A friend said to me over a year ago, "You'll like this series. It's different. The heroine is a Grim Reaper." I scratched my head and read my Science Fiction Romances when I had time. I confess Book 1 lived on my ereader for a while, making me feel guilty when I saw it.
When I finally did get around to reading it, I consumed the entire series in a couple of weeks. Now I'm as bad as any other fan. I nag Darynda for the next one every time I see her. They are funny, smart, and yes--they are different.
If I still collected print books, these would go on my shelf.
BOOK 1 of the CHARLEY DAVIDSON Series
DESCRIPTION
Charley Davidson is a part-time private investigator and full-time grim reaper. Meaning, she sees dead people. Really. And it's her job to convince them to "go into the light." But when these very dead people have died under less than ideal circumstances (like murder), sometimes they want Charley to bring the bad guys to justice.
Complicating matters are the intensely hot dreams she's been having about an entity who has been following her all her life...and it turns out he might not be dead after all. In fact, he might be something else entirely.
But what does he want with Charley? And why can't she seem to resist him? And what does she have to lose by giving in? With scorching-hot tension and high-octane humor, First Grave on the Right is your signpost to paranormal suspense of the highest order.
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Apple iBook Apple Audiobook
Better to see dead than be dead. ~ Charlotte Jean Davidson, GRIM REAPER
I’d been having the same dream for the past month—the one where a dark stranger materialized out of smoke and shadows to play doctor with me. I was starting to wonder if repetitive exposure to nightly hallucinations resulting in earth-shattering climaxes could have any long-term side effects. Death via extreme pleasure was a serious concern. The prospect led to the following dilemma: Do I seek help or buy drinks all around?
This night was no exception. I was having a killer dream that featured a set of capable hands, a hot mouth, and a creative employment of lederhosen when two external forces tried to lure me out of it. I did my darnedest to resist, but they were fairly persistent external forces. First, a frosty chill crept up my ankle, the icy caress jolting me out of my red-hot dream. I shivered and kicked out, unwilling to acknowledge the summons, then tucked my leg into the thick folds of my Bugs Bunny comforter.
Second, a soft but persistent melody played in the periphery of my consciousness like a familiar song I couldn’t quite place. After a moment, I realized it was the cricketlike chime of my new phone.
With a heavy sigh, I pried open my eyes just enough to focus on the numbers glowing atop my nightstand. It was 4:34 A.M. What kind of sadist called another human being at 4:34 in the morning?
A throat cleared at the foot of my bed. I turned my attention to the dead guy standing there, then lowered my lids and asked in a gravelly voice, “Can you get that?”
He hesitated. “Um, the phone?”
“Mmm.”
“Well, I’m kind of—”
“Never mind.” I reached for the phone and grimaced as a jolt of pain ripped through me, reminding me I’d been beaten senseless the night before.
Dead Guy cleared his throat again.
“Hello,” I croaked.
It was my uncle Bob. He bombarded me with words, of all things, apparently clueless to the fact that predawn hours rendered me incapable of coherent thought. I concentrated super duper hard on concentrating and made out three salient phrases: busy night, two homicides, ass down here. I even managed a reply, something resembling, “What twirly nugget are you from?”
He sighed, clearly annoyed, then hung up.
I hung up back, pressing a button on my new phone that either disconnected the call or speed-dialed the Chinese takeout around the corner. Then I tried to sit up. Similar to the coherent-thought problem, this was easier said than done. While I normally weighed around 125 … ish, for some unexplainable reason, between the hours of partially awake and fully awake, I weighed a solid 470.
After a brief, beached whale–like struggle, I gave up. The quart of Chunky Monkey I ate after getting my ass kicked had probably been a bad idea.
In too much pain to stretch, I let a lengthy yawn overtake me instead, winced at the soreness shooting through my jaw, then looked back at Dead Guy. He was blurry. Not because he was dead, but because it was 4:34 A.M. And I’d recently had my ass kicked.
