Laura’s Review of Eighth Grave After Dark (Charley Davidson, #8) by Darynda Jones

Synopsis

With twelve hellhounds after her, pregnant Charley Davidson takes refuge at the only place she thinks they can’t get to her: the grounds of an abandoned convent. But after months of being cooped up there, Charley is ready to pop. Both metaphorically and literally since she is now roughly the size of a beached whale. Fortunately, a new case has captured her attention, one that involves a murder on the very grounds the team has taken shelter upon. A decades-old murder of the newly-vowed nun she keeps seeing in the shadows is almost enough to pull her out of her doldrums.

Charley’s been forbidden to step foot off the sacred grounds. While the angry hellhounds can’t traverse the consecrated soil, they can lurk just beyond its borders. They have the entire team on edge, especially Reyes. And if Charley didn’t know better, she would swear Reyes is getting sick. He grows hotter with every moment that passes, his heat scorching across her skin every time he’s near, but naturally he swears he’s fine.

While the team searches for clues on the Twelve, Charley just wants answers and is powerless to get them. But the mass of friends they’ve accrued helps. They convince her even more that everyone in her recent life has somehow been drawn to her, as though they were a part of a bigger picture all along. But the good feelings don’t last for long because Charley is about to get the surprise of her crazy, mixed-up, supernatural life….

What I Loved

      

    Well Charley is back and in full effect so the better question is, what isn’t there to love?  Words cannot describe how much how awesome Charley Davidson is; she is hilarious, caring, brave and so many other things.  I love complex characters that give you the whole picture and make you fall in love with them.  Not only do we get tons of Charley in this book but we get tons of hot sexy Reyes as well.  It was so much fun watching these two newlyweds trying to make the best out of a bad situation as Charley continues on in her pregnancy. 

          This book skips ahead a little, beginning with Charley at about eight months pregnant, they are still living in the convent with their crazy group of friends always around.  There is a ton going on in this book, and while they are still trying to figure out how to defeat the twelve, new cases once again pop up that only Charley can solve.  I will tell you a lot of questions have been answered in this one, which is nice to see the plot moving along at a good pace.  Reyes and Osh give a lot of good answers and Osh does answer a BIG one by the end and I think that will excite a lot of readers.  By the end of this story the plot has taken another hard turn with all new questions starting rise.  There were definite bittersweet tears in my eyes as I ended this story but also left me looking forward to the next one.

Not So Much

          There are times that Charley frustrates me to say the very least.  There are so many instances where I just wish she thought about herself and what she means to the people around her before she puts her life at risk.  She’s so altruistic, putting everyone else’s safety ahead of her own but she seems to have little care how it would affect the people she loves if she was gone.  I just wish there was a point in her life that Charley started to think more long term then just day by day, not understanding if she dies or gets seriously injured what affect that has on everything else going around them.  I do feel like this plot has matured Charley in more ways than the rest of the stories have so I’m excited to see those changes in Charley as the overall arc goes on.

To Sum It All Up!

          Well, a lot of things we have all been waiting for, for quite some time finally happen in this book.  So if you are an avid Charley Davidson reader than you are going to absolutely love this story.  I couldn’t put this book down, I don’t think I’ve read any of the books in this series as fast as I read this one.  Like I said before a lot of questions are answered and more characters are revealed but of course with all this comes more questions.  From what I can assume the series is taking a turn after this one, and I’m excited to see where the story goes from here.  Of course I had a silly smile on my face at times while other times I had sad tears in my eyes.  I just love Charley so much and my heart broke for her at a certain point.  Although there is tons of hot Reyes we don’t get a lot of sexy time between these two which kind sucks but I get the plot is bigger picture now and not just about them anymore.  I cannot wait to see what is in store next for Charley and Reyes, I absolutely love this series!