Review--Living Dead Girl by Rachel Vincent

 

In a return to her urban fantasy roots, author Rachel Vincent introduces a world full of action, humor, and passion, in which one heavily armed and acerbic woman must ultimately choose between herself, her love, and the fate of the entire world…

Alexandra Walker is bitter, bored, foul-mouthed, and much older than she looks. A self-styled “retrieval specialist,” she is at your disposal to reclaim whatever—or whoever—you’ve lost, and while her methods are rough around the edges, her reputation is unrivaled. Which is why an arrogant, powerful new client (species: unknown) is offering her something much more valuable than money.

A plane went down with his cargo on board, yet neither the cargo nor the copilot were found in the wreckage. Locating them seems simple enough until Lex finds herself fighting off assassins from all angles—and of all species. With a capricious hellhound at her side and some super-hot competition on her heels, it doesn’t take her long to realize that completing this mission could have dire consequences. For all of humanity.

Living Dead Girl was in fact Rachel Vincent returning to her Urban Fantasy roots and I was ALL for it! I discovered Rachel through my love of the Urban Fantasy genre and this book hit all the right points and brought back a feeling of coming home! This was edgy, action-packed, plot-driven, filled with a snarky heroine and had paranormal qualities to boot! It was an utter delight!

We meet Lex as she's in the middle of a job. She has a knack for retrieving "things" that go missing or are taken. She's well-versed in the paranormal world so when she's set to rescue a teenage girl who was taken by goblins, she's knows what she's getting into. However, she was not expecting interference from the victim's brother nor was she expecting to gain the favor of a hellhound.

But Lex is quick to put the case behind her once she collects her fee and is soon given another job, one she cannot refuse, almost literally. The billionaire CEO, Troy Devich, offers to tell her the answer to her secret abilities. For Lex has known for over 200 years that she died and while most spirits move on afterwards, she somehow got stuck. She's still human, alive, and cannot really be killed. It's handy but then does make some life skills difficult such as residency.

The job should be simple, find a missing stone chest that vanished midflight on its way back to Devich and he will tell her what she wishes to know. But naturally, the job is anything but easy.

This was quite the adventure! I miss being in a world where there are paranormal beings walking among us in the shadows or not quite shadows. Lex herself is a bit of a mystery and while the story moves on, we get some details about her situation, but the true answer of why is she still here, never aging year after year after century remains unclear. Hence her drive to see this job through. 

In true, Urban Fantasy fashion though, and perhaps a little bit of Rachel fashion, we do get a love interest for our snarky lovable heroine. He's the perfect match against all her snark and rough edges and I would love to see more interactions between them!

The pacing is a quick setting and while the beginning chapters felt a little disorienting at first, they make sense once the story moves along and they serve a greater purpose then we realize at that early stage. Everything happens for a reason. I was eating up these pages as the plot intensified and I was eager to make it to what was sure to be an earth-shattering conclusion and it was very much that in spades!

Having read this book three years after its release, it remains unclear if this is it or if Rachel will return to this world or not. While things are left pretty open-ended at the end of this one, the main plot thread was resolved to a point. There are a few loose-ends as one is sure to find in almost any first book in a possible series runner. Since this was a self-published series there is always hope that Rachel might return to it one day. Time will only tell. I follow the author on social media so I know she took a bit of a break from writing for awhile and is now returning to it once more and has a new series releasing next month. Whether she returns to this one will have to remain a mystery for awhile. 

Yes, there's something like a cliffhanger in this one. Things that would set the course for the next book. I suppose, should that never happen we can always imagine how things would turn out big picture wise! But all in all, it was the kind of ending I was anticipating so I can't say I was too surprised. I just hope that somewhere down the line we can have at least one more book to possibly wrap things up!

If you've been itching to return to Urban Fantasy, be sure to check Living Dead Girl out! It's got all the classic vibes of the genre and can keep fans of it entertain from start to finish!

Overall Rating 4/5 stars