Redonk Nutshell: Snarky Grim Reaper works to solve a mystery on behalf of her friend all while trying to track down her elusive dark lover

“His gaze slid over me like a veil of fire. He could ignite my deepest desires with a single glance. I decided right then and there no more reading romance novels by candelight.” 

Book two in Darynda Jones’ Charlie Davidson series, Second Grave on the Left picks up right where it’s predecessor leaves off.  Charlie, our resident Grim Reaper that helps the recently deceased pass into the afterlife, is woken by her friend Cookie at an ungodly time in the morning and dragged out to meet her supposedly missing close friend. When the aforementioned friend doesn’t show, Charlie & Cookie take it upon themselves to start investigating. One person’s disappearance snowballs into a major case, and before long Charlie is juggling several balls at once.

There’s quite a bit going on in this book, much of it I don’t want to give away because of spoilers.  There are two major plot points – the investigation of Cookie’s friend’s disappearance, and Charlie trying to locate Reyes, her lover/supernatural entity.  There are a few other subplots going on as well, and at times I found my mind whirling to keep up.

The snark continues on from book one, Charlie having some pretty hilarious one-liners that will have you snickering to yourself while reading.  Yet for some reason, I had a heck of a problem getting through this book.  It didn’t hook me like the first, and I found myself wandering off mid-sentence quite a few times.  I’d say about at the halfway point I finally was invested enough to really want to finish the book.  That said, I still enjoyed it.  It just didn’t enrapture me like the first one.  Regardless, I’ll be picking up the third due out next year.

Rating: C+

Romance: 0/5              Raunch: 2/5