As Lie The Dead by Kelly Meding

SPOILER WARNING. This is the sequel to 'Three Days To Dead' and contains some spoilers from it, so if you've not yet read book 1, I suggest skipping this.

"Evangeline Stone, a rogue bounty hunter, never asked for a world divided between darkness and light...

...or the power to die and live agian in someone else's borrowed body. After a murder plot meant to take her out leaves an entire race of shapeshifters nearly extinct, Evy is gnawed by guilt. So when one of the few survivors of the slaughter enlists her aid, she feels duty-bound to help - even though protecting a frail, pregnant shifter is the last thing Evy needs, especially with the world going to hell around her.
Amid weres, Halfies, gremlins, vamps - and increasingly outgunned humans - a war for supremacy is brewing. With shifters demanding justice, her superiors desperate to control her, and an assassin on her trail, Evy discovers a horrifying conspiracy. And she may be the only person in the world who can stop it - unless, of course, her own side gets her first."

This second Evy Stone book picks up exactly where the first one left off. Evy, Wyatt, the surviving hunters and their handlers are clearing up the mess from the battle that kept a rift between worlds from being opened. But it cost 6 hunters, and Wyatt briefly, their lives. The events that led to the battle, the Triad's betrayal, means that Evy knows there is still a lot to sort out. She'd rather just go home and sleep for a week or two, try and work out her feelings for her handler Wyatt. And figure out how do deal with being in a different body, sharing Chalice's emotional memories.

Just as she and Wyatt arrive back at the apartment Chalice and Alex shared though, her troubles pick up again. One of the last surviving Owlkins demands her protection for his people, and the person responsible for the fire that killed the rest of them to be brought to him. Evy knows that finding that person, someone high up the food chain, an invisible person who'd identity is hidden for a reason, will be more than difficult. It'll also mean fighting against the people who were once her allies before turning on her, and within the Triad's, she really doesn't know if she can trust any of them. And things just get more desperate from there. Deeply hidden secrets are unearthed and they're going to change things for Evy for good, if she survives.

I liked the first Evy book, Three Days To Dead, but didn't love it. Too much going on, sometimes flat characters, and Evy was not the most likable character. But it was still a decent read and I was curious to see what would happen next for her. I did like this book a bit more, but it took a while. It's a little start/stop for the first half, and Evy annoyed me enough that I put the book down on more than one occasion for a short break. She's not exactly a bad character, or person, but her continued ignorance and the way she reacts to things (always fists first) annoyed me. I get that she's 22 and had a hard life and a lot has happened to her in a very short, chaotic time, but I just felt like she should have been growing and changing with the new things she faces. She does eventually start to change, around the midway point, but up til then she irritated me more than anything else.

The plot also smoothed out and moved faster from around the midway point until the end. It had some slightly predictable things, but there were some pretty big shocks in there as well. The tension from about the 2/3 mark just rose and stayed there right up to the end. Like Three Days To Dead, Evy is on a strict time frame, but also like it, I didn't often feel the pressure of that time frame coming through to me. The tension towards the end felt the same as any other big build up where you know a huge showdown is coming, time frame or not. I feel that's one of the biggest let downs on these books. The time frame is meant to be a pretty big aspect, the chapters have day/time stamp as their titles, and Evy mentions that she only has so long for certain things numerous times, but it just doesn't come across for me.

But despite the flaws, overall I still enjoyed the book. The second half I almost loved in fact. It's better than the first one, and despite the stop/start earlier on, it felt far better plotted than book one, more together and less scatty. It wraps up nicely although there are some threads left open to be explored in the next book, which I'm looking forward to. I did actually like Evy quite a lot by the end, but I think I liked some of the secondary characters, Phin in particular, more. Not about to become a favourite, but still a good read and worth the time. 7/10

Three Days To Dead by Kelly Meding

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

When Evangeline Stone wakes up naked and bruised 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 other two members of her Triad were star bounty hunters, mercilessly cleansing the city if the murderous creatures living in the shadows, from vampires to shape-shifters to trolls. Then something terrible happened that 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 discovering 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..."

I love the ideas behind the book, but in practise it falls short. Evy says repeatedly that the other two members of her Triad were her family, and yet at the beginning of the book in particular, there is very little from Evy in the way of grief. And there is the potential for a good sub-plot with two personalities in one body, but there isn't nearly enough to make it work. The male leads in the book fall flat too and they're all pretty similar. There just isn't enough to really get your teeth in to personality wise with the characters. And though I wanted Evy to succeed, I wasn't really pushing for her, willing her on like many other protagonists.

There is also far too much going on. There are many, many different species of creature in this book, and it gets a bit tricky trying to keep all the different creatures and their alliances straight. The story jumps from one thing to another with little explanation and trying to keep all of it in order and remember it all isn't easy either. And whilst the world building was pretty good, the overall tone wasn't as dark and gritty as it could have been, leaving a slightly lighter tone than it really needed.

Knowing that there is a time constraint is one thing, but the pressure of it didn't really come across well in this. There were times when you felt Evy had all the time in the world to do whatever it was needed doing. There were a couple decent twists but nothing out of the blue, but the ending was reasonable anyway, even if a few things were left open ended.

However, despite all it's flaws, I liked this book. Yes it's not as good as it could be, but I still think it's a reasonable read and one I'll pass along to friends. Evy has some good moments, and there are points where things are explained enough and the characters show real emotion you can relate to, there's just not enough of it to truly bring the characters to life. Sometimes it doesn't hurt to read a book with a decent storyline and characters you're not going to obsess over ;) 6/10