Review: Living With The Dead by Kelley Armstrong

Title: Living With The Dead
Series: Women of the Otherworld #9
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Publisher: Vintage Canada
Format: Trade Paperpack, 464 pages
Published: August 25, 2009
ISBN #: 9780307358042 / 0307358046
Genre: Urban Fantasy
My Copy: bought

Buy:

The men and women of the Otherworld – witches, werewolves, demons, vampires – live unseen among us. Only now a reckless killer has torn down the wall, trapping one very human woman in the supernatural crossfire.

Robyn moved to LA after her husband died to try to put some distance between herself and the life they had together. And the challenges of her job as the PR consultant to a Paris Hilton wannabe are pretty distracting. But then her celebutante is gunned down in a night club, and Robyn is suddenly the prime suspect. The two people most determined to clear her are her old friend, the half-demon tabloid reporter Hope Adams, and a homicide detective with an uncanny affinity for the dead.

Soon Robyn finds herself in the heart of a world she never even knew existed – and which she was safer knowing nothing about . . .

This book is the least Otherworld-ly out of the bunch and, as a result, also the one that I only passably enjoyed. Kelley Armstrong switches up her tried and true format in Living with the Dead and that was a big mistake in my opinion. Instead of sticking with her enthralling first person point of views she opts for that of the third person and gives the lead role to a previously unknown, human character. This installment also focuses on clairvoyants which are not a breed of supernaturals that readers have seen overly much up until this point and the story casts them in a pretty unfavourable light. I didn’t particularly enjoy this book the first time around and I liked it even less upon the second read. I guess that after 9 novels even someone as talented as Kelley Armstrong can struggle with writing an amazing story.

Living with the Dead is very, very dark and not in a good way. Adele, the main villain, is beyond nasty. She’s a sociopath and a cold blooded killer. Clairvoyants’ abilities are as much a curse as they are a gift because they pretty much have a 99.99% chance of eventually going insane. Definitely not good odds. I think that Adele has been a wackjob since birth; her upbringing and powers are contributing factors but there’s just something inherently wrong with her. She doesn’t just kill people; she toys with them and does things that are beyond twisted. Adele has sex with a mentally disabled boy in order to manipulate him into using his powers to her benefit and then gets pregnant and uses her baby to barter her way into a cabal. She then seduces his teenage brother in an attempt to hide her child’s paternity. This is just one example of what lengths she’s willing to go to; everything’s just a means to an end to Adele. She’s truly one of the most heinous characters that I’ve ever encountered which made this book very difficult to read.

I was confused as to why Robyn, a human PR rep, was cast as the lead character. There’s been no mention of her up until this point and, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that this is her one and only appearance in this entire series. One of the reasons why I enjoy the Women of the Otherworld series so much is because it follows the same characters over a twelve year span. I’ve grown to love all of Armstrong’s creations and have a vested interest in their well-being while as Robyn came out of left field only to never be heard from again. I didn’t dislike her, she’s a grieving widower trying to move on with her life and I felt sorry for her, but I just didn’t understand why the heck she was in this novel to begin with. Finn’s another new character who’s introduced in this installment; at least he’s a supernatural but he too all but disappears after this book. Other than Hope and Karl, the overall story, writing style and protagonists just didn’t fit in the Otherworld universe.

Living with the Dead wasn’t what I expected and I’d even go so far as to say that I was disappointed with this book which is a first for me where Kelley Armstrong is concerned. The story did nothing to advance the overall plot line of this series, most of the characters are strangers and I was beyond disgusted by Adele. Reading this novel a second time actually made me like it even less; I’m glad that the other 12 installments are phenomenal because if this book would have been one of the earlier ones I might not have continued with this series.

Books in this series:
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Recommendation:	If you like dark and twisted, and have been craving a glimpse into the mind of a sociopathic killer then give this book a try.
Like this, like that:	The Alex Craft series by Kalayna Price and the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton.

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