“Hi,” he said nervously. He had a wrinkled suit, round-rimmed glasses, and mussed hair that made him look part young-wizard-we-all-know-and-love and part mad scientist. He also had two bullet holes on the side of his head with blood streaking down his right temple and cheek. None of these details were a problem. The problem resided in the fact that he was in my bedroom. In the wee hours of dawn. Standing over me like a dead Peeping Tom.
I eyed him with my infamous death stare, second only to my infamous fluster stare, and got a response immediately.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said, stumbling over his words, “didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Did I look frightened? Clearly my death stare needed work.
Ignoring him, I inched out of bed. I had on a Scorpions hockey jersey I’d snatched off a goalie and a pair of plaid boxers—same team, different position. Chihuahuas, tequila, and strip poker. A night that is forever etched at the top of my Things I’ll Never Do Again list.
With teeth clenched in agony, I dragged all 470 throbbing pounds toward the kitchen and, more important, the coffeepot. Caffeine would chisel the pounds off, and I’d be back to my normal weight in no time.
Because my apartment was roughly the size of a Cheez-It, it didn’t take me long to feel my way to the kitchen in the dark. Dead Guy followed me. They always follow me. I could only pray this one would keep his mouth shut long enough for the caffeine to kick in, but alas, no such luck.
I’d barely pressed the ON button when he started in.
“Um, yeah,” he said from the doorway, “it’s just that I was murdered yesterday, and I was told you were the one to see.”
“You were told that, huh?” Maybe if I hovered over the pot, it would develop an inferiority complex and brew faster just to prove it could.
“This kid told me you solve crimes.”
“He did, huh?”
“You’re Charley Davidson, right?”
“That’s me.”
“Are you a cop?”
“Not especially.”
“A sheriff’s deputy?”
“Uh-uh.”
“A meter maid?”
“Look,” I said, turning to him at last, “no offense, but you could have died thirty years ago, for all I know. Dead people have no sense of time. Zero. Zip. Nada.”
“Yesterday, October eighteenth, five thirty-two P.M., double gunshot wound to the head, resulting in traumatic brain injury and death.”
“Oh,” I said, reining in my skepticism. “Well, I’m not a cop.” I turned back to the pot, determined to break its iron will with my infamous death stare, second only to—
“So, then, what are you?”
I wondered if your worst nightmare would sound silly. “I’m a private investigator. I hunt down adulterers and lost dogs. I do not solve murder cases.” I did, actually, but he didn’t need to know that. I’d just come off a big case. I was hoping for a few days’ respite.
“But this kid—”
“Angel,” I said, disappointed that I didn’t exorcise that little devil when I had the chance.
“He was an angel?”
“No, his name is Angel.”
“His name is Angel?”
“Yes. Why?” I asked, becoming disenchanted with the Angel game.
“I just thought it might have been his occupation.”
“It’s his name. And believe you me, he is anything but.”
After a geological epoch passed in which single-celled organisms evolved into talk show hosts, Mr. Coffee was still holding out on me. I gave up and decided to pee instead.
Dead Guy followed me. They always—
“You’re very … bright,” he said.
“Um, thanks.”
“And … sparkly.”
“Uh-huh.” This was nothing new. From what I’d been told, the departed see me as something of a beacon, a brilliant entity—emphasis on the brilliant—they can see from continents away. The closer they get, the sparklier I become. If sparklier is a word. I’ve always considered the sparkles a plus of being the only grim reaper this side of Mars. And as such, my job was to lead people into the light. Aka, the portal. Aka, me. But it didn’t always go smoothly. Kind of like leading a horse to water and whatnot. “By the way,” I said, glancing over my shoulder, “if you do see an angel, a real one, run. Quickly. In the opposite direction.” Not really, but freaking people out was fun.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. Hey—” I stopped and twirled to face him. “—did you touch me?” Somebody practically molested my right ankle, somebody cold, and since he’d been the only dead guy in the room …
“What?” he said, indignant.
“Earlier, when I was in bed.”
“Pffft, no.”
I narrowed my eyes, let my gaze linger menacingly, then resumed my hobble to the bathroom.
I needed a shower. Bad. And I couldn’t dillydally all day. Uncle Bob would stroke.
