- Title: First Grave on the Right
- Author: Darynda Jones
- Series: Charley Davidson #1
- Adult, Urban Fantasy/Romance
- Category: Ghosts, Grim Reaper
- Length: 310 Pages
- Website: http://www.daryndajones.com
- Challenge: 50States-New Mexico
Summary: Charley Davidson is no ordinary human being. She is the Grim Reaper. Charley is a beacon to those souls who have been left behind in the Earthly realm after their death. Because she can see and communicate with these dead souls, she has taken the responsibility of helping them complete their unfinished business so they can move on to Heaven.
Charley’s abilities have caused her to be an outcast her entire life. Most people don’t believe her at all, and those that do believe her are usually too terrified to be around her. Only a few people have stuck by her side – and even those people don’t know the whole truth of what she is and what she can do. Her rejection from most of society has given her a thick skin and a low tolerance for others who might judge or question her. The result is a sharp temper and a belligerent attitude.
Making the most of her talents, Charley became a private investigator after graduating from college. After all, when a dead person can tell her where their body can be found, or who killed them, it makes an investigation proceed more quickly. For this reason, her uncle Bob frequently requests her help with his police investigations. It is during one of these moments that Charley meets three deceased attorneys, who were all murdered in cold blood while working to overturn a murder conviction for a client.
As Charley works through this new case, she is dealing with a situation of a more personal nature at the same time. For the last month, someone otherworldly has been visiting her in her sleep. His body and the intimacies they share while she is sleeping are very real to her when she wakes up, but the identity of her nebulous visitor is still a mystery. Then finally, after an out-of-body encounter with him in her shower, he gives her a clue: a nickname that only one person had ever called her.
Now determined to find the boy from her childhood who had called her that nickname, Charley has two mysteries to solve. Neither will be an easy task with so many people trying to kill her.
Review: Contrary to popular opinion about this book, I did not find it very entertaining. I was SO looking forward to reading it, especially after JR Ward (one of my favorite authors) helped promote it. But now I think my expectations were too high.
The mystery storylines were interesting, creative, and more complex than I expected. The full definition of what Charlie does as the Grim Reaper was far more elaborate than simply helping the dead give up this realm. As the author slowly peeled back the layers of this character, I was pleasantly surprised by how significant she truly is in the big picture. There was both depth and dimension to the world building behind this novel.
So where did it go wrong for me? Simply put, I thought Charley was completely obnoxious. Many of the reviews I’ve read have called her “snarky”. I always thought that a snarky person would be described as a smart-alec with a clever and quick wit. I decided to look it up since my personal definition didn’t seem to match this character. The dictionary definition is: snark·y (snär k ). adj. 1. Rudely sarcastic or disrespectful; snide. 2. Irritable or short-tempered; irascible. I was wrong, Charley is snarky alright.
Unfortunately, I didn’t think Charley was funny or clever. I thought she was more like a know-it-all who finds her own sarcasm way more scintillating than it really is. I actually liked Charley very much when she was being serious. At those moments, which happened more frequently toward the end of the book, I thought she was smart, sensitive and incredibly perceptive. If she wasn’t trying so hard to be salty all the time, I would have liked her, and this book, much more than I did.
Even though there are many good qualities in this novel, it isn’t one that I would recommend. Obnoxious humor just doesn’t appeal to me. I tend to prefer irony, freudian slips, situational humor…. basically any type of humor that is more subtle rather than loud and confrontational. But if you enjoy snarky characters, then this might be a good book for you because the rest of it was nicely written and developed.
