#NetGalley Book Review: Summoned to Thirteenth Grave by Darynda Jones

This is an interesting series ending... for now.
Summoned to Thirteenth Grave: A Novel (Charley Davidson Series Book 13)
by Darynda Jones

File Size: 2039 KB
Print Length: 304 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Press (January 15, 2019)
ASIN: B071JMJF4G
Genre: Fantasy, Ghosts, Private Investigator
My Rating: 4.0 of 5.0

Grim Reaper Charley Davidson is back in the final installment of Darynda Jones’ New York Times bestselling paranormal series--Summoned to Thirteenth Grave.
Charley Davidson, Grim Reaper extraordinaire, is pissed. She’s been kicked off the earthly plane for eternity –which is exactly the amount of time it takes to make a person stark, raving mad. But someone’s looking out for her, and she’s allowed to return after a mere hundred years in exile. Is it too much to hope for that not much has changed? Apparently it is. Bummer.
She’s missed her daughter. She’s missed Reyes. She’s missed Cookie and Garrett and Uncle Bob. But now that she’s back on earth, it’s time to put to rest burning questions that need answers. What happened to her mother? How did she really die? Who killed her? And are cupcakes or coffee the best medicine for a broken heart? It all comes to a head in an epic showdown between good and evil in this final smart and hilarious novel.

Review:
Charley expected to be exiled alone on an isolated plane for an eternity. She is surprised, and thrilled, when she finds herself returned to the earthly plane after only a hundred years. She is sad to think that 100 years has passed on earth. She would have missed her child, Beep, growing up but she is hoping that her darling girl brought peace to earth. But time doesn’t work quite like that.

Charley’s return to earth is only 10 days after she left b that shut she discovers that she and her half demon husband, Reyes, have opened a portal that has allowed shadow demons into earth. Their home community in New Mexico is being attacked from within and Charley and Reyes have only three days to save the planet. To accomplish that Charley must uncover a mystery connected to her own mother.

Meanwhile a five-year-old boy spirit has sought out Charley and she and her stellar staff are trying to locate his mother who was kidnapped years before. Charley’s assistant Cookie, her daughter Amber and Amber’s boyfriend, Quentin, all take part in the search. They get extra help from Garret, Osh, Artemis and Charley’s biker friends. Meanwhile, there are twists and surprises – one involving Uncle Bob and another involving Rocket.

If you haven’t read this series- you will want to go start at the beginning not at this final installment. There are plenty of fun chapter openings with snarky memes and quotes. As usual Darynda Jones includes a PI (private investigation) case for Charley to solve while facing a life challenge. I enjoyed that so many of the series characters were included in this ending story and I liked the good twist for several of the characters. I admire how Jones creates a depth of romantic love between Charley and Reyes but I felt she overdid the extra sex scenes during the madness of three days to save the world. I also didn’t appreciate the foul language; some deliberately crude in my opinion.

I imagine many fans of the series will be happy with this interim conclusion. I say interim as I am fairly sure there will be a future story(ies) for Beep and her army. I do recommend this to fans of detective, paranormal fantasy who like snarky humor and don’t mind a bit of crudeness and sex.

Source: 2018 NetGalley. This qualifies for 2019TBR, 2019NetGalley and 2019Alphabet Goals.

My Reviews of Books 1 through 12 can be found at this link.