The Restorer (Graveyard Queen #1) by Amanda Stevenson - Kindle Version - $5.75 at Amazon[/caption]★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
A crime-solving female lead (check). A creepy, historic graveyard (check). Ghosts and spooks galore (check). The Restorer sounded like a book that would be up my alley, but somewhere it took a wrong turn.
Amelia Gray lives for her job restoring historic graveyards. She’s built a successful business, established a name for herself, and even become a little bit of a celebrity among taphophiles (people interested in cemeteries).
Since the age of nine, Amelia has been able to see ghosts. Her father, who also sees them, instills in her a set of rules that she must abide by. Never let the ghosts know you can see them and never become attached to someone who is haunted.
While restoring the derelict Oak Ridge cemetery in Charleston, a body of a missing woman is discovered at one of the graves. Now, Amelia must help the police – namely the very attractive and very haunted Detective Devlin – dig for clues. As the forbidden attraction to Devlin grows, Amelia must choose between following her heart and following the rules.
First off, I have to say that the series name Graveyard Queen is just a bit corny. I was a little embarrassed to put it on my reading list. It makes me think of some disproportionately busty Sci-Fi/Fantasy character in gothic BDSM gear holding a staff and controlling an army of undead. It’s not like that.
The murder-mystery plot had its moments. The scene where Devlin and Amelia are stuck in an underground tunnel had me on the edge of my seat. I kept going over Amelia’s clues from the grave markers trying to figure out how they tied in. And the cast of characters were all so cagey I pegged each of them as suspects at least at one point during the story.
Several reviewers said The Restorer is not a romance, but I think that’s up for debate. True, there weren’t a multitude of physical, romantic scenes, but the unspoken tension between Amelia and Devlin (both very guarded) is there and Amelia spends a considerable amount of time doing the stereotypical tortured love “I want him/I can’t have him” thing – which, to be honest, gets old quick.
Truthfully, there was too much left unsaid in this novel. It’s one thing to omit a few details or have a character struggling with a secret, but the characters seemed like they had absolutely no communication whatsoever. Important questions were rarely asked and, when they were, answers were seldom given.
Interactions between Devlin and Amelia were short and vague, but the relationship between Amelia and her family were even worse. Amelia’s father warns her of interacting with the ghosts and begins to tell her the rules – why she should be afraid – but then stops and says he’ll tell her more later. If my daughter were in danger, I would want to tell her everything I knew so she could better protect herself. Also, there’s a scene – a conversation – between Amelia and her mother in the hospital where Amelia’s mother begins to tell her something very important about her abilities, but then Amelia’s mother stops and, more or less, says, “Nevermind!”
If I were Amelia, I’d be demanding some answers.
I could never quite get into Amelia. She had all the makings of a character I should love – an educated woman with an interesting job and a drive to solve mysteries – but she lacked charisma. I can’t remember her being happy or funny or really anything other than frightened (by the ghosts and the killer) and jealous over Devlin’s ghosts.
Amelia was supposed to be superb in her field, but I can only think of one instance toward the end of the book where she used her expertise to uncover something no one else could. Most of the time she stood around waiting for Devlin to do something or chasing down insignificant leads.
And there were a lot of insignificant leads. As I said before, every character seemed suspicious, but so much time was devoted to exposing their “secrets” (which, for the most part, didn’t exist or were never exposed anyway) that the primary plot faded into the background.
The ending felt like an afterthought – like the antagonist was picked at random from a list of possible suspects, a few additional details having nothing to do with anything we’d learned so far were added to make it work, and then, voila, the end.
There are two more books in the Graveyard Queen series (The Kingdom and The Prophet), and I haven’t decided if I’m going to continue the series. I didn’t see any sort of character growth or development with Amelia in this book, but I realize some series are a little rough in the beginning. The description of The Kingdom has me optimistic, though, since it takes place away from Charleston and Devlin. Amelia’s interactions with new characters in a new setting would be a great opportunity for growth.
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