Grave Suspicions by Alice James

I would like to thank the author and Solaris for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Solaris

Published – 17/8

Price – £9.99 paperback £5.99 Kindle eBook

She’s back. She’s hungover. She’s got no idea.

Estate agent by day, necromancer by night, reluctant amateur sleuth when bullied into it… Toni Windsor is already juggling life and now she has to find out who clubbed a Cornish cheese millionaire to death while he was alone in a locked room.

And her diary was already full. She’s trying to keep the peace between vampire courts, a fistful of demonic contracts have just landed on her lap and – no surprise – her love life still isn’t looking great even though she’s finally dating someone who isn’t dead.

Can’t a girl catch a break?

NB – this book follows up on previous adventures Grave Secrets by Alice James and Grave Danger by Alice James

In a long-running series growth is something essential to ensure that they keep our interest. Familiarity is great but if you just repeat the same plot points its like hearing a great song on the radio that soon gets played every hour – you know it too well. What I find more interesting are where the series builds up characters and pushes them in unexpected directions. The world the stories are in gets larger and I can’t quite guess what happens next. I am very please to report that Alice James’ refreshing fantasy novel Grave Suspicions firmly falls into that latter camp, and this is turning into one of the most interesting contemporary fantasy series I’ve read in a while.

A brief recap – vampires are real and live among us although with a little suspicion. Lavington (better known as Toni) Winsor works as an estate agent in Staffordshire and is also a powerful Necromancer which is useful as her brother is a police officer who needs cases solved from time to time. Toni has also been getting close to her local vampire coterie and while escaping a fairly toxic relationship with one of the group, is on if not friendly amicable business terms with many others. Toni has now picked up a teenage lodger she is helping get through Uni and may have found out she is a also a witch. Before that can be processed, she finds herself with a mysterious locked door murder the victim is being unhelpful solving; a very young vampire who needs assistance finding his missing coterie and yet again people seem to want Toni dead.

James has created a novel that manages a tricky combination of juggling multiple new plotlines and an ongoing theme of characters and getting through variations of toxic or at least bad relationships. Both of which are delivered really well. The mystery angles of the story are interesting and obliquely connected. Our locked room murder is possibly the slightest but also makes a major development on the theme. The most interesting is Toni getting to meet a brand-new vampire Nicky. He dresses the part – yes there are tight trousers as is the norm but unusually compared to vampires we have met to date he’s under the brooding surface quite delicate and confused on where he is going. Its refreshing to not have another ancient immortal burdened by people and instead a sympathetic character that I really liked how they worked with Toni. There is also adding some darkness to the story a theme of an unexplained assistant after Toni for some undisclosed revenge. Its tempting to think of this series as simply ‘cosy’ but, this story again suggests Toni has a darker pragmatic side that at certain points she doesn’t think someone can be saved and then the bets are off as to how long they will remain alive. This edge to Toni seems to be getting sharper and I’m intrigued where that will eventually send the character.

The other theme is imbalanced relationships. Toni is currently dating a man who deep down simply mourns his bellowed dead wife. Toni still holds an unrequited flame for a man who left her to follow his other vampire love. In the other plot strands, we meet people who are also in relationships where one party is more interested than the other. This story explores the dangers of such relationships intelligently and sensitively. They drive some of the crimes but also especially for Toni a character realising they may be trapped and, in the end, allowing herself to live, love and where necessary lust freely on her own terms makes her a really liberating main character focused on her own agency and what she wants in life. Always refreshing to see female leads who are not in any man’s or vampire’s for that matter shadow.

The other interesting aspect of this tale is Toni’s own powers and past. This time we start to explore her troubled relationships with her parents who brutally ignored her for many years. This storyline I think explains a few things as to why Toni is so powerful and possibly sets up other parts o the world to explore now the Vampire elements are well settled in. There is a feeling to the series growing in many directions and that makes room for many more types of stories.

Three books in this is a series I can strongly recommend and Grave Suspicions I think is an ever stronger and also important addition to the series so far. If you’ve not yet met Toni I think you should catch up and you will be for many dark treats along the way.