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A review by topdragon
Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris
3.0
Charlaine Harris is a prolific writer and seems to be coming out with a new novel every 3-4 months. She is most famous for her "Southern Vampire" series featuring Sookie Stackhouse. Unlike most readers of Grave Sight, I had never read a Sookie book so didn't have any preconceived notions of the author's style. Apparently many readers compare Harper Connelly, the heroine of the "Grave" books to Sookie. From my understanding, they are quite different characters and such comparisons should be avoided.
This is the first book of the series and as such serves primarily to introduce the reader to Harper as well as her step brother, Tolliver. Harper has a special ability that she acquired as a girl when she was struck by lightning: she can find dead people, sort of by honing in on them as if using a geiger counter. Not only can she find them but she can "see" how they died. Sounds like a cool way for a writer to develop a series of books, just as Ms Harris has done. In the main story, Harper and Tolliver travel to a small town in Arkansas to find a missing teenage girl. She does so but that only leads to further complications from the local townsfolk. The plot becomes a more traditional murder mystery as Harper and Tolliver delve into just what happened in that town.
The author seems to have a real knack for writing characters with troublesome backgrounds. In Harper's case, the lightning incident caused emotional trauma; she has an understandable phobia of thunderstorms and when added to her parents' irresponsibility (alcohol and drug abuse and sexual deviancy) she must now cope with a number of emotional challenges as she lives her day-to-day life. She disguises her emotional instability with a tough/self-confidant outer shell but when that breaks down she relies heavily on her step brother for support. When taken as a whole, this is an interesting pair of characters and I suspect the popularity of these books will continue to grow. Having said that, I found the overall novel to be enjoyable but not really awesome. The actual mystery seemed uninspired and the ultimate solution predictable. I do have the second book in this series as well so I will read that one before I determine if I will continue the series.
This is the first book of the series and as such serves primarily to introduce the reader to Harper as well as her step brother, Tolliver. Harper has a special ability that she acquired as a girl when she was struck by lightning: she can find dead people, sort of by honing in on them as if using a geiger counter. Not only can she find them but she can "see" how they died. Sounds like a cool way for a writer to develop a series of books, just as Ms Harris has done. In the main story, Harper and Tolliver travel to a small town in Arkansas to find a missing teenage girl. She does so but that only leads to further complications from the local townsfolk. The plot becomes a more traditional murder mystery as Harper and Tolliver delve into just what happened in that town.
The author seems to have a real knack for writing characters with troublesome backgrounds. In Harper's case, the lightning incident caused emotional trauma; she has an understandable phobia of thunderstorms and when added to her parents' irresponsibility (alcohol and drug abuse and sexual deviancy) she must now cope with a number of emotional challenges as she lives her day-to-day life. She disguises her emotional instability with a tough/self-confidant outer shell but when that breaks down she relies heavily on her step brother for support. When taken as a whole, this is an interesting pair of characters and I suspect the popularity of these books will continue to grow. Having said that, I found the overall novel to be enjoyable but not really awesome. The actual mystery seemed uninspired and the ultimate solution predictable. I do have the second book in this series as well so I will read that one before I determine if I will continue the series.