Grave Memory (Alex Craft, #3)

by Kalayna Price

[Berls]

This review appeared first at Fantasy is More Fun.

Note: Sorry folks, but since every book is like an explosion of revelations, there's no way to write a review for Grave Memory without spoilers from the previous two books, Grave Witch and Grave Dance.

You notice something about my reviews for this series? Yes, they are ALL 5 stars. And they deserved every bit of those stars in my opinion, Grave Memory probably deserves a 6th star quite frankly, because it was THAT good.

I'm addicted to this series because of the world - the magic and the fae are just so well thought out and put together. Take for example, the start of Grave Memory. Alex did some MAJOR magic at the end of Grave Dance. And now that she's a plane weaver, she's SEEING more than just the land of the dead through her grave vision, she's SEEING multiple planes. All that is taking a major toll on her eyesight. So much so that as we begin Grave Memory, Alex has a suspended driver's license. Yep, she failed the vision exam. So she's trying to give the magic a bit of a break to get enough eyesight back that she just might be able to get it back at the end of the month.

Of course, in Alex's world going easy on the magic is easier said than done. She and Reanna (who I love by the way) are starting up the business they used to talk about in school - Tongues for the Dead - now that Reanna is back, at least between sunup and sundown, when she has to be in Faery because as a Changling she depends on the magic of Faery to keep her alive in the mortal world. (See, so complex! I love it!) Alex has been having Reanna handle all the shade raising for a while, so that she can rest her eyes… until she gets caught up in this case where the ghost is determined he didn’t commit suicide. Except that there's bunches of eyewitnesses saying otherwise. So of course, magic must be involved. Except that there's one thing that magic - human or fae alike - can't do. It can't take away someone's will to live. Dum, dum, DUM!

So Alex has that little pickle to solve. Then there's the relationship drama. On one hand you have Death. The events of Grave Dance proved pretty conclusively that a relationship between a mortal and a soul collector is a very bad thing. So Death is avoiding her - sure, you can tell he wants to talk to her. But Grey Man and Reaver (other soul collectors) are keeping him at a distance for the good of pretty much the whole damn world. Ouch. Then there's Falin. Alex's refusal to align herself with the winter court have royally pissed of the winter queen, so she's playing her best card. Control over Falin. He's forbidden to talk to her, except to deal with matters involving the fae. So Alex sees him plenty, thanks to all the raids the Winter Queen is ordering the FIB to do, searching for items everyone knows Alex doesn't have. But he's cold and aloof, not himself. Not seeing Death at all is probably better than the cold shoulder she's getting on a regular basis from Falin.

So yeah, her love life is in the shitter. Thanks to a bunch of well crafted twists, things get super complicated with both men (yes - even more complicated) and I loved every convoluted minute. We also got to see even deeper into the world of the Soul Collectors, with some pretty soul shattering consequences. And then there's a trip to Faery during the Autumn Solsitice - talk about a total SQUEE moment for the fae obsessed (like me). It was a deeper look into Falin's world, also with some major consequences.

Things with her friends are pretty complicated too. In Grave Dance, Holly was kidnapped and taken to Faery. While she was there she ate fae food, which means that now she can ONLY eat fae food (gah! I just love this world. Sorry, geeking out a bit!). So Holly has this giant secret she's keeping from Tamara. And because of what happened to Holly, she now knows about Alex's part-fae heritage, so that's another secret being kept from Tamara. And then Tamara has her own secrets. I love their friendship and seeing them have to work through this struggle was really great. Sure I wanted to throttle them all and make them spill, but what fun would that be?

Once again Emily Durante did a great job narrating. Her voices are solid, for both the women and men. She's got the pacing down and the personalities are so vivid. I really hope the next book will be in audio…when it comes out.

And now I have to pause for a moment to cry a little. This is the last published book in the Alex Craft series. As I was finishing this book I went to buy the next one, and you can imagine my sadness when I realized it wasn't due until March 26, 2015 according to Goodreads. But there's more bad news. I went author hunting - you know you do it too! - and saw that there haven't been updates from Kalayna Price since 2013 on her blog. Grave Visions, book 4, was actually originally scheduled for release in August 2013. But I'm not giving up hope. There's a title and a cover, so please (oh please!) let their be a book! And despite now having to wait until who knows when for an ending that may never come, I'm STILL glad I discovered Alex Craft. I don't regret a thing.