#CBR5 Books 93-94: "Charley Davidson book 4 and 5" by Darynda Jones

Total page count: 659 pages
Rating: Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet - 4 stars
Fifth Grave Past the Light - 4.5 stars

At the beginning of Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet, a few months have passed since the end of book three, and Charley isn't doing all that well. She's not really left her apartment, which is now stuffed full of boxes full of random useless stuff she's purchased from late night shopping channels. Her best friend/next door neighbour/overqualified personal assistant Cookie has cancelled all her credit cards, and insists on ganging up on her, along with her uncle Bob, and her sister Gemma. They claim that she's suffering a mild case of PTSD (they're right) and they insist that she leave the apartment, and start getting her life back in order. When a desperate young woman shows up on her doorstep claiming someone is trying to kill her, but everyone around her just thinks she's insane, Charley decides that enough is enough, and promises to help. She's decides that the best way out of her financial difficulties is serving Reyes with a hefty bill, since she technically performed the job he hired her to do. Now she just has to find him.

In Fifth Grave Past the Light, Cookie and Charley discover that they have a new neighbour, and it's the drop dead gorgeous Reyes Farrow himself. Charley is hoping to prove to her uncle Bob that Reyes is not the arsonist who's been burning down old buildings all over Albuquerque, but it does seem suspicious that all the same buildings are ones that Reyes at some point lived in, growing up. She's made peace with her father, whose bar, previously mostly a cop hangout, is now a super popular lunching spot for women of all ages. Charley's apartment is slowly filling up with young dead women, all of them blond and killed gruesomely, clearly by the same serial killer. Despite Charley's Reaper powers, she's unable to get any of them to communicate with her, they're too traumatised, even after death. When it seems like Charley's sister Gemma may be the serial killer's next intended victim, it becomes crucial that she discover the killer's identity as soon as possible.

As I said in my previous review, the Charley Davidson books are excellent holiday reads. With each new book, the series becomes more enjoyable. There is great character development and growth in each book, and by now, the regular cast of characters have, as is the case in most series I read and greatly enjoy, become like friends that I just like spending time with on the page. During book five, which was released just a few weeks ago, I was finally also utterly sold on Reyes as a love interest and romantic hero, and my previous reservations have been completely blown out of the water. His story arc over the five books has been very well handled, I'm still convinced that Darynda Jones wanted her readers to be wary of him at first. Over the course of the series, it becomes quite clear that despite everything, Charley is clearly the more powerful in their relationship dynamic, and that Reyes has a lot more to lose if their relationship doesn't work out. I'm now just incredibly frustrated that I've caught up, and will have to wait another year to read more about Charley, Reyes, Cookie, Amber, Garrett and uncle Bob.

#CBR5 Books 69-71 . "Charley Davidson books 1-3" by Darynda Jones

Total page count: 986 pages
Ratings: First Grave on the Right - 3 stars
Second Grave on the Left - 3.5 stars
Third Grave Dead Ahead - 4 stars

Charley Davidson is a private investigator in Albaquerque. She's also the Grim Reaper. She can speak every language in the world, she pretty much remembers every thing that's happened in her life, from the moment she was born, and dead people pass through her as a portal to the next world. Because she constantly sees dead people, she's been able to help her father (now a former cop) and uncle (still a cop) solve crimes since she was a little girl. It's much easier to solve a murder if the dead person can tell you who did the deed. Her office is above her father's bar, and her best friend and next door neighbour is her extremely over qualified secretary. Charley loves coffee, slogans with cheesy sayings on them (most chapters begin with said cheesy lines), and has a dreadful relationship with her stepmother.

As the first book begins, she's been having super sexy dream encounters with a mystery guy. Who sort of reminds her of the scary dark presence that's been shadowing her on and off since the day she was born, and who's even saved her life on occasion. As Charley's dream encounters continue, she starts getting tiny hints as to who her shadowy seducer may be, and she tries to discover his true identity while also trying to solve the murder of three lawyers.

In the second book, Cookie, Charley's secretary and best friend drags her out of bed in the middle of the night because a close friend of hers has disappeared, and sent a text asking Cookie and Charley to help. As they start investigating, it turns out that several people Mimi (the missing woman) went to high school with, have started turning up dead recently. Reyes Farrow, Charley's mysterious life-long protector, has abandoned his corporeal body and is determined to let it die. He's not at all impressed when Charley is determined to track said body down to save it, as he claims the dangerous entities that have control over it, are trying to trap her, and want nothing more than to see her dead.

In the third book, Charley is doing everything in her power to stay awake. Every time she falls asleep, Reyes is there, accusing and upset because of what she did at the end of book 2. Hence, Charley pretty much mainlines caffeine and does her best to never sleep. She's trying to solve a missing person's case, prove that an arrogant doctor is a ruthless murderer, and the less sleep she has, the crazier and more unpredictable things become. Reyes also wants her to prove that Earl Walker, the man he was sent to prison for killing, is still alive, so he can clear his name.

I bought the first of these books while on holiday last year in the US, because the description on the back intrigued me. I didn't really get round to checking it, or the other books out until this summer, until Reyes Farrow, Charley's very sexy, very bad boy love interest ended up beating two paranormal heroes I very much love in Vampire Bookclub's Alpha Showdown. Naturally I became curious as to what sort of an amazing character he was, if he could beat Curran Lennart (from Ilona Andrews' Kate Daniels series) and Adam Hauptman (from Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thomson series). As it happens, I still think these two characters are more awesome than Reyes, but who am I to argue with a random internet poll?

I was entertained by the first book, but as seems to be the case with a lot of paranormal/urban fantasy series out there at the moment, it wasn't really until the second and third book that I got really into the series, and was sure that I wanted to keep reading about these characters. I decided to blog all three books in one review, because I read the books so closely together, that I'm honestly not entirely sure if I remember what happened, and what was revealed about Charley, her growing Reaper powers, Reyes and his complicated story, in each of the three books. I've tried really hard not to spoil too much about Charley and her abilities, or much at all about Reyes, because part of the joy of these books is for the reader to discover these things gradually.

I liked that while she's not had an easy life, Charley is a very positive and cheerful person. She's tough, and capable and doesn't take herself too seriously. She has a great relationship with her dad, who now runs a bar, and her uncle, who she still helps solve murder cases. Her antagonistic relationship with her stepmother is perfectly understandable when you find out how Denise treated the strange little girl who claimed she could see and talk to dead people. The supporting cast of the books are great. Charley's friendship with Cookie is wonderful, and her banter with Garrett Swopes, the handsome skip tracer who's slowly coming round to the fact that Charley has powers out of the ordinary, is lots of fun too.

I like that there isn't any sort of forced love triangle being set up in these books. I'm still very ambivalent about Charley's feelings for and continued relationship with Reyes, because while he is smoking hot, I'm not kidding about him being a bad boy to the Nth power. It's quite clear from the way their relationship keeps developing and is depicted, and the amounts of people warning Charley away from Reyes (including, at times, Reyes himself) that the readers aren't supposed to be entirely ok about their romantic future.

There is a lot of humour in the books, while Jones doesn't skimp on the action, danger or smexy times. As paranormal fantasy goes, the series is doing something a bit different from just more vampires, werewolves, fairies, shapeshifters or what have you. The world building and character gallery is well done, and now that I've completed the first three, I'm well hooked. I can't wait to read the next two in this ongoing series.