Dead, Undead, or Somewhere in Between by J.A. Saare
Trade: $11.50
Eternal Press (February 2010)
ISBN: 978-1-77065-022-0
Favorite Lines: “Some people are beyond repair, and I’m one of them. I can’t be fixed, not by you, or anyone else.” (p.95)
Rhiannon Murphy has tried to ignore the fact that she’s a necromancer. She is content to be a bartender at a strip club in New York City, until a vampire realizes she is capable of seeing vampires after death. That vampire, Disco, is determined to get Rhiannon’s help in finding a killer stalking the undead community.
I put Dead, Undead, or Somewhere in Between on my buy list earlier in the year. It always seemed to be put on the back burner as other books were released. Then I began to question my desire to have it. Did I really want to invest in a trade sized book written by an author I’d never read and published by a house I never heard of? The answer is yes.
Rhiannon was a strong woman who had been through a hellish childhood. Her ability to see the dead was more traumatic than helpful. Everywhere she looked were brutalized bodies. Rhiannon’s necro abilities didn’t make her a fan of vampires, but as she got to know them her prejudices seemed to slip away.
I had fun getting to know the characters, so knowing who the killer was as soon as he was introduced didn’t really bother me. Looking back, I can see the foreshadowing surrounding Rhiannon’s eventual interaction with the killer which forced her to deal with one of her biggest life issues. The book isn’t perfect, but it is engaging and like many good books lately, has a killer ending.
The next two books in the series are Renfield Syndrome and The Ripple Effect. Both will be published by Mundania Press. The first book will be released in the fall of 2011. (SIDE NOTE: The covers at Mundania are not impressive at all, but if you read Dead, Undead, or Somewhere in Between you’ll want to know what happens bad enough to not care.)
Scooper Speaks 