But as I stepped toward the bathroom, I realized the worst part of my morning—the let there be light part—was fast approaching. I groaned and considered dillydallying despite the state of Uncle Bob’s arteries.
Just suck it up, I told myself. It had to be done.
I placed a shaky hand on the wall, held my breath, and flipped the switch.
“I’m blind!” I yelled, shielding my eyes with my arms. I tried to focus on the floor, the sink, the Clorox ToiletWand. Nothing but a bright white blur.
I totally needed to lower my wattage.
I stumbled back, caught myself, then forced one foot in front of the other, refusing to back down. I would not be stopped by a lightbulb. I had a job to do, dammit.
“Did you know you have a dead guy in your living room?” he asked.
I turned back to the dead guy, then glanced across the room to where Mr. Wong stood, his back to us, his nose buried in the corner. Looking back at dead guy number one, I asked, “Isn’t that a bit like the pot calling the kettle African-American?”
Mr. Wong was a dead guy, too. A teeny-tiny one. He couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, and he was gray—all of him, almost monochrome in his translucence, with a gray uniform of some sort and ash gray hair and skin. He looked like a Chinese prisoner of war. And he stood in my corner day after day, year after year. Never moving, never speaking. Though I could hardly blame him for not getting out more with his coloring and all, even I thought Mr. Wong was a nut job.
Of course, the mere fact that I had a ghost in the corner wasn’t the creepiest part, and the moment Dead Guy realized Mr. Wong wasn’t actually standing in the corner, but was hovering, toes several inches from the floor, he’d freak.
I lived for such moments.
“Good morning, Mr. Wong!” I semi-shouted. I wasn’t sure if Mr. Wong could hear. Probably a good thing, since I had no idea what his real name was. I just named him Mr. Wong in the interim between creepy dead guy in the corner and normal walking-around dead guy he would someday become if I had anything to say about it. Even dead people needed a healthy sense of well-being.
“Is he in time-out?”
Good question. “I have no idea why he’s in that corner. Been there since I rented the apartment.”
“You rented the apartment with a dead guy in the corner?”
I shrugged. “I wanted the apartment, and I figured I could cover him up with a bookcase or something. But the thought of having a dead guy hovering behind my copy of Sweet Savage Love gnawed at me. I couldn’t just leave him there. I don’t even know if he likes romance.”
I looked back at the newest incorporeal being to grace me with his presence. “What’s your name, anyway?”
“Oh, how rude of me,” he said, straightening and walking forward for a handshake. “I’m Patrick. Patrick Sussman. The Third.” He stopped short and eyed his hand, then glanced back up sheepishly. “I don’t guess we can actually—”
I took his hand in a firm shake. “Actually, Patrick, Patrick Sussman the Third, we can.”
His brows drew together. “I don’t understand.”
“Yeah, well,” I said, going into the bathroom, “join the club.”
As I closed the door, I heard Patrick Sussman III freak out at last.
“Oh, my god. He’s just … hovering.”
It’s the simple things in life, and all that crap.
About the Author
NYTimes and USA Today Bestselling Author Darynda Jones has won numerous awards for her work, including a prestigious Golden Heart®, a Rebecca, two Hold Medallions, a RITA ®, and a Daphne du Maurier, and she has received stellar reviews from dozens of publications including starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, and the Library Journal.
As a born storyteller, Darynda grew up spinning tales of dashing damsels and heroes in distress for any unfortunate soul who happened by, annoying man and beast alike, and she is ever so grateful for the opportunity to carry on that tradition. She currently has two series with St. Martin’s Press: The Charley Davidson Series and the Darklight Trilogy. She lives in the Land of Enchantment, also known as New Mexico, with her husband of almost 30 years and two beautiful sons, the Mighty, Mighty Jones Boys.
She can be found at www.daryndajones.com.
Darynda Jones Website
When I finally did get around to reading it, I consumed the entire series in a couple of weeks. Now I'm as bad as any other fan. I nag Darynda for the next one every time I see her. They are funny, smart, and yes--they are different.
