Tuesday, September 13, 2016

The Sinner Review


Title:  The Sinner
Series:  The Graveyard Queen #5
Author:  Amanda Stevens
Publisher:  MIRA
Release Date:  September 27, 2016
Buy Link:  Amazon

My Rating:  5 Ominous, Soul-Searing 's

*Many thanks to MIRA publishing for an ARC of The Sinner for review via Netgally.



Synopsis:
I am a living ghost, a wanderer in search of my purpose and place… 
I'm a cemetery restorer by trade, but my calling has evolved from that of ghost seer to death walker to detective of lost souls. I solve the riddles of the dead so the dead will leave me alone. 
I've come to Seven Gates Cemetery nursing a broken heart, but peace is hard to come by…for the ghosts here and for me. When the body of a young woman is discovered in a caged grave, I know that I've been summoned for a reason. Only I can unmask her killer. I want to trust the detective assigned to the case for he is a ghost seer like me. But how can I put my faith in anyone when supernatural forces are manipulating my every thought? When reality is ever-changing? And when the one person I thought I could trust above all others has turned into a diabolical stranger?
Review:
The Graveyard Queen series is one of the eeriest, spookiest, most ominous series I've ever read. It's also one of the best in this genre.  Since finishing The Visitor, I've been on pins & needles, waiting, watching for the next book to become available.  Can it possibly live up to the previous books?  The answer is an astounding YES!  With heart-pounding intensity from cover to cover, The Sinner just may be the best one yet.  

It's been a year since Amelia Gray left Charleston, needing time and space to sort out her life and heal her broken heart.  In smoldering heat, she toils long hours restoring Seven Gates Cemetery in Ascension with her warrior dog always on guard nearby.  She passes the nights in a rented house where she wanders aimlessly - always restless, always feeling another's presence, always trying to forget the man who left her broken.  While working in the cemetery, she hears a faint, distant chanting and senses a sinister presence beckoning her to come.  Amelia is compelled to follow the voices, helpless to resist the pull at her psyche, even as her mind screams at her to run. Lost deep in the woods, she makes a horrific discovery - one she will later wish she had never found.  An evil presence lurks, slivering through shadows, taunting Amelia as she realizes she's been summoned to this place at this time for a reason - to unmask a monster.   

The story that unfolds is one of impending doom, pages filled with malicious evil beings, dark secret societies, murder, mutilations, rituals, mystery.  Amelia's search for a killer places her in imminent danger even as she struggles to maintain control of her own mind.  At times, she doesn't know what's real and what's an hallucination.  As a murder investigation begins, Amelia meets Detective Lucian Kendrick, a handsome man to whom she is attracted, but wary.  Could this be the man to finally wipe John Devlin out of her mind and heart?

The Sinner is steeped in the rich, dark history of  an old, small southern town and cemetery - one where secret, symbolic rituals, murder, and body possessions have occurred.  To say it is ominous is a gross understatement.  Only a gifted author could pull off such horror in such a beautifully lyrical manner.  Through vivid descriptions and lyrical prose, Stevens delivers a shocking stunner - an emotional, heart-stopping book that will keep you hyperventilating as you read late into the night.  Memento Mori, Remember to die!  The Sinner is an absolutely, undeniable Page Burner!  It now resides on my All Time Favorites Shelf!  A Must Read!

My Rating:  500 Ominous 's . . . And that's the truth!


Cross My Heart . . . xxx

Sandra

"The days of pretending that ghosts didn't exist were long behind me as were the rules that had once protected me.  I had entered a new phase of my life, accepting if not embracing who I was and what I was meant to be."