When
Dallas resident Callie Taylor died young, she expected to go to Heaven, or
maybe Hell. Instead, when she met her fate early thanks to a creep with a knife
and a mommy complex, she went to Alabama. Now she's witnessed another murder,
and she's not about to let this one go. She's determined to help solve it
before an innocent man goes to prison. And to answer the biggest question of
all: why the hell did she wake up dead in Alabama?
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/waking-up-dead-margo-bond-collins/1117526839?ean=9781493750467
Books A Million: http://www.booksamillion.com/p/Waking-Up-Dead/Margo-Bond-Collins/9781493750467?id=5868658257083
This book was given to me for my honest review.
Waking Up Dead is a paranormal “New Adult” mystery. (I feel I should specify New Adult because I usually review Young Adult, however Waking Up Dead has some language, violence, and sexual violence that really isn’t appropriate for younger readers).
The main character is Callie Taylor who was brutally raped and murdered near her hometown in Texas. Instead of going to heaven, or wherever the dead are supposed to go, Callie “wakes up” in a small town in Alabama. Feeling confused and a little cheated, Callie spends her first weeks in the afterlife searching for company. With no other “ghosts” to be found, Callie settles into a routine of sort of “hanging out” and watching tv with people who have no clue she’s there. Creepy to think about, right? All is going as well as can be expected when one night Callie witnesses a horrific murder. Completely powerless to stop the killer, Callie watches in horror as one of her favorite “hauntees” is murdered and then her husband is arrested for the crime. Angry and determined, Callie sets off to find someone that can help her put the right person behind bars. That’s when she meets Ashara and Miss Adelaide - a woman and her grandmother that can
see and hear her. Together these three unlikely heroines (and another helper they pick up along the way) work to gather the evidence they need to put the cold blooded killer behind bars and free the victim’s innocent husband.
> With the exception of Callie being a ghost, the storyline and characters are very believable. All three ladies are smart and very witty, and I laughed out loud more than a few times. The way they go about the investigation, the evidence they find, the situations they find themselves in all very well laid out and none of it makes the reader feel stupid or too far ahead of the story (as frequently happens in mysteries). The ending is great and wraps up the main story while strongly suggesting that there are more Callie Taylor novels to come.
Excerpt:
Waking Up Dead is a paranormal “New Adult” mystery. (I feel I should specify New Adult because I usually review Young Adult, however Waking Up Dead has some language, violence, and sexual violence that really isn’t appropriate for younger readers).
The main character is Callie Taylor who was brutally raped and murdered near her hometown in Texas. Instead of going to heaven, or wherever the dead are supposed to go, Callie “wakes up” in a small town in Alabama. Feeling confused and a little cheated, Callie spends her first weeks in the afterlife searching for company. With no other “ghosts” to be found, Callie settles into a routine of sort of “hanging out” and watching tv with people who have no clue she’s there. Creepy to think about, right? All is going as well as can be expected when one night Callie witnesses a horrific murder. Completely powerless to stop the killer, Callie watches in horror as one of her favorite “hauntees” is murdered and then her husband is arrested for the crime. Angry and determined, Callie sets off to find someone that can help her put the right person behind bars. That’s when she meets Ashara and Miss Adelaide - a woman and her grandmother that can
see and hear her. Together these three unlikely heroines (and another helper they pick up along the way) work to gather the evidence they need to put the cold blooded killer behind bars and free the victim’s innocent husband.
> With the exception of Callie being a ghost, the storyline and characters are very believable. All three ladies are smart and very witty, and I laughed out loud more than a few times. The way they go about the investigation, the evidence they find, the situations they find themselves in all very well laid out and none of it makes the reader feel stupid or too far ahead of the story (as frequently happens in mysteries). The ending is great and wraps up the main story while strongly suggesting that there are more Callie Taylor novels to come.
Excerpt:
“Hey,” I said, hurrying after the woman.
“Wait up.”
“I know you’re not talking to me,” she
said. She stared straight ahead and pushed her cart down the middle of the
aisle toward housewares.
“I am talking to you. Look. I know this
is really weird, but I need your help.”
“Well, I’m not talking to you. I don’t
know what your problem is, but you can take it somewhere else.”
I wanted to reach out and grab her
cart, to make her stop and talk to me, but of course I couldn’t. Which gave me
an idea.
I scurried out in front of her,
planting myself in her path.
“Move,” she said.
“Not until you hear me out. Please?”
She moved her cart to the left. I
stepped out to intercept her. She moved to the right. So did I.
“You got some kind of death wish or
something?” she asked.
I laughed and shook my head. “If only
you knew.”
“I’ve got no time for this,” she said.
And she slammed into me with her shopping cart.
At least, that’s what she planned to
do.
The shopping cart, however, slid right
through me. When it stopped, the basket had sliced cleanly through my
midsection. The bottom rack merged with my ankles.
From my perspective, it looked like two perfectly solid objects--me and the
shopping cart--had melted together. I don’t
know what she saw.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
The woman’s eyes widened, then rolled
up into her head as she slumped to the ground in a dead
faint.
I bent down to try to wake her up, but
no matter how hard I concentrated on making contact, I couldn’t even touch her.
I hate being a ghost.
Margo Bond Collins lives in Texas with
her husband, their daughter, several spoiled cats, and a ridiculous turtle. She
teaches college-level English courses online, though writing fiction is her
first love. She enjoys reading urban fantasy and paranormal fiction of any
genre and spends most of her free time daydreaming about vampires, ghosts,
zombies, werewolves, and other monsters. Waking Up Dead is her first published
novel. Her second novel, Legally Undead, is an urban fantasy forthcoming in 2014
from World Weaver Press.
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