If I still collected print books, these would go on my shelf.
BOOK 1 of the CHARLEY DAVIDSON SeriesDESCRIPTION
This whole grim reaper thing should have come with a manual.
Or a diagram of some kind.
A flow chart would have been nice. ~ Charley Davidson
Or a diagram of some kind.
A flow chart would have been nice. ~ Charley Davidson
Charley Davidson is a part-time private investigator and full-time grim reaper. Meaning, she sees dead people. Really. And it's her job to convince them to "go into the light." But when these very dead people have died under less than ideal circumstances (like murder), sometimes they want Charley to bring the bad guys to justice.
Complicating matters are the intensely hot dreams she's been having about an entity who has been following her all her life...and it turns out he might not be dead after all. In fact, he might be something else entirely.
But what does he want with Charley? And why can't she seem to resist him? And what does she have to lose by giving in? With scorching-hot tension and high-octane humor, First Grave on the Right is your signpost to paranormal suspense of the highest order.
BUY NOW LINKS
Amazon US Kindle Amazon US Paperback
Amazon UK Kindle Amazon UK Paperback Amazon UK Audiobook
Barnes & Noble Nook Book Barnes & Noble Trade Paperback Barnes & Noble Mass Paperback
Barnes & Noble Español Nook Book Barnes & Noble Español Paperback
Apple iBook Apple Audiobook
EXCERPT
Better to see dead than be dead. ~ Charlotte Jean Davidson, GRIM REAPER
I’d been having the same dream for the past month—the one where a dark stranger materialized out of smoke and shadows to play doctor with me. I was starting to wonder if repetitive exposure to nightly hallucinations resulting in earth-shattering climaxes could have any long-term side effects. Death via extreme pleasure was a serious concern. The prospect led to the following dilemma: Do I seek help or buy drinks all around?
This night was no exception. I was having a killer dream that featured a set of capable hands, a hot mouth, and a creative employment of lederhosen when two external forces tried to lure me out of it. I did my darnedest to resist, but they were fairly persistent external forces. First, a frosty chill crept up my ankle, the icy caress jolting me out of my red-hot dream. I shivered and kicked out, unwilling to acknowledge the summons, then tucked my leg into the thick folds of my Bugs Bunny comforter.
Second, a soft but persistent melody played in the periphery of my consciousness like a familiar song I couldn’t quite place. After a moment, I realized it was the cricketlike chime of my new phone.
With a heavy sigh, I pried open my eyes just enough to focus on the numbers glowing atop my nightstand. It was 4:34 A.M. What kind of sadist called another human being at 4:34 in the morning?
A throat cleared at the foot of my bed. I turned my attention to the dead guy standing there, then lowered my lids and asked in a gravelly voice, “Can you get that?”
He hesitated. “Um, the phone?”
“Mmm.”
“Well, I’m kind of—”
“Never mind.” I reached for the phone and grimaced as a jolt of pain ripped through me, reminding me I’d been beaten senseless the night before.
Dead Guy cleared his throat again.
“Hello,” I croaked.
It was my uncle Bob. He bombarded me with words, of all things, apparently clueless to the fact that predawn hours rendered me incapable of coherent thought. I concentrated super duper hard on concentrating and made out three salient phrases: busy night, two homicides, ass down here. I even managed a reply, something resembling, “What twirly nugget are you from?”
He sighed, clearly annoyed, then hung up.
I hung up back, pressing a button on my new phone that either disconnected the call or speed-dialed the Chinese takeout around the corner. Then I tried to sit up. Similar to the coherent-thought problem, this was easier said than done. While I normally weighed around 125 … ish, for some unexplainable reason, between the hours of partially awake and fully awake, I weighed a solid 470.
After a brief, beached whale–like struggle, I gave up. The quart of Chunky Monkey I ate after getting my ass kicked had probably been a bad idea.
In too much pain to stretch, I let a lengthy yawn overtake me instead, winced at the soreness shooting through my jaw, then looked back at Dead Guy. He was blurry. Not because he was dead, but because it was 4:34 A.M. And I’d recently had my ass kicked.
