Review: Grave Memory (Alex Craft, #3)

Publication date: July 3rd 2012.
Publisher: Roc
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



If there’s one thing I can say about Kalayna Price’s Alex Craft books, it’s that they’re consistent. If you liked the first two books, chances are you’ll enjoy this too.

A series of seemingly random suicides piques Alex’s curiosity and she starts digging despite warnings from the police and the FIB’s refusal to help. No longer just a grave witch but a planeweaver as well, Alex is now solid on all planes of existence and can move things from one plane to the next. Her newfound abilities also allow her to see through almost any glamour. That’s why she’s the only one who can see the odd being that possesses a person, spends three days in expensive hotels and restaurants and then forces the host to commit suicide in order to switch bodies.

I think I liked it better when Alex was just a grave witch. She is suddenly a planeweaver, a powerful faerie and the most powerful planeweaver around, but it’s still not enough to call her a kick-ass heroine since she’s blind half the time from using her grave sight. In this book, she discovers what being a fae really means. She has to choose allegiance and she has to learn to consciously use glamour for the first time, which means that she is forced to turn to her father for help. There are a few more surprises waiting for her in her family home, and although her father’s attitude hasn’t changed at all, I enjoyed discovering things about him with her.

Alex’s visit to Faerie for the equinox was rather unnecessary plot-wise, but this is where Price really let her imagination loose, and the result was beautiful. I had to overcome my fear of the fae in order to truly enjoy it, but since Alex entered with a feeling of unease, it was even easier for me to identify with her and experience the same combination of amazement and fear.

Alex made absolutely no progress with either of the men she loves, or rather, she made some progress with Death, but they quickly went back to their previous status. Falin is, as always, under the Winter Queen’s compulsion, owned and puppeteered by a woman who uses him to lure Alex into the Winter Court. Considering my fear of faeries and how much I disliked and distrusted Falin from the start, I wish Alex would finally give up on him and leave him to the Queen. Death, on the other hand, is being kept away from Alex because a relationship between a mortal and a soul collector is extremely dangerous, but his behavior is consistent, it’s clear that he loves Alex, and in the end, he’s always there when she needs him, which is more than I can say for Falin. Plus, he has amazing abs. Enough said.

Although this series didn’t make it on my Top 11 Urban Fantasy series list, it’s still one I enjoy and always look forward to. Alex’s world has a lot to give and I can’t wait to find out which direction Price will take. I just hope the love triangle will be resolved in the next book.

A copy of this book was kindly provided by the publisher, Penguin Roc, for review purposes.