Review--Requiem for the Dead by Kelly Meding

She's died twice while protecting her city…and she'd do it again to save the people she loves.

After a deadly, artificial infection forces the vampire Families into a self-imposed isolation, the city's protective Watchtower forces are depleted by one third, leaving humans and shifters to shoulder the burden. Human enforcer Evangeline Stone is determined to find a way to help her vampire allies, but she already has her hands full—investigating an escalating series of goblin attacks, dealing with her half-werewolf lover, locating three missing werewolf teenagers, and learning to trust her non-human coworkers.

When a potential cure for the vampires' infection is given to her by an unlikely source, it's just as quickly stolen—collateral damage in a power play within the were-cat Clan that leaves one human ally dead and another horribly injured. With Wyatt Truman still adjusting to his new life as a half-werewolf, Phineas missing in action, and her shifter allies crippled by internal anarchy, Evy has to rely on her own strength and instincts to steal back the cure, stop a murderer, and to save the Watchtower before it's destroyed from the inside out.

I am happy to say that Kelly Meding's Dreg City series is still rolling, this time self-publishing style! Requiem for the Dead is the continuance of the series and I don't think--at least hopefully--it ends here! The ending of this one definitely leaves Evy and her friends with a few more problems still.

In this one Evy has a lot on her plate. And while that can be said of nearly any book, but in this one it's true. Evy has a LOT on her plate! First she must find Vale, a Therian who is hellbent on causing war and destruction, so likely she's going to have to prevent that from happening too. She has to stop the vampires from dying since many of them are her friends, finding a cure turns out to be easier than she thought when she is literally handed one, but then she loses it during a kidnapping of herself and then she has to fight to get it back. She has to stop the goblin Queen as well, who also happens to want Evy dead. Then she has to help Wyatt find the missing teen wolves, who are responsible for Wyatt being turned as well, but they're still teenagers and Wyatt wants to help them, so she's Team Wyatt and decides to help out as well. And then, yes there's still more, she has to deal with Chalice's--the body she is inhabiting or basically living in now--parents who want to find their missing daughter.

Whew! So yeah, Evy's got a lot on her plate this time around. It was a very busy few days for her. Because all this and more literally happens in under a week. Kelly has the amazing talent to write a book that takes place in just a few days that are always filled with tons of action, suspense, bits of humor and sprinklings of romance! We even get a nice romance scene fairly early on. Like in the first day, if memory serves.

I enjoy Evy as a heroine. She's a human pretty much surrounded by paranormals. True, there are more humans on the Watchtower team, but she has a lot of contact with nonhumans too. And yet, she stays so strong. She is constantly fighting bad guys left and right, trying to protect her friends...it's amazing what this woman can do!

I was a little upset to see Phineas missing for nearly the entire novel. He doesn't pop up until the very last page and presents what is to be a new problem for Evy, hence my reasoning that Kelly's got to have at least one more book for us! 

Requiem for the Dead had quite a few surprises thrown at us. We're told through the description already that Evy will lose someone and it happens faster than I thought. But there were still more losses and betrayals to come that were just shocking! I was not expecting to have so much heartache in one book. I really felt for Evy's pain in this one. 

The romance as I said was nice! We get a nice romantic interlude with Evy and Wyatt early on and then after that, things pretty much get chaotic and there's no longer any time for that. Wyatt is still dealing with being a wolf. It's hard for him and he feels he might hurt Evy if he lets her too close, so Evy has to show him otherwise that that is not likely to happen. It was a pretty tender and endearing moment that made me melt just a little! 

The Dreg City novels have been a fave of mine ever since that wonderful day when I won a signed copy from Kelly. The series has always been intense and fast paced, for most of the novels have a time limit of some sort. But all of them have had the day and time posted in each chapter, which lets you know that not much time is passing, but there's a helluva lot going down! I am so looking forward to the next one that I hoping will be in existence next year!


Overall Rating 4/5 stars

This read was read for the Clean Out Your E-Reader Challenge