Summoned to Thirteenth Grave - Review

Summoned to Thirteenth Grave (Charley Davidson, # 13)

By: Darynda Jones

Publication: January 15th 2019 by St. Martin's Press

304 pages

Genre: Adult, Fantasy, Humor, Mystery

Source: Borrowed from the e-Library

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Goodreads description--Grim Reaper Charley Davidson is back in the final installment of Darynda Jones’ New York Times bestselling paranormal series!

Charley Davidson, Grim Reaper extraordinaire, is pissed. She’s been kicked off the earthly plain for eternity – which is the appropriate amount of time to make a person starkraving mad. But someone’s looking out for her, and she’s allowed to return after a mere hundred years in exile. Is it too much to hope for that not much has changed? Apparently it is. Bummer.

She’s missed Reyes and her daughter, Beep, but now that she’s back on earth, it’s time to put to rest burning questions that need answers. What happened to her mother? How did she really die? Who killed her? And are cupcakes or coffee the best medicine? It all comes to a head in an epic showdown between good and evil in this final smart and hilarious novel.

So The Trouble with Twelfth Grave ended with Charley being banished from this dimension for breaking the one rule Jehovahn gave her--not to heal anyone once their soul has left their body. I was expecting to spend at least some time within Summoned to Thirteenth Grave where Charley is in that dimension and trying to get back home. And I have to say that I wasn't looking forward to that. Thankfully, Darynda Jones decided to start this book with Charley being released back to this dimension and immediately reunited with Reyes.

Honestly, I'm not sure how much I can say about this book due to spoilers. This is the finale in a very long series that I have really enjoyed. And as you would expect, there are some twists that I didn't see coming that I obviously can't discuss here.

I wasn't sure how Charley's mom's death could fit into anything, but it did. I also expected for Charley, Reyes, and crew to have had to face Lucifer because that conflict was set up much earlier in the series. Yet that is really Beep's conflict and it makes sense to save that for another series, but I just wasn't sure if there would be any jumps in time to cover this or not. I think deciding not to was probably the best choice, but I guess it was a little unsatisfying at the same time.

Uncle Bob's revelation was the biggest that I can think of right now, but I can't say more because of spoilers. I will just say that I want to do a re-read of the series to see if there were any hints early on that I missed.

I also can't say much about Osh, but that very very ending has had me dying to know when the inevitable spinoff is going to come.

Darynda Jones has handled the different planes of existence perhaps the best I've read before, but I have to say that I'm not 100% sure how I feel about Charley and Reyes's final decision, but I didn't hate it.

The finale of the Charley Davidson series was different than I expected, but that certainly wasn't a bad thing. Summoned to Thirteenth Grave had some twists and it wasn't completely perfect for me, but I did think it was a decent series ender. I'm dying to get a spinoff series about Beep. I mean that has to happen, right? Summoned to Thirteenth Grave gets 4 Stars. Have you read Summoned to Thirteenth Grave? What did you think? Let me know!