Review: Grave Sight, Charlaine Harris

When she was young, Harper Connolly was struck with a bolt of lightning, and ever since then has had something of a connection with dead people.  She can sense bodies, causes of death, and sometimes even flashes back into that person’s life to witness their death from their perspective.  It’s more than a little stressful, but Harper uses her unusual talent to help people figure out the causes of their loved ones’ deaths, for a fee.  When she and her stepbrother travel to a small town in the Ozarks to try and find the body of a local teenager, they realise that there’s a whole lot more than a suicide going on – and no one wants Harper to figure out the truth.

While this was absolutely nothing like the Sookie Stackhouse series, I still enjoyed it a surprising amount for a mystery.  I don’t normally like mysteries, and I wouldn’t really call this one of my favorite books, but it held its own as a short, enjoyable read for an afternoon or two.  The book is quite dark overall, which makes sense; the very nature of the book means that Harper is pretty much always thinking about death, how people died, and whether or not she’s about to be killed herself.

When I first started reading, I wasn’t really sure I was going to enjoy the book.  Harper is a strange character; she’s very edgy and often wishes she could just be a normal person.  She has a strange relationship with her stepbrother as well; they’re not actually related by blood and seem to do everything together, which feels a little strange.  The whole book also has a dark feel that really suits its status as a mystery.  Harris is never going to win an award for the greatest writing; she still focuses a little too much on mundane details like clothes and when characters wash up, the same as she does in the Sookie series, but her writing does go down easily and the book really sped by.  This is especially so as the mystery began to unravel and I became more curious about each character and where the whole situation was going.

Because the book is so short, I don’t really have too much else to say about it, but for me Grave Sight had all the trademarks of an entertaining read.  I do plan to continue the series; I’m so far not quite as drawn to it as I am to Sookie, but I won’t mind staying in this world a little longer either.

I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.