“Hi,” he said nervously. He had a wrinkled suit, round-rimmed glasses, and mussed hair that made him look part young-wizard-we-all-know-and-love and part mad scientist. He also had two bullet holes on the side of his head with blood streaking down his right temple and cheek. None of these details were a problem. The problem resided in the fact that he was in my bedroom. In the wee hours of dawn. Standing over me like a dead Peeping Tom.
I eyed him with my infamous death stare, second only to my infamous fluster stare, and got a response immediately.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said, stumbling over his words, “didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Did I look frightened? Clearly my death stare needed work.
Ignoring him, I inched out of bed. I had on a Scorpions hockey jersey I’d snatched off a goalie and a pair of plaid boxers—same team, different position. Chihuahuas, tequila, and strip poker. A night that is forever etched at the top of my Things I’ll Never Do Again list.
With teeth clenched in agony, I dragged all 470 throbbing pounds toward the kitchen and, more important, the coffeepot. Caffeine would chisel the pounds off, and I’d be back to my normal weight in no time.
Because my apartment was roughly the size of a Cheez-It, it didn’t take me long to feel my way to the kitchen in the dark. Dead Guy followed me. They always follow me. I could only pray this one would keep his mouth shut long enough for the caffeine to kick in, but alas, no such luck.
I’d barely pressed the ON button when he started in.
“Um, yeah,” he said from the doorway, “it’s just that I was murdered yesterday, and I was told you were the one to see.”
“You were told that, huh?” Maybe if I hovered over the pot, it would develop an inferiority complex and brew faster just to prove it could.
“This kid told me you solve crimes.”
“He did, huh?”
“You’re Charley Davidson, right?”
“That’s me.”
“Are you a cop?”
“Not especially.”
“A sheriff’s deputy?”
“Uh-uh.”
“A meter maid?”
“Look,” I said, turning to him at last, “no offense, but you could have died thirty years ago, for all I know. Dead people have no sense of time. Zero. Zip. Nada.”
“Yesterday, October eighteenth, five thirty-two P.M., double gunshot wound to the head, resulting in traumatic brain injury and death.”
“Oh,” I said, reining in my skepticism. “Well, I’m not a cop.” I turned back to the pot, determined to break its iron will with my infamous death stare, second only to—
“So, then, what are you?”
I wondered if your worst nightmare would sound silly. “I’m a private investigator. I hunt down adulterers and lost dogs. I do not solve murder cases.” I did, actually, but he didn’t need to know that. I’d just come off a big case. I was hoping for a few days’ respite.
“But this kid—”
“Angel,” I said, disappointed that I didn’t exorcise that little devil when I had the chance.
“He was an angel?”
“No, his name is Angel.”
“His name is Angel?”
“Yes. Why?” I asked, becoming disenchanted with the Angel game.
“I just thought it might have been his occupation.”
“It’s his name. And believe you me, he is anything but.”
After a geological epoch passed in which single-celled organisms evolved into talk show hosts, Mr. Coffee was still holding out on me. I gave up and decided to pee instead.
Dead Guy followed me. They always—
“You’re very … bright,” he said.
“Um, thanks.”
“And … sparkly.”
“Uh-huh.” This was nothing new. From what I’d been told, the departed see me as something of a beacon, a brilliant entity—emphasis on the brilliant—they can see from continents away. The closer they get, the sparklier I become. If sparklier is a word. I’ve always considered the sparkles a plus of being the only grim reaper this side of Mars. And as such, my job was to lead people into the light. Aka, the portal. Aka, me. But it didn’t always go smoothly. Kind of like leading a horse to water and whatnot. “By the way,” I said, glancing over my shoulder, “if you do see an angel, a real one, run. Quickly. In the opposite direction.” Not really, but freaking people out was fun.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. Hey—” I stopped and twirled to face him. “—did you touch me?” Somebody practically molested my right ankle, somebody cold, and since he’d been the only dead guy in the room …
“What?” he said, indignant.
“Earlier, when I was in bed.”
