nevertheless warranted, and significant developments which will factor into his and Hud’s future, one being Hud’s understanding of his place within his made family. The other concerning Wes and his finally naming and claiming the god who rides shotgun on his soul. That was such a powerful and effective moment, one that left me cheering, which made possible those heart-melting moments at the end.
Not to be outdone, though, is their band happening upon a young shifter, Sam, who leaves her mark on the family in ways I could have never imagined. There were many things influencing this narrative, and Burke handles the plethora of danger and suspense with nothing less than finesse. In the battle for family and love and the preservation of their way of life, there is loss, and that loss was a significant blow to the heart, which I really can’t emphasize the impact of enough. Suffice it to say, there were tears. The only overwhelming element to the entirety of the story were the emotions provoked by the events that occurred. What might have been too much was, in the end, just right to progress and propel things forward to a touching and romantic finish.
Jenn Burke has delivered book after book of romance, suspense, danger, and the strange and unusual for these characters. I’ve come to embrace and welcome each one into my lexicon of faves, with all the excitement of a kid at Christmas.
You can buy Graveyard Shift here:
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