Thursday, October 27, 2022

Alice James - Grave Secrets (Lavington Windsor Mysteries #1)


Alice James - Grave Secrets (Lavington Windsor Mysteries #1)

4⭐

Genre: Fiction, Fantasy, Paranormal, Mystery, Romance, Humour, Crime, Horror

Pages: 300

Format: Paperback

Publisher:  Solaris, Rebellion Publishing

Date Published: 1st September 2020

 

Big thanks to Rebellion Publishing for sending me a copy of this book to read and review. 


Book Blurb: 

Agatha Raisin meets Sookie Stackhouse, with croquet and zombies. Toni Windsor is trying to live a quiet life in the green and pleasant county of Staffordshire. She'd love to finally master the rules of croquet, acquire a decent boyfriend and make some commission as an estate agent.

All that might have to wait, though, because there are zombies rising from their graves, vampires sneaking out of their coffins, and a murder to solve.

And it's all made rather more complicated by the fact that she's the one raising all the zombies. Oh, and she's dating one of the vampires too. Really, what's a girl meant to do?

My Review: 

This book was funny and quirky, with so many brilliantly entertaining characters. It was super hard to stop reading... A perfect book for the spooky season, as it has romance, vampires, zombies, and loads of spice….I mean who doesn’t love all that in one book? It transported me back to True Blood days…Also, I was so sad when I finished reading it because I was not emotionally prepared to say goodbye to the amazing array of characters and their sometimes rather daft adventures (in a funny and good way).

The story follows Lavington (Toni) Windsor who is a necromancer by night and a real estate agent by day. Yes, she raises the dead at night, whilst selling houses by the day. Exciting, right? That’s until she meets a very extravagant vampire Oscar who not only catches her interest but her heart too. However, knowing and loving a vampire brings Toni quite a lot of trouble and many situations that end up with loads of dead vampires…Also, it puts Toni’s life in danger more often than she would like, as well as, so many people are suddenly after her that she is kind of wishing her old quiet life back…

This book made me laugh out loud so much, but also, I was disgusted by vampire heads that were ripped off by zombies, cringed at some of the spicy scenes, and cheered Toni on when she was witty and mean to some of the big vampire ‘bosses’. Haven’t read such an entertaining and funny book in a while!

I loved Toni. She is interesting, sometimes odd, but has such a good wit and English humour that I just adored. She is also brave, stands up for herself, and doesn’t take a no for an answer. I think the humour, the wit, and the ability to make even the horrible situations that she gets herself into quite hilarious, make this book so good.

Oh, and let’s just appreciate how amazing and sweet Peter is in this book. He needs all the love from everyone…True star and hero of this story. #TeamPeter

I only wished there was more of Oscar. I felt Toni’s connection with Peter but I felt that her connection with Oscar was lacking quite a bit. It looked like Toni and Peter were a couple in this book rather than Toni and Oscar. Also, because there was so little of Oscar in this book, I felt that it was quite hard to judge his character, so hopefully, the next installment of the series will have more on him.

Overall: It is such an entertaining, fresh, funny, and witty read, featuring a cast of amazing vampires, a necromancer, zombies, some humans, and loads of silly situations, spicy times, and humour. Really recommend this book, especially if you want something entertaining but perfect for this upcoming spooky season…Or if like me you once loved True Blood…or Vampires…A perfect book to sink your teeth into if you love vampires and everything supernatural - funny, entertaining, spooky and so (very) steamy. A brilliant debut by Alice James!Honestly, I can’t wait now for the next installment in this series as I am definitely sinking my teeth into that…

About the Author:

Alice lives in a converted chapel in Oxfordshire, England, with three cats and many house plants. She works as a writer, specialising in finance and travel. She was previously a journalist and TV presenter for Bloomberg before becoming press and PR director of a $1 billion US hedge fund for 18 months. That turned out to be the worst period in history for hedge funds, so she retired wounded. Alice has a degree in Maths from Bristol University – and half of a diploma in silversmithing from UCE University because it turns out that making the ladies’ version of the One Ring is a lot harder than she thought.


Alice’s first novel, Grave Secrets, is a whodunit with zombies, vampires, romance and croquet and you should definitely read it. Today.

https://www.alicejames.co.uk/

No comments:

Post a Comment