Melissa Marr, best-known for paranormal novels for young adults including Wicked Lovely and Ink Exchange, makes it official: She can write strong adult novels, as she proves with the dark and dreamy Graveminder.
Rod Serling would have loved Graveminder. Its Twilight-Zone-like vibe comes from its otherworldly setting — smack in the middle of Claysville, which from outward appearances seems like normaltown USA.
And what happens in Claysville stays in Claysville. That's what Rebekkah Barrow discovers when she returns to Claysville following her grandmother Maylene's murder. Rebekkah is going to have to deal with a whole new lifestyle now that Maylene's dead. She doesn't know it, but she's going to take Maylene's place as the town Graveminder.
It's a role women in her family have played for centuries. The dead, it seems, must be "nurtured" properly if they're to stay in their graves. It all starts with the Graveminder taking three sips from a silver flask and whispering to the newly buried: "Sleep well, and stay where I put you." If not properly minded — and Rebekkah must learn how it's done — they come back from the dead and wreak havoc on the living.
And Rebekkah has to learn quickly. A few of the undead are walking around Claysville and their need for food means town residents are on the menu. If that isn't enough, Rebekkah must also reconcile herself to a new and different kind of relationship with ex-lover Byron Montgomery, who, it turns out, is more than a run-of-the mill undertaker. Byron and Rebekkah must work together to stop the undead's rampage.
Marr is not tapping into the latest horde of zombie novels, she's created a new kind of undead creature in Graveminder. Add to that a secret tunnel to the world of the dead, a mysterious creature known as Mr. D, an unanticipated enemy … and all that sexual tension.
Graveminder is a creatively creepy gothic tale for grown-ups.
