Grave Ransom

An Alex Craft Novel, Book 5

By: Kalayna Price

Narrated by: Emily Durante

Grave witch Alex Craft is no stranger to the dead talking. She raises shades, works with ghosts, and is dating Death himself. But the dead walking? That's not supposed to happen. And yet reanimated corpses are committing crimes across Nekros City.

Alex's investigation leads her deep into a web of sinister magic. When Briar Darque of the Magical Crimes Investigation Bureau gets involved, Alex finds herself with an unexpected ally of sorts. But as the dead continue to rise and wreak havoc on the living, can she get to the soul of the matter in time?

©2017 Kalayna Smithwick (P)2017 Tantor

Finally on Audible!!! Good continuation of plot

Grave Ransom was released earlier this year but was not available for Pre-order on Audible. I put the paper copy aside, (I tend to read/listen to both at same time) hoping that Audible would release an audio soon. It took a few months but just as I was about to give up and just read my paperback copy, Audible released a copy on October 3!! Thank you Audible!!

I was well worth the wait and credit. The story and world progressed nicely. I love the fact that Grave Witches have terrible vision and go blind for short periods of time. Ms. Price hasn't taken the easy way out and made Alex immune to this as her powers grow. Too many authors start with their heroes having weaknesses and they get too over-powered and infallible as the series continues. Not so with Alex, in fact Alex's eyesight is even worse as she's seeing not only into the Realm of the Dead but other planes of reality.

I really liked the storyline in this one, it was a nice twist on zombies and necromancers. And I really wanted to punch Briar in the nose a few times on Alex's behalf!! I don't want to give away anymore then that. However, I will warn you that the ending is sad so be prepared!

A Grave mystery worth reading!

This is a series that must be read in order. Alex's magical powers and relationships grow stronger and more complex as the series progresses.

It has been a while for me since I read an Alex Craft. I still enjoy her stories. Alex Craft is a grave witch, which means that she has the power to raise the shades of the dead—not ghosts (the disembodied spirits of the dead) but shades (the truth-telling memories of the dead. Her abilities are grave sight (enables her to raise the shades) and planeweaver magic (gives her the ability to see through planes). Both abilities degrade her sight to the point of blindness for extended usage. Planeweaving degrades her sight even more.

She is a true-blooded fae. She inherited a castle, brownie and garden gnome from Governor Theodore Coleman. Now her friends, many are her co-workers, live together as a family in the castle.

She has a working relationship Nekros City Police Department. It is has become strained because as a fea, she cannot divulge things of fae. The lack of full disclosure is frustrating to police and relationship has been damaged. When crimes have a fae component she works with the Fae Investigation Bureau.

Many stories have several story lines. The cases for Tongues for the Dead, Alex’s business become part of the police investigation. She is working with Briar, who is an officer for the Nekros City Police Department. Briar is a hard hitting, take not shit, one-women-strike-team officer. Her concern is results. Alex’s blindness and empathy causes Briar frustrations.

Alex’s gift does not lead itself for physical action or defense of any kind. From those around her there will be action The stories are a urban fantasy PI novel with a unique ability to solve a case.

Why does a high school girl’s whose boyfriend is missing go to Alex?

AMAZING as usual!

I can't wait to start the next book. Alex is one of my favorite heroin

Can’t wait till the next one!!

Loved it. Can’t wait till the next one comes out. Love the characters and love the series.

5 stars

My only complaint about this series is that there aren't more books. The world building and the characters are well developed. I look forward to the next book.

So glad I came back to this series!

I lost track of this series during the author’s hiatus, and had been doing some registering lately and came back across it. I decided to delisted from the beginning, and have now continued to devour the newer books I missed. So glad I found my way back to this series!

a good interesting story

a Very continuation of the story that keeps your attention. Alex Craft is a great character with an interesting story

The narrator is off

Well having listened to all the books back to back this was definitely off putting. The narrator seemed to have forgotten her voices from the previous books. The Raver and the Gray Man....completely different sounding. It threw me out of the story every time the characters came into play. Disappointing.

I hope there’s more

I loved it. I hope there’s at least one more book in this story. More Faelin please!

One word: Zombies!

First I want to say how irritated I am that I was unaware that this book was out on audible already? To me if you have bought every book in a series, there should be some kind of alert, email, popup letting me know there is a new one out. Maybe that could be an actual part of my home page apart from "recommendations".

I'd like to have a portion of my home page dedicated to "Series you've started"... and then when a new book cone out in one of those then let a sistah know.

Ok. Had to get that off my chest. I'm back now.

I saw this book on someone's fed of Goodreads and was like "Wait, I haven't read that Alex Craft book yet".

Usually I try to go back and listen to the last book right before the new one comes out. But I had no time for this one. I just had to jump in where I was standing.

Overall I enjoyed the book. Alex is a freshing character. She is too much of anything. She isn't the damsel in distress nor is she that lead that feels she has to jump head first into every fight.

In this book Alex is forced to work with Briar from a few books back. Briar is all action but doesn't put much into coming up with plans. Briar's action hero antics put her and Alex is all kinda situations including being lost in the woods hunted by animals and a cool zombie scene.

Alex's love life is still messy. She loves Death who can't give her a normal relationship. Faylen is still being forced by the Winter queen to live with Alex to keep her close. Usually at this point in a series I am all in for one side of the love triangles that seem to invade every book these days. But in this one, I'm not for one or the other. I'm more like an older aunt who just wants you to pick a guy already and be happy.

The mystery of this book involves an allusive necromancer who eventually falls into the path of our Alex. You don't understand the why behind it all until the end. But I think in this case, it would have caused more emotional conflict within the reader to get the backstory of the necromancer ahead of time.

I didn't remember how much I liked this narrator. She is good. Characters are easy to tell apart which is soooo important in narration.