Eleventh Grave in Moonlight (Charley Davidson, #11)

by Darynda Jones

'An absolute must read.' J.R. Ward, No.1 New York Times bestselling author of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series.

'The grim reaper gets a shiny cook makeover in Jones's blazing hot debut... will appeal to fans of MaryJanice Davidson and Janet Evanovich.' Publisher's Weekly

'What's better than a bad-ass girl grim reaper who keeps us safe from hell hounds and demons? (The answer is obviously nothing.)' RT Book Reviews

A typical day in the life of Charley Davidson involves cheating husbands, missing people, errant wives, philandering business owners, and oh yeah . . . demons, hell hounds, evil gods, and dead people. Lots and lots of dead people.

As a part time Private Investigator and full-time Grim Reaper, Charley has to balance the good, the bad, the undead, and those who want her dead.

Now Charley is learning to make peace with the fact that she is a goddess with all kinds of power and that her own daughter has been born to save the world from total destruction. The forces of hell are determined to see Charley banished forever to the darkest corners of another dimension but with the son of Satan himself as her husband, maybe Charley can find a way to have her happily ever after after all.

'I am furiously envious of Darynda Jones and rue the day she came up with this concept, damn her eyes. First Grave On The Right kidnapped me from the first paragraph, and didn't let go until the exceedingly yummy conclusion.' MaryJanice Davidson, New York Times bestselling author of the Undead series

'First Grave on the Right is smart, sharp and wickedly entertaining. Grab this one.' Jayne Ann Krentz, New York Times besselling author of Fires Up

• ISBN10: 1466890525
• ISBN13: 9781466890527
• Publish Date: 24 January 2017
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: St. Martin's Press
• Format: eBook
• Language: English

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

Darynda Jones is quickly becoming the second author alive for whom I'd go out of my way to have a conversation with.  Folded into a zany, quirky, funny urban fantasy series is some deeply well thought out theology; hidden amid the rapid-fire one-liners, Jones tackles head on the issues of God, free-will, and why He "allows' pain and suffering.  And she doesn't take it lightly, and she doesn't go for easy answers or glib reasoning.  She's successfully mixed silliness and the very opposite of silliness and I'm a little bit in love with her for pulling it off.   Eleventh Grave... clears a lot of the ongoing questions up, and I'd go so far as to say it brings the major story-arc to a close.  The climatic scene was so shattering, the resolution was almost an afterthought.  This is by no means the end of the series, as far as I know - there's still a lot of questions unanswered so it had better not be.     It was mostly excellent; my complaints are twofold:  The first - we don't find out what happened to Strawberry Shortcake's brother.  I hate unresolved stuff like that.  Second:  I have to preface this with the disclaimer that I'm not a prude.  Sex scenes don't bother me in the slightest, but Jones went a little too far for my comfort in one of the scenes here.  It wasn't that it was deviant in any way, but after 11 books I feel like I've come to know Charlie and Reyes; like an invisible, unacknowledged member of the gang.  And yeah, I'd rather not know as much about Charlie and Reyes as I got from that scene.  At one point it stopped being sexy and started being really awkward.   On the flip side, she wrote a hell of a homage to When Harry Met Sally in another scene.   Awkward sex aside, I'm with Jones and Charlie until the wheels fall off.  I'd say until hell froze over but apparently, that's a thing.

[liz089]

I can't believe I finished it already.. I just LOVE reading this series sooo much.

I love Charley, Reyes, Cookie, Uncle Bob, Osh, Garrett, Amber and all the others so much !! They are such great characters, I missed them and was very happy to read more about their adventures.
And hell what a story !! I loved how we got deeper into the past of Reyes and what happened to him when he was younger, some parts of it has been brought up slightly in the previous parts, but I was really interested to find out the truth behind it all.

I love the humor in this series sooo much, I keep laughing at Charley, she is such a unique and great person. Still one of my favourite MC's EVER.

It is always a pleasure to dive back into this world, it never disappoints. Not only is it full of fantasy, but I really like the mystery aspect of this series as well. Her PI job is a nice change among all other series that I really enjoy.

Though I am kind of wondering how much longer this series can last ? At some point all should be done.. I'm kind of hoping she will continue with a spin-off series about Beep !!
But lets not get ahead of things, I REALLY need the 12th book first !!!

[Berls]

Holy shit y'all! I know this ARC has gone through considerable rewriting and the real thing is going to be different. But if it's even an inkling of what I just devoured it may be my favorite Charley book yet. And now I'm DYING to read 12...

[Melanie]

My review and an extended sample of the audiobook are posted at Hotlistens.com.

4.5 stars

This series is a favorite of mine. I’ve loved it since I started with First Grave on the Right back in 2012. I started this series because I thought the story sounded interesting and I really love Lorelei King. Now, eleven books in, and I’m still in love.

As per a usual Charley Davidson story, this has two cases in it. One, Charley is investigating the Fosters, the two people who took Reyes from his “birth” parents. She’s even hired by another of the Fosters’ kids to find out if he was taken as well.

There are also some secrets between UB and Cookie that are causing problems. On more than one occasion, Cookie calls Charley saying that UB was having an affair because he’s acting weird. There’s also something going on with Amber. Charley and the gang are trying to keep UB alive because there is someone who wants to kill him. There’s just a lot of secrets all the way around.

As per most of the recent Charley books, this one ends with quite the cliffhanger. There are parts of the story that wrap up really well. There are many questions answered. There are also some new ones that pop up (one that was left hanging and have me scratching my head). We learn a lot about Charley and Reyes. I don’t know that I can say much more without spoilers.

