Loading ...Cheat the Grave by Vicki Pettersson
WARNING: this review contains spoilers for the previous books in the Signs of the Zodiac series. If you haven’t read City of Souls
If City of Souls
Jo’s salvation comes from the most unlikely source—not just a Shadow agent, but one from Midheaven, the soul-sucking realm her former beau, Hunter, has made his home. Harlan Tripp proves to be more than a friend. Not in a sexual way, but in regards to the greater plotline of the Zodiac world. He introduces Jo to Carlos, leader (I use that term loosely) of the Grays, a group of independent agents in the Las Vegas area.
This couldn’t have happened soon enough because Harlan isn’t the only one to escape Midheaven. Sleepy Mac, the psychotic piano player, is running free with one goal: kill Joanna Archer. It seems Solange, the woman in charge of Midheaven and Hunter’s wife (I’m waiting for the collective screams of frustration to die down before I continue), is pretty upset with our little Archer. Maybe it’s because Jo escaped with a piece of her soul. Maybe it has to do with Hunter. Either way, she’s angry and she sent the deadliest creature she could.
Now Jo must battle her former troop mates of the Light, the agents of the Shadow, her dear daddy, the Tulpa, and a psychotic skeleton with a bowler hat and wicked-looking knife capable of felling the most powerful agent, let alone a mere mortal like Jo.
Before I began Cheat the Grave by Vicki Pettersson, I contacted every other reviewer I knew. I had to know if Hunter would be in this book so I could prepare myself to either be really happy or really depressed. It couldn’t be helped. What happened in City of Souls killed me. I could tell he didn’t want to leave, but he had no choice. I saw that, you saw that, but Jo didn’t. That scared me. If she didn’t see it, she would think he didn’t love her and she wouldn’t give him a second chance if she ever saw him again!
Two Ibuprofens and a nap later, I was mentally ready to find out for myself. My fellow reviewers were keeping their lips sealed, so I had no other choice. It was either shut my eyes, take a deep breath, and hope for the best, or never find out what happened to my beloved weapons master.
I wasn’t disappointed.
By the end of this book, I was jumping in my seat and pumping my fist in the air in triumph. Yes, the book was filled with despair, blood, and death. I would expect nothing less from Vicki. But it was also filled with hope, promise, and change. Jo came into her own in Cheat the Grave. She’s no longer Warren’s pawn (is it bad I hope he dies a horrible and painful death?), no longer a woman trapped between two worlds, and no longer unsure of her worth. In her own words, “I was Joanna Archer, a mortal with some extra benefits. I had a family of chosen friends, who had also chosen me. I was gray, an amalgam of light and shadow, which made me both dawn and dusk, and in the world of the Zodiac, that was where the web between reality and its flip side was at it’s thinnest…and open to pure possibility.”
Book Stats:
- Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
- Publisher: Eos (May 25, 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0061456772
- ISBN-13: 978-0061456770
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Books in the Signs of the Zodiac series in the order they should be read:
The Scent of Shadows
The Taste of Night
The Touch of Twilight
City of Souls
Cheat the Grave
I would desperately want to purchase the last two of the series.
Any bookstores in South Africa, Port Elizabeth that have these books??
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