Review: The Restorer (Graveyard Queen #1) by Amanda Stevens

[TJsmama]

My name is Amelia Gray. I'm a cemetery restorer who sees ghosts. In order to protect myself from the parasitic nature of the dead, I've always held fast to the rules passed down from my father. But now a haunted police detective has entered my world and everything is changing, including the rules that have always kept me safe.

It started with the discovery of a young woman's brutalized body in an old Charleston graveyard I've been hired to restore. The clues to the killers and to his other victims lie in the headstone symbolism that only I can interpret. Devlin needs my help, but his ghosts shadow his every move, feeding off his warmth, sustaining their presence with his energy. To warn him would be to invite them into my life. I've vowed to keep my distance, but the pull of his magnetism grows ever stronger even as the symbols lead me closer to the killer and to the gossamer veil that separates this world from the next.

Amanda Stevens has such an amazing talent as a story teller that it took real life distractions to make me realize I was actually reading the story instead of observing it as one of the phantoms in this hauntingly gripping tale. Stevens painted the scenery so effortlessly that I never once doubted the heat of the Charleston mid afternoon sun nor the chilly tendrils of ghostly fingers brushing against unsuspecting skin at dusk.

All in all, The Restorer had all the elements of an amazing UF novel : good plot, intriguing characters, great mystery, budding romance, and a great voice. Give this book a chance, you won't regret it.

[kio]

Sounds interesting, I'll have to try this one

[reads-a-lot]

Sounds like something that would keep me enthralled until the end and leave me wanting more.