Graveminder/Melissa Marr

Graveminder by Melissa Marr; horror, urban fantasy; 336 pages (about 10.5 hours on CD)

I enjoyed Marr's young adult series (Wicked Lovely, etc.), so I was excited to check out her first foray into adult books. Aside from some added language and sexuality, I didn't see much difference between this and her teen novels, so I can see this having crossover appeal.

The book is set in the small, quiet town of Claysville, which looks like an average community on the surface. But hundreds of years ago, the town founders made a bargain to protect the residents from harm: the dead must be cared for by the Graveminder, one woman who has the power to keep the dead in their graves, or set those who wander to rest. For decades, this woman has been Rebecca Barrow's grandmother, who kept the secrets of her trade from her beloved family. But when Bec's grandmother is murdered, the strange duties of the Graveminder fall to Bec. If that weren't enough, a string of vicious "animal attacks" rocks the quiet town, and Bec finds that her new partner in her duties is the ex she never wanted to see again.

I loved the story here, but I thought it could have used another pass by the editor to clean up some loopholes. As with Marr's other books, the villains here were more caricatures than truly scary threats; the focus is more on the relationships between the central characters, with supernatural events thrown in. I listened to the audio version of this book, and I didn't care much for the narrator, who filled her reading with strange pauses mid-sentence. I would love to see this develop into a series, but this is satisfying as a stand-alone novel as well.