Review of Graveminder by Melissa MarrGraveminder
Descriptionfrom Goodreads.
With Graveminder, Melissa Marr, the bestselling author of the Wicked Lovely series, delivers her first novel for an adult audience—a captivating story of the living, the dead and a curse that binds them to two special families.
In the town of Claysville, Maylene Barrow bears a duty to the newly departed that keeps all she knows and loves safe. At each funeral she performs the same unusual ritual: Three sips from a silver flask followed by the words, "Sleep well, and stay where I put you."
Now Maylene is dead, and her granddaughter Rebekkah must go back to the place—and the man—she left a decade ago. But she soon discovers that Maylene was murdered—and that there was good reason for her odd traditions: Beneath placid Claysville lies a shadowy land from which the dead will return if their graves are not properly minded. Only the Graveminder, a Barrow woman, and the current Undertaker, Byron Montgomery, can set things right once the dead begin to walk.
Suddenly Rebekkah is struggling with more than just her grief—she’s forced to deal with a centuries-old bargain, dark secrets, a complicated romance and a frightening responsibility: to stop a monster and put the dead to rest where they belong.
Maylene the Gravemider, who starts out the story with her rounds at Sweetrest Cemetery. You will get a tiny crumb of the fact that there is something different about Claysville, and there is a secret bargain. The phrase "Sleep well, and stay where I put you." is Genius, it caught my imagination as soon as Maylene first utters it.
Rebekkah who has been running away her entire life from the only place and the only man who made her fell like she was home.
Byron, Rebakkah's many times ex-boyfriend who is determined NOT to fall back into his old habit of always being there for her, and who has recently returned to town.
When Rebakkah gets the message that her Grandmother is dead she has no idea what a hornets nest she is about to step into, or the fact that the dead are walking and it is now her responsibility to put them where they belong. Thank goodness when Rebakkah was a child she paid attention to all the rituals Maylene did when she would help her grandma make her rounds, not really wondering why, it's just the way it was.
I love that Maylene and Byron's father tried to protect Rebakkah and Byron from their destiny as long as they could. And that you get the slow unraveling of family secrets and the choices that were made along the way.
Who else but Melissa Marr could not only have me wanting to get to know a character that does very bad things, but also have me wanting to take care of her and root for her to get a little.... ummm...Closure with her own past.
I found myself totally engrossed in the mixing of times and perceptions of the residence of the shadowy world that abides under Claysville, and was left wanting to know more of Charles and his strange realm.
It is very hard not to give away the twists and turns that you are guided thru in Graveminder, but needless to say I loved everyone of them.. I give Graveminder 5
outta 5 stars, Tis Awesomeness!!
If you have not already read her Wicked Lovely series Get to it! It is a MUST read.
On a side note I got my copy of Graveminder from Bookperks and it came with a spiffy flask that I got signed by Melissa Marr.. how freaking cool is that. ooh ooh and I got an awesome GM Toe-tag signed too...
