**Spoilage**
**4 Stars**
Wow. For starters, let me just say that I started this book thinking it was an Urban Fantasy and there would be action, a badass antagonist and the occasional love scene. What I got was almost the exact opposite. But I was SO okay with that. More than okay, actually.
That's not to say that this wasn't chock full of win at every turn of the page. It was. But this was a love story through and through. I won't even go into how I feel about books that are primarily about love....because we'd be here all friggin' day. What I will say is that they are not my first choice of reading material by far. I do not do well with love stories without some form of action. You can tell I didn't read the blurb all the way through....Sue Me.....That being said...I adored this story.
Prayer For The Dead is Nicki Scalise's debut novel. I've read my fair share of debut novels and lemme tell ya', this does not read like a debut. It reads like a seasoned author who know what she's doing, knows exactly who her characters are, where she is taking them, and has a kick ass editor on staff.
Olivia, our MC, is SUPER likeable. She's funny, down to earth and as I read from her perspective, I felt I could really connect with her...ya know, if she were a real person living in the real world versus purgatory. Speaking of, let's get into that briefly....world building. In the book, purgatory exists parallel to our world in geography and aesthetics only. The people that occupy this world...are all dead. I know. Bummer, right? These are all the people that get "stuck" in limbo. Allow me to break it down.
When you die, you do not automatically get to pass on to heaven. You need the people who loved you in your living state to mourn you and/or pray for you. IE, give you a proper funeral, cry and express their want for you to go to heaven, etc. If you do not get enough prayers in a specific amount of time....you remain in purgatory like Olivia, her brother, her best friend and everyone else. Ergo, Prayer For The Dead. I think that is the coolest shit ever. I've NEVER read a book like that and it made the romance-fest that followed durable.
Now, for the things that stopped this from being a five-star rating. The romance. It's just not my thing.They fell for each other a bit fast, IMO. Time passed for the charries, but not on the pages where I could witness. We got one of those "It had been five weeks and..." so on and so forth.The big-bad was a little predictable, the love interest, Drake wasn't my idea of a heart-throb, and some of the things that happened after Drake's past was revealed just didn't really do much for me. BUT, if I still enjoyed it through all that, it's a damn good book. Haha. Usually I get really spoiler-y but I won't go too far because I want anyone gearing up to read this to enjoy it as much as I did.
Happy Reading!
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