“Pffft, no.”
I narrowed my eyes, let my gaze linger menacingly, then resumed my hobble to the bathroom.
I needed a shower. Bad. And I couldn’t dillydally all day. Uncle Bob would stroke.
But as I stepped toward the bathroom, I realized the worst part of my morning—the let there be light part—was fast approaching. I groaned and considered dillydallying despite the state of Uncle Bob’s arteries.
Just suck it up, I told myself. It had to be done.
I placed a shaky hand on the wall, held my breath, and flipped the switch.
“I’m blind!” I yelled, shielding my eyes with my arms. I tried to focus on the floor, the sink, the Clorox ToiletWand. Nothing but a bright white blur.
I totally needed to lower my wattage.
I stumbled back, caught myself, then forced one foot in front of the other, refusing to back down. I would not be stopped by a lightbulb. I had a job to do, dammit.
“Did you know you have a dead guy in your living room?” he asked.
I turned back to the dead guy, then glanced across the room to where Mr. Wong stood, his back to us, his nose buried in the corner. Looking back at dead guy number one, I asked, “Isn’t that a bit like the pot calling the kettle African-American?”
Mr. Wong was a dead guy, too. A teeny-tiny one. He couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, and he was gray—all of him, almost monochrome in his translucence, with a gray uniform of some sort and ash gray hair and skin. He looked like a Chinese prisoner of war. And he stood in my corner day after day, year after year. Never moving, never speaking. Though I could hardly blame him for not getting out more with his coloring and all, even I thought Mr. Wong was a nut job.
Of course, the mere fact that I had a ghost in the corner wasn’t the creepiest part, and the moment Dead Guy realized Mr. Wong wasn’t actually standing in the corner, but was hovering, toes several inches from the floor, he’d freak.
I lived for such moments.
“Good morning, Mr. Wong!” I semi-shouted. I wasn’t sure if Mr. Wong could hear. Probably a good thing, since I had no idea what his real name was. I just named him Mr. Wong in the interim between creepy dead guy in the corner and normal walking-around dead guy he would someday become if I had anything to say about it. Even dead people needed a healthy sense of well-being.
“Is he in time-out?”
Good question. “I have no idea why he’s in that corner. Been there since I rented the apartment.”
“You rented the apartment with a dead guy in the corner?”
I shrugged. “I wanted the apartment, and I figured I could cover him up with a bookcase or something. But the thought of having a dead guy hovering behind my copy of Sweet Savage Love gnawed at me. I couldn’t just leave him there. I don’t even know if he likes romance.”
I looked back at the newest incorporeal being to grace me with his presence. “What’s your name, anyway?”
“Oh, how rude of me,” he said, straightening and walking forward for a handshake. “I’m Patrick. Patrick Sussman. The Third.” He stopped short and eyed his hand, then glanced back up sheepishly. “I don’t guess we can actually—”
I took his hand in a firm shake. “Actually, Patrick, Patrick Sussman the Third, we can.”
His brows drew together. “I don’t understand.”
“Yeah, well,” I said, going into the bathroom, “join the club.”
As I closed the door, I heard Patrick Sussman III freak out at last.
“Oh, my god. He’s just … hovering.”
It’s the simple things in life, and all that crap.
**************************************************************
NYTimes and USA Today Bestselling Author Darynda Jones has won numerous awards for her work, including a prestigious Golden Heart®, a Rebecca, two Hold Medallions, a RITA ®, and a Daphne du Maurier, and she has received stellar reviews from dozens of publications including starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, and the Library Journal.
As a born storyteller, Darynda grew up spinning tales of dashing damsels and heroes in distress for any unfortunate soul who happened by, annoying man and beast alike, and she is ever so grateful for the opportunity to carry on that tradition. She currently has two series with St. Martin’s Press: The Charley Davidson Series and the Darklight Trilogy. She lives in the Land of Enchantment, also known as New Mexico, with her husband of almost 30 years and two beautiful sons, the Mighty, Mighty Jones Boys.
She can be found at www.daryndajones.com.
Darynda Jones Website
