Grave Witch: An Alex Craft Novel (Alex Craft, #1)

by Kalayna Price

Grave witch Alex Craft can speak to the dead, but that doesn’t mean she likes what they have to say.

As a private investigator and consultant for the police, Alex Craft has seen a lot of dark magic. But even though she's on good terms with Death himself, nothing has prepared her for her latest case. When she's raising a "shade" involved in a high profile murder, it attacks her, and then someone makes an attempt on her life. 

Someone really doesn't want her to know what the dead have to say, and she'll have to work with mysterious homicide detective Falin Andrews to figure out why....

• ISBN10: 0451463803
• ISBN13: 9780451463807
• Publish Date: 5 October 2010 (first published 1 October 2010)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: ROC (imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc)
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 336
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780451463807

Reviews

[Nany]

It was entertaining but hated the sex scene to the point were I had to skim read. And I hope Alex falls in love with Death because I didn't like Falin at all.

[Berls]

This review appeared first at Fantasy is More Fun.

You ever buy a book and then forget you bought it? And then when you do remember you bought it, you forget why? Well, that’s what happened with Grave Witch. And as a result, it sat in my Audible library for about a year and a half, unread. I can’t tell you how frustrated I am with myself for letting that happen, because Grave Witch was everything I love in Urban Fantasy – a solid world with fascinating, unique and well explained magical systems. A strong, gets-herself-into-loads-of-trouble heroine, good friends, great mystery, and the fae!

I was pretty much instantly hooked on Grave Witch. When the story opens, Alex Craft has just finished raising a shade – a person’s memory that remains attached to the body after death without their soul and emotions – for a client. A client who is unhappy with how the ritual went and doesn’t want to pay her. As she’s trying to get her fee, she sees Death – at least that’s what she calls the Soul Collector she’s had a crush on since she was a young girl – and yeah, he’s there to collect the soul of the man she’s trying to get her money from. That’s the kind of luck Alex has. The bad kind.

So yeah, I kind of loved Alex immediately. A girl who’s splitting a pickle – the only food left in her fridge – with her dog is the sort of girl I can totally relate to and would love to be friends with. That she calls her dog P.C., short for “Prince Charming” is just another sign I’d love her. And we haven’t even gotten to her abilities.

Alex is what’s called a Weird Witch – she has abilities that aren’t about casting spells, but are natural and unavoidable. The majority of witches are just humans with the ability to harness magic and perform spells. Alex actually kinda sucks at that kind of magic. But she’s a bad ass grave witch and sensitive. Being a sensitive just means she can see through spells – she knows when someone is wearing a charm and what it’s for. She can feel and SEE (with her other sight) magic. Being a grave witch allows Alex to SEE the world of the dead. She can SEE ghosts. She can SEE soul collectors (like Death) and she can raise shades. She happens to have some extraordinary abilities even for a grave witch, but I’ll let you read to figure those out.

But Alex is not really your kick ass heroine. She’s very vulnerable because her magic takes a toll. The more time she spends SEEING the land of the dead, letting her grave essence work, the colder her body temperature gets and the longer it will take her to fully recover her eyesight. She’s always almost completely night-blind and after rituals she at least needs glasses to see clearly, and that’s on a good day. I love this kind of complexity in my magic systems and it totally carried over to the world building. I never felt like I was getting an info dump, but I also never felt lost about this world. Everything is constructed to so well and seamlessly into the plot. In this world, about 70 years ago the Fae came “out of the Mushroom Ring” – that is, told humans about their existence – because humans had stopped believing in the Fae. Without belief, they were ceasing to exist. Them coming out led to discoveries of other magic users as well as whole areas of the world that had been hidden because of disbelief/fae glamour. Freaking cool right? There’s lots of little details, but you just need to read it to savor them all. Trust me!

Relationships play a really big part in Grave Wtich as well – from family ties, to friendships, and of course the men. I have to say I loved every single aspect of each relationship dynamic. The family situation is truly complex – but basically, Alex was disowned by her father when she couldn’t hide her abilities. She was shipped off to witch school and eventually changed her name from Alexis Crane to Alex Craft. Oh and for shits and giggles, her father is Lt. Governor of Necros (where they live, one of those rediscovered areas) and a representative of the Humans First Party —> READ: The party that doesn’t like Fae or Witches. So yeah, lots of warm family feelings. The friends are Alex’s TRUE family and I just love seeing those kinds of friendships in my books. There’s disagreement but there’s also solidarity and trust that just makes me smile.

