Once Dead, Twice Shy by Kim HarrisonSeries: Madison Avery Trilogy #1
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Date: May 2009
Format: Hardback
Source: Bought, Home Library/ June TBR Jar pick #2
Image Source: Goodreads
Rating:
Goodreads Synopsis:
My name is Madison Avery, and I'm here to tell you that there's more out there than you can see, hear, or touch. Because I'm there. Seeing it. Touching it. Living it.
Madison's prom was killer—literally. For some reason she's been targeted by a dark reaper—yeah, that kind of reaper—intent on getting rid of her, body and soul. But before the reaper could finish the job, Madison was able to snag his strange, glowing amulet and get away.
Now she's stuck on Earth—dead but not gone. Somehow the amulet gives her the illusion of a body, allowing her to toe the line between life and death. She still doesn't know why the dark reaper is after her, but she's not about to just sit around and let fate take its course.
With a little ingenuity, some light-bending, and the help of a light reaper (one of the good guys! Maybe . . . ), her cute crush, and oh yeah, her guardian angel, Madison's ready to take control of her own destiny once and for all, before it takes control of her.
Well, if she believed in that stuff.
Review:
Once Dead, Twice Shy has been on my shelf at home for a while
now. I loved the premise and the cover so I picked it up out of the bargain bin
at some point. This month it was one of the books chosen from my TBR jar so I
was excited to start reading it – what I found was that while the book was good
it seemed like there was a lot of the story missing.
We start out the book with Madison and she is already dead,
we get that information from the half page of Prologue… but then the story
jumps right in assuming that we know how she died, who Barnabus is, how she is
still alive but dead-ish… It was all very weird. As this is the first book in
the Madison Avery series I figured that the author was doing some strange lead
up to a flashback or something, but no…it just kept truckin’.
What I liked about the book was the fast pace of it all,
even though a good amount was me trying to figure out what was going on. And
the main character Madison was enjoyable as well. She was funny and seemed like
a relatable person, which was nice. It was very hard to get past the feeling
that this was book 2 in the series though – So if you know what I missed,
please let me know (thanks!).
I'm glad that you enjoyed this overall Steph, I've seen this book around at my library, but never decided to give it a go. I may have to change that now though. Lovely review!
ReplyDeleteThanks! It was a good book, I may read the next one to see how I feel about it more...
DeleteIt was a great read and will reread it as I now have books 2 & 3
ReplyDeleteThanks! Thanks for stopping by!
DeleteI loved this series! And I understand that it might have been confusing in the beginning with Madison being dead already... but if you are interested in reading about how she died, there IS a short story! Let me tell you how I found out about this series... So, I picked up this anthology called Prom Nights from Hell and I read this story about this girl whose prom goes horribly wrong--she dies! I was hoping there was more to the story because I was so intrigued by it, and then I find out that said story does go on! Yep, that's Madison Avery :)
ReplyDeleteLet me know if you give the anthology a shot! I'd love to know what you think and if it makes any difference after you have read it! (There are actually some other great stories in that anthology, as well!)
Great review, Steph! :)