Book Review: Three Days to Dead

Three Days to Dead

By: Kelly Meding

Publisher: Bantam and Dell

Publish Date: December 2009

Format: Paperback, 405 pages

Genre: Paranormal Fiction

Series: The First book in the Adventures of Evangeline Stone.

Recommendation: YES!! Do you like action and mystery and paranormal? READ THIS!

Book Synopsis:

She's young, deadly, and hunted - with only three days to solve her own murder...

When Evangeline Stone wakes up naked and brused on a cold slab in the morgue - in a stranger's body, with no memory of who she is and how she got there - her troubles are only just beginning. Before that night she and the two other members of her Triad were star bounty hunters, mercilessly cleansing the city of the murderous creatures living in the shadows, from vampires to shape-shiftersto trolls. Then something terrible happenedthat not only cost all three of them their lives but also convinced the city's other Hunters that Evy was a traitor - and she can't even remember what it was.

Now she's a fugitive, piecing together her memory, trying to deal some serious justice - and dicovering that she has only three days to solve her own murder before the reincarnation spell wears off. Because in three days Evy will die again - but this time there's no second chance...

First Sentence:

I don't recall the first time I died, but I do remember the second time I was born. Vividly.

My Review and Summary:

I am going to try not to give to much of the story away in this review. The synopsis on the back of the book is a great starting discription of what the story is about. I am glad I worked hard to win this book (Thanks to SciFiGuy.ca), although I would have paid for this book as I really wanted it. I am always a sucker for a paranormal mystery action book.

This book constantly moves forward with a lot happening. There is always some action going on or mystery detail being given, and the good guys are not always in the lead. I enjoy trying to figure out how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together - who is doing this, why are they, and what are all the connections to figure out what the plan is.

Evy wakes up on a morgue table not knowing; where she is, what happened, or even any phone numbers to make a call for help. Let alone realizing she is not in her own body anymore. You meet Evy right on page one and start the story right with her. The memory loss is handled wonderfully! The memory loss is only for a particular time frame and you learn what is lost with Evy. You feel the emotions right with Evy as she learns the wonderful and horrific things with her. As you meet other characters (human and paranormal) you learn what Evy knows as you come to them - either right before or as you meet them. You learn of how they live and what they believe right before she goes to visit them or right with the visit. I really liked how this is added in with what is going on.

I felt Evy's character was well built. She has a strong personality. (She is definitely someone I would not want to get on the bad side of.) You see Evy stay true to her self yet still confused thinking part of Chalice, the girls body she is borrowing, is what is adding to her confusion. Evy wonders off and on through the book as to why Chalice was dead and why she choose this body to come back in. Even though Evy is true to her attitude and comments, you watch as she slowly starts to grow.

Evy knows many things of the paranormal world being she is a hunter looking for rogue dregs (paranormal creatures). Yet she learns many great things of the different creatures as well. I liked the mixture of the paranormal with the "real" world in this book. I think the paranormal was just right here, there was no over-kill on the creatures, and the story stays focused on Evy. I do have a few curiousities of just a few small things in this world Kelly Meding has created, but I think these will come up in book two and be clearified a little more.

So, if you woke up in another body knowing all the crazy things that happen in the world regarding the paranormal creatures and thought there was something you knew and was afraid to say it on your death bed yet can't remember what happened and who did it.... Who or what would you trust?

(This qualifies for my Speculative Fiction Challenge of 2010.)