Review--Grave Secret

"While Tolliver slept, I wondered if it was possible that Cameron might still be alive...At first, I'd thought she'd been abducted by a gang, sold into slavery, something lurid and horrible. Then I'd wondered if maybe she's simply been fed up with her life: the tawdry parents and the tacky trailer, the sister who limped and looked abstracted, the baby sisters who never seem to stay clean. Most days, though I was sure she was dead."

Lightning-struck sleuth Harper Connelly and her stepbrother Tolliver take a break from looking for the dead to visit the two little girls they both think of as sisters. But, as always happens when travel to Texas, memories of their horrible childhood surface...

To make matters worse, Tolliver learns from his older brother that their father is out of jail and trying to reestablish contact with other family members. Tolliver wants nothing to do with the man--but he may not have a choice in the matter.

Soon, family secrets ensnare them both, as Harper finally discovers what happened to her missing sister, Cameron, so many years before.

And what she finds out will change her world forever...

I'm back! Winter break has started so for the next four weeks I will be catching up on my reading! Yea! Very excited.

I just finished what may be the last Harper Connelly book this morning and it was awesome! I was so blown away by all the events that happened. Not only does Harper get involved in another mystery that leaves many questions, but she finally discovers what happened to Cameron and I was blown away!

After all the years she was searching for her sister while traveling the country she never could find her and in the last 2 chapters all is revealed about what happened. There was a reason to why Cameron disappeared and it gets tied in to the current mystery wonderfully! I love how Charlaine Harris did this, it was the perfect tie-in!

I don't want to divulge too much as always because by saying one thing I lead to a spoiler on another. Needless to say a woman hires Harper because she is curious to the death of her grandfather who died awhile ago. But Harper ends up revealing more than just the death of the grandfather in the little cemetery that she was taken to and this is where the mysteries begin in some aspect. More is revealed about the family than they all realized.

Grave Secret is the perfect title for this book because there are lots of secrets to unravel and be revealed by the end. And it all was done very nicely. Harris writes her Harper Connelly series just as wonderfully as her Southern Vampire Novels aka the Sookie series to some, the inspiration behind True Blood. Still need to get that second season...

Harris really develops the relationship between Harper and Tolliver well. Every time they present themselves to others, they are always shocked to hear that they are stepbrother and sister being together as a couple. The shock and somewhat revulsion of these people is real. But really they are not blood related at all, so their relationship is not as horrid as others think.

I am sad to see this series end so shortly, but I knew it was coming from having met Charlaine a few years ago when she came close to my home. The series ends rather nicely, it has an air of finality about it, so you know that the story is done. Harper can finally rest easy now that she knows what happened to her sister.

Overall a terrific ending to a terrific series. It was all very engaging and entertaining with a few chuckles here and there and lots of tension with the characters interacting with one another. Especially the interactions with Matthew, the druggie dad who comes back to make amends, but even he has another agenda that ties back to the mystery that I cannot speak of that relates to the family that hired Harper.

Needless to say that there are a lot of things that I cannot talk about. But when Harper goes to grave of the grandfather to see how he died, she does the same for a nearby tombstone which is when the chaos explodes open and the past is revealed. Deception and secrets long kept are revealed and they lead Harper on a race across the city with several close calls to her life and the lives of those around her.