Charley, Reyes, Cookie, UB and Amber have worked their way into my heart. They are a really fun cast of characters. We also get some time with Swope, Angel and Osh. Amber has a lot more page time in this book than previous books. The characters are my favorite part about this series. I think I could read anything with them in it.

The other thing that really draws me into this series is the humor. Yes, this series has some amazing plots, some really great suspense and some really interesting cases for Charley to solve. But it is the humor that I love the most. I know that Ms. Jones will make me laugh (though she has made me tear up on more than one occasion). The little one liners that come out of this series are always so much fun. The t-shirt, bumper sticker and meme sayings at the beginning of the chapters are always chuckle worthy. The banter between the characters are also great. Let’s not forget about some things that go through Charley’s head.

“On a scale of one to Kanye, you don’t even register”

A lot of people are only alive because I shed way too much hair to ever get away with murder ~ meme

Life isn’t a fairytale. If you lose a shoe at midnight, you’re drunk ~ meme

“How better to learn to control this than to give you dire consequences if you fail”
Male logic at it’s finest, ladies and gentleman.

Narration
5 stars
Since I told you that I started this series specifically because Lorelei King is the narration, then you should know that this is an audio only series for me. King’s ability to bring out the different aspects of each character and their personalities to a tee. She’s able to make Reyes scary when he needs to be. Charley is, well, Charley. King is able to make me laugh and cry throughout all the different scenes in this series. I once tried to read a short story (Shimmer) and had the hardest time. Nope, audio only for me. If you haven’t tried this series on audio, I can’t recommend it enough.

**I like to thank the publisher for providing me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

[ellieroth]

daaaaaaaaaamn

[EBookObsessed]

I miss the original storyline of this series which focused on Charley the grim reaper and P.I. I am not so excited about the plotlines recently.
I miss the simpler stories where Charley used her ability to see the dead to solve investigations. I still hate the premise of leaving her baby to be raised by Reyes’s human birth parents. They might be surrounded by guards but it is not the same thing as having her supernatural parents raise her. Also, since the focus of the series is shifting, we are missing a lot of favorite characters in this story. Rocket wasn’t part of this one at all, and Strawberry Shortcake, Garret, Osh and Artemis barely make it in.

In Eleventh Grave, Charley is being watched by angels. It seems when you threaten to overthrow God in his own dimension, he takes that personally. So currently Charley is on God’s shit list, Satan’s and an evil God who escaped a hell dimension. She promised to remove the evil gods for the archangel Michael. She trapped one in the gods glass but one is still on the loose and not to mention the fact that Reyes was created out of the third.

Reyes decides that it is important to focus on training Charley to use her god powers which is about time. He also tries to get her to understand that she cannot be killed by anyone but another god. She has to revise her thinking if she is going to stand against another god, one who knows and understands his powers and limitations better than Charley does.

Charley is also busy investigating the Fosters, who abducted Reyes as a child and sold him to Earl Walker. The Fosters have an ability to see just enough into the supernatural world to make them dangerous and it seems Reyes wasn’t the only child they abducted over the years.

I wish there was some way to get back to the original story of Charley but you can never go back to the simple. Charley is still her wacky, OCD self most of the time, but it just isn’t the same.

There were inconsistencies to the story now such as Reyes teaching Charley about her superpowers, but she still manages to get her human ass handed to her by bad guys, and in the last book she and Reyes swear to always tell each other the whole truth, so why does it look like Reyes is still holding back info about himself and his past. I think I understand where Darynda Jones is going with the ending of this story, but it left me feeling “did anyone really think that was a good idea?”

[kimbacaffeinate]

In Eleventh Grave in Moonlight, Charley is worried about keeping Uncle Bob alive, investigating the Fosters, handling a stalker case, and dealing with a God. In other words, things are perfectly normal. Just add coffee and the sizzling hot son of Satan.

Unlike the turmoil in Curse of Tenth Grave, things felt a little more mellow. Say hello to snuggle time with Reyes and some traveling. Jones used these moments as a lesson for both Charley and the reader. We gain a better understanding of the true scope of Charley's powers. These scenes fed my inner nerd, but there was also an incredible intimacy. It captures the trust and love between Reyes and Charley. It was both beautiful and mind-blowingly hot! While miscommunication still dogs this couple, we see them make some strides here.

Some of the threads in the last few novels were closed and with them came intense action scenes and high body counts. We also gained more knowledge and had questions answered. Of course, Jones also succeeding in providing more questions that I need answers to now! I thought the thread and closure to the Foster case reached a satisfactory conclusion. The case involving the stalker was an interesting one, and we got to see Charley test some of the lessons she learned. Dealings with the God were hard on Charley, but oh momma did we learn things. Like how Charley became a reaper! Yep, you need to bump this up your reading list!

With everything that is happening, Charley is still Charley, and we do get moments of laughter and snark. I continue to love the quotes and memes at the beginning of each chapter and Charley's quirky way of naming body parts and inanimate objects.

For me, Eleventh Grave in Moonlight was brilliantly paced and showcases the many sides of Charley. I enjoyed the wealth of information and closure of threads. You can feel Jones moving us to the final book(s). It has me both ecstatic and nervous. Jones always ends her books with something jaw-dropping or with a one-line zinger that has you screaming what?!? All I can say is I cannot wait until The Trouble With Twelfth Grave release October 31, 2017. (Psstt. Don't read the synopsis of 12 until you read 11..it will spoil it for you)

Copy provided by publisher. This review was originally posted at Caffeinated Book Reviewer

[Cocktails and Books]

Dear Lord! I need to regroup!

[Linda]

This series is getting better with each new book, and the action scenes are tighter, too. I love how Charlie is growing into her powers, even if she's still very much herself.