Living With the Dead

Living With the Dead by Kelley Armstrong
Women of the Otherworld
ISBN# 978-0-553-80664-9
Available now
Published by Bantam Dell/Random House, Inc.
Format: hardcover, 372 pages
Genres: fiction, urban fantasy

This is Armstrong's ninth entry in her Women of the Otherworld series and it isn't quite like the others. Up until now all the narrators and all the main characters have been Supernaturals, but Robyn Peltier is completely human. She knows nothing about the supernatural world nor does she know that her best friend, Hope, is anything other than human. If you enjoy this series don't forget to check out the first book of her YA trilogy, set in the same world, The Summoning. A review can be found among the older posts.

Robyn moved to L.A. to hide from her family and friends just how badly she's coping with her husband's senseless death. Hope (and by extension Karl) followed her to make sure she's ok since she was the only one who stood by Hope during her "breakdown". They quickly find themselves helping in a completely different way when Robyn ends up at the top of the suspect list for two murders. The supernatural world becomes harder and harder to keep from Robyn once Karl and Hope find another werewolf and the Nast Cabal are somehow involved. Now it's up to them to keep Robyn alive long enough to figure out who's really on their side and exactly who and what is after her.

This book was good, but, compared to the rest of the series, I would have to say it's the weakest. Almost everything in this book happened because people ran with their first paranoid thought. Everyone in the book was guilty of it at least once. Yes, the bad guy was crazy and broken, but did that mean everyone else had to jump to crazy conclusions too? This book is definitely for mature readers since there's a cult-like compound involved leading to suicides and all kinds of abuse towards both children and adults. Don't give up on the series quite yet though because at the end I got the feeling that future books will be headed in a new, possibly darker direction.

Zhye