Even if you’re not generally a fan of romance, the romance subplot is small enough here not to distract you from the main plot. I recommend this book to everyone who enjoys reading books with a paranormal element. There’s romance, there’s a paranormal mystery, but there’s also a suspense elemnt. I thought this book was a nice mix of various genres. The romance is an important part of the story, but in no way takes over from the main mystery in the book. While she recognizes she's putting herself in danger, she cannot abandon John Devlin and this investigation.ĭevlin has a tragic past and is haunted by the loss of his wife and daughter. Soon Amelia becomes involved in a world of violence, death, and secret societies. Police detective, John Devlin, is sent to investigate and wants Amelia to use her knowledge of tombstones to help him figure out the clues. While working in a Charleston cemetery, she discovers a woman's brutalized body. ( )Īmelia Gray is a cemetery restorer who sees ghosts. It is the South, right down to the moon garden and iced tea on the porch. The Charleston in this book didn't come off as a non-Southerner's vision of the South.

The only minor annoying bits were the gobs of foreshadowing in the first half of the book (like, yeah, okay, I get it you're going to tell me you have these rules, then break every one of them, and something bad will happen that's why I'm here, stop telling me about it and show me already) and the fact that I have to wait for my library hold to come in to read the second one.ĪND, finally (!), someone gets the South right. It's genuinely creepy, it's got the right level of romance (or non-romance), it's got a plot that is compelling and complex, and the paranormal stuff is just a shade off of reality enough to be believable (which is how I like it, thank you very much). This book gets a lot of stuff right for me. This is a reminder to myself that I WAS SO WRONG TO JUDGE. I'm not much of a paranormal romance girl, but I decided to go with it. She wasn't one of the main authors I was looking for, but she was one of the few I could find in my local libraries. I came across the author, Amanda Stevens, during Women in Horror month. Holy cow! Let me first say that I am absolutely gobsmacked by how much I enjoyed this book.

The restorer by amanda stevens