Grave Memory by Kalayna Price – a Review

Summary:
When the dead need to talk, Alex Craft is always ready to listen…

As a Grave Witch, Alex solves murders by raising the dead—an ability that comes at a cost, and after her last few cases, that cost is compounding. But her magic isn’t the only thing causing havoc in her life. While she’s always been on friendly terms with Death himself, things have recently become a whole lot more close and personal. Then there’s her sometime partner, agent Falin Andrews, who is under the glamour of the Winter Queen. To top everything off, her best friend has been forever changed by her time spent captive in Faerie.

But the personal takes a backseat to the professional when a string of suicides occur in Nekros City and Alex is hired to investigate. The shades have no memory of the days leading up to their brutal endings, so despite the very public apparent suicides, this is murder. But what kind of magic can overcome the human will to survive? And why do the shades lack the memory of their deaths? Searching for the answer might mean Alex won’t have a life to remember at all…

Review:

Grave Memory by Kalayna Price is the 3^rd book in her Alex Craft series.  Grave Memory, which is futuristic and takes place in Nekros City, where humans and the supernatural live after the Magical Awakening, picks up not long after Grave Dance ended. For those of you who are not familiar with this series, Alex Craft is a grave witch, who can raise the dead.  She helps the police to solve crimes, but recently she finds herself on the outs with the Police.  Alex has her own detective agency, “Tongues for the Dead” (yes Price has a wonderful sense of humor), which she shares with her friend Rianna, who is also a grave witch.  But Rianna is now a changeling, unable to leave Faerie for long, because of her long time captivity by the Fae. Roy, Alex’s ghost friend, hangs around the agency to help her.

But things are never easy for Alex, as a grave witch, she does get the weirdest cases.  Now she has to solve the case of multiple suicides that are suspicious, and Alex will find out later extremely dangerous.  Someone is taking over the bodies of the victims, enjoying themselves for a few days, and then forces them to kill themselves, so they can then move to another unsuspecting body to live in. 

Alex uses all her friends, and even those not her friends to help find this rider, and must find a way to stop him, since he cannot be killed.  This entire story was totally exciting right to the very last page, and Kalanya Price does such a good job keeping the storyline flowing, with all the adventure, danger and twists along the way.  

There were so many other things also that I enjoyed about Grave Memory.  We learn more about Alex’s Fae ancestors, spend some time in Faerie land, and also meet a number of the different Fae courts, Alex’s fae ancestors, and things we get to know about Alex’s family.  Some of those are surprises.  Kalayna does a great job creating wonderful characters for this world of Alex Craft, especially the two men in her life.  We get to see Falin, the knight of the Winter Queen, who wants Alex for her court at any costs. But this story had a lot of Death (he is a soul searcher and she nicknamed him that), and after this book, I loved him.  Super character, super romance, and even though Falin is nice, his ties to the Winter King are hard on Alex.  But then again, who Death is, is also an issue. 

With her friends, Death, his co horts, Roy, his ghost friends, Briar… Alex fights the fight that is dangerously close to death for a few.  Very exciting, and Kalayna has such a wonderful imagination to create this story and the worldbuilding. I have totally become a fan of Alex Craft and Kalayna’s writing.  She is a fun heroine, and her future is unlimited. If she survives, as Alex is always putting herself in danger. This is a fun, exciting and action filled story, and I love that the Fae’s play a big part in this.  This book has me totally in Death’s corner, but as usual it has an interesting ending, that will ensure you buy the next book.

READING ORDER
1. Grave Witch
2. Grave Dance
3. Grave Memory

Reviewed by Barb

Copy provided by Publisher