Allreaders.com
Author Charlaine Harris booklist (click here)

Book Review By Patricia Sullivan
Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris

Harper Connelly travels the country with her step-brother Tolliver, living in hotel rooms and moving from town to town. The pair are in the late twenties but their highly specialized services makes settling down in a normal lifestyle nearly impossible. They make their living by providing the unsual service of finding dead people. Since Harper was struck by lightning when she was sixteen she's had this strange and often unwelcomed ability to find the final resting place of a body and experience the last few minutes of that person's life.

When a little town in the Ozarks calls her to search the woods for a missing teenage girl, she finds the body and is able to tell them that the deceased was shot twice in the back and left for dead but her abilities do not allow her to see who pulled the trigger. She is also able to tell the town folks that the dead teenage girl's boyfriend had not shot himself as believed but that he too was murdered.

As usual, Harper's special services are not entirely welcomed by all and some of the townspeople are openly hostile to her and her brother, despite the fact that she performed the task that they had asked of her. The duo would usually take their money and run before the hostility can grow but when the dead teenage boy's mother is also murdered, they are not quite free to go.

Harper feels compelled to help clear the mystery of these murders but the longer she stays in the town the more danger she feels that she is in and the more she longs for a 'normal' life especially after things heat up between her and the handsome, widowed police deputy. But romance takes a back seat when she is forced to fend off an attack by some of the local teenage boys and her brother is unjustly thrown in jail. Harper begins to wonder just who is trying to distract her from discovering the truth.


Plot & Themes
Tone of book - suspenseful (sophisticated fear)
FANTASY or SCIENCE FICTION? - fantasy story on current Earth
Magical Beings/Mental/Magical/Powers Yes
magical powers:
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Descript. of chases or violence - 30 %
planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 40 %
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 20 %
Descript. of society, phenomena (tech), places - 10 %

Main Character
Identity: - Female
Profession/status:
Age: - 20's-30's
If magical mental powers: - clairvoyant

Main Adversary
Identity: - Male
Age: - 20's-30's
Profession/status:
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - a moderate amount
How sensitive is this character?
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Average intelligence

Setting
Takes place on Earth? Yes

Writing Style
Accounts of torture and death? - generic/vague references to death/punishment
scientific jargon? (SF only) - none/very little science jargon needed
Sex in book? Yes
What kind of sex: - vague references only - descript of kissing
How much dialogue? - significantly more dialog than descript
Back To Main Menu