The men… okay, so we do have a dreaded love triangle going on here, but to tell you the truth, it doesn’t bother me one bit. You’ve got Death – soul collector – and Falin Andrews – annoying new-to-Necros cop that won’t leave Alex alone. They’re both bad boys in their own ways, which is fun. They’re both full of secrets. They’re both sexy as hell. And as of right now, I’m kinda rooting more for Falin, but really wouldn’t be disappointed either way.

I haven’t even talked about the mystery and action – but if you’ve read any of The Hollows by Kim Harrison, you get the feel these books have. There’s a couple of sub-plots carrying Grave Witch forward, but there’s also layers upon layers of problems and mysteries to solve that we have barely scraped the surface of.

The narrator, Emily Durante, only added to my enjoyment of Grave Witch. She nailed the voices for everyone – including the men. I can’t imagine reading the books now, but I’m sure that if I do, I’ll hear her voices. A definite for your audio wish list!

Needless to say I’m hooked and jumped immediately into book 2 – Grave Dance – as soon as I finished Grave Witch. I highly recommend this series for fans of Urban Fantasy and the Fae (though we haven’t gotten THAT into the Fae yet, we will)!

I really enjoyed this book and the overall plot of the storyline. This a paranormal book and deals with the Fey. I really love the main character Alex Craft and she has a rare gift to raise shades and deal with them, she is even able to speak with death.

This book was definitely a page turner and it had me trying to get through the book as fast as I can to see what was gonna happen next. Loved it and it made me go and get the next book in the series.

[Melanie]

Listening to audiobook

I neither loved or hated this book. It was a light "read" or listen, I guess. There are several characters that I'm not sure about. I do like Death and would like to see more of him.

[MurderByDeath]

This book is a tiny bit darker than I usually go for, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. There was a touch of humour and some really likeable characters that went a long way towards off-setting that additional dark aspect. A good paranormal mystery taking place in a slightly alternate reality where the paranormal is "out" and in a place that didn't exist until the fae became known. I'm looking forward to reading the next book.

[Amanda]

This review originally appears as a guest review on Smash Attack Reads!: http://www.smashattackreads.com/2011/11/guest-review-grave-witch-by-kalayna.html

I had an “I liked it, but…” feeling with Grave Witch. It was good, but there were times I felt lost in Alex’s world and did not quite understand what was going on, or how certain connections were being made. The plot seemed to drag a bit, and the ending slammed into us at the end. If these issues had not been enough to pull me out of the story, I would have enjoyed Grave Witch a little more than I did.

There was not enough information about Alex’s abilities, or the abilities of witches in general, for me, but raising the dead — or shades, as they are called — was certainly interesting, and while not completely similar to the ghosts and shades in Jeri Smith-Ready’s YA series, there are some common threads (having the dead testify, for example). I think Alex’s ability to raise the dead is one of the more fascinating aspects of Grave Witch and ultimately (I am assuming) of the series.

The Fae make an appearance as the only paranormal creature in Grave Witch, so that the Fae and witches are the only beings capable of magic. It seemed that it might also be possible for normal humans to dabble in magic, though it was certainly never explored in depth. Both the Fae and witches have “come out of the closet” so to speak, though they are not completely accepted, which creates a certain amount of tension.

I believe it is well-established I am not a fan of love triangles. And while there is not exactly a love triangle here, it seems… possible for future books. This possibility is kind of bothersome, but at the same time, I did not really get attached to the love interest, so as long as there isn’t some epic love triangle fall-out, I can be okay with it. Alex was a decent MC, and I appreciated the fact that she is a struggling PI, but I didn’t connect too strongly to her, probably because there was not quite enough snark for me.

With more world building — or less nit-picking, or less need for information — this could be a more enjoyable book. But it is still good, and I still enjoyed it. The mixture of Fae and witches make for an interesting magical combination that I hope will eventually be explored. Grave Witch is good for a quick, light read.