Grave Secrets

by Alice James

Overview

Agatha Raisin meets Sookie Stackhouse, with croquet and crumpets.

The necromantic arts can be hell for your love life.

Toni Windsor is trying to live a quiet life in the green and pleasant county of Staffordshire—and failing! She’s a talented necromancer and only a decent estate agent, and that normal, quiet life is proving hard to find. Especially when there’s all the murders to solve. Whoever said raising zombies from the grave wasn’t a useful skill?

Then along comes trouble in the form of the stunning, dashing vampire Oscar who’s waltzed into her life, looking for a new mansion. He’s got looks, heaps of money, and an open slot in his coterie with her name on it. Maybe if she’s lucky she can bag a good commission and a nice boyfriend. But things are never as easy as they seem...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781781088616
Publisher:	Solaris
Publication date:	09/01/2020
Series:	The Lavington Windsor Series , #1
Pages:	298
Sales rank:	419,281
Product dimensions:	5.06(w) x 7.81(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Alice James was born in Staffordshire, where she grew up reading novels and spending a lot of time with sheep. She was lucky enough to have a mother who was addicted to science fiction and a father who was fond of long country walks, so she grew up with her head in the stars and her feet on the ground. After studying maths at university and training to be a Cobol programmer(!), she began writing novels to get the weird people in her head to go somewhere else. She now lives in Oxfordshire with a fine selection of cats, fulfilling her teenage gothic fantasies by moving into a converted chapel with an ancient spiral staircase—and gravestones in the garden. Her go-to comfort dish is a big plate of dumplings, her number one cocktail is a Manhattan and her favourite polygon is a triangle, though she has a soft spot for concave rhomboids.

Editorial Reviews

07/27/2020

British author James’s fun, fast debut introduces Lavington “Toni” Windsor, “estate agent by day, necromancer by night.” Toni has lived all her life in the sleepy county of Staffordshire, where “most sudden end-of-life incidents... tended to involve tractors. Or cows. Sometimes both.” On occasion, she raises the dead in order to help her police officer brother, William, solve a rare local murder. A case that has haunted both William and Toni for months is that of an unidentified young woman who was dismembered. Despite her prodigious talent, Toni has been unable to get into contact with this Jane Doe, but once she finally does, her subsequent inquiries wind up involving liaisons, often romantic, with elegantly attired zombies and vampires. Since the undead supply all the clues, conventional investigative techniques are nonexistent. Fans of Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse will want to check out Toni. Agent: Simon Kavanagh, Mic Cheetham Assoc. (U.K.). (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Toni is perfectly hilarious and the zombies are delightful." — San Francisco Book Review

San Francisco Book Review

"Dead funny.” — Mark Beech

“Alice James raises the zombie genre from the grave, dusts it off and gives it a brand new lease of life.” - Jack Hayes

From the Publisher

"A gory and amusing romp." — Financial Times

Financial Times - James Lovegrove

Heads up to all fans of True Blood and Buffy, our new favourite heroine is here, she's a necromancer, and she's kind of a hot mess!” – NetGalley review

Netgalley

Heads up to all fans of True Blood and Buffy, our new favourite heroine is here, she's a necromancer, and she's kind of a hot mess!” – NetGalley review

NetGalley

"A gory and amusing romp."

Financial Times

Alice James raises the zombie genre from the grave, dusts it off and gives it a brand new lease of life.

Jack Hayes

What’s not to like? ‘Vampires and zombies’... it does what it says on the cover. Dress-shredding sexiness mixed with Thriller. Dead funny.

Author and rock journalist Mark Beech

09/01/2020

DEBUT Lavington Windsor, or Toni, as she prefers to be called, is a real estate agent by day and necromancer by night. When her agency is tasked with finding a home for Oscar Wolsey, Toni is more than up to the job—especially since Oscar happens to be a drop-dead gorgeous vampire. But between navigating vampire politics, helping her new friends defend against a Chicago vampire Mafia group that's moved into the area, and the truth that necromancers are the sworn enemy of vampires, Toni has her hands full. Not to mention that she's determined to help her police officer brother solve the murder of headless Jane Doe, who's been languishing in the morgue for months. Can Toni resolve all her problems and still keep her neck unbitten? With the help of a few zombie allies, she just might. VERDICT James's debut is a sometimes silly, often funny twist on the vampire romance genre. The delightfully written Toni is about the unlikeliest heroine one expects to encounter. Throw in a few zombies for good measure, and readers are left with a novel perfect for fans of Charlaine Harris and Gail Carriger.—Elisabeth Clark, West Florida P.L., Pensacola

Library Journal