Horror Review: Living With The Dead by Kelley Armstrong

July 6, 2010 Book Review, Horror Reviews, Reviews

So, as a part of my horror review, I will occasionally include horror/suspense/supernatural novels as well. No part of horror can be confined to a single medium, so I’m going to hit most of them. Unlike movies, which I can and will reliably put up once a week, every week (for atleast the first 177 weeks), my book reviews will be a little more spread out. I plan to post one whenever I happen to finish a new horror novel. As such, they’ll be a little irregular, but it’ll keep you updated on what’s going on.

Living With The Dead by Kelley Armstrong

This is the 9th novel in Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld Series. I realize that it does a huge disservice to not review her previous work first, but as they aren’t as fresh in the mind, I’ll just have to forge forward, and you’ll have to take my word that they’re all pretty amazing novels. If they weren’t, I wouldn’t have just finished reading the ninth.

Living with the Dead is another strong story in the Women of the Otherworld series. Kelley Armstrong continues to craft a wonderful world, and she continues to build upon the threads that she has already established. Things are getting complicated, and there’s definitely a build in momentum as we progress along the storyline.

There’s a change in the way the story is told to us in this book. I’d call it an interesting experiment on the part of the author, and one that she’s managed to pull off pretty well. In her previous novels, Armstrong has generally kept to a single viewpoint. In Living with the Dead, she’s taken a different path. Each chapter is an individual character’s viewpoint, but each chapter is also a different character’s viewpoint. At this stage in the game it was a gamble for her to change her storytelling technique with an established series. But as with most of Armstrong’s books to date, her grasp of character and ability to get into the proper POV has helped her to transform what could have been a major failing into something I believe to be a huge win.

Once again we have another excellent story, with excellent characters, and an expanding cast and world. What I liked the most about this novel was the human element. We’ve been seeing this come out more and more in the most recent novels in the series. This time, there’s a human who doesn’t know anything about the supernatural world, who ends up finding out about it. There’s also a supernatural who knows nothing about the supernatural world who is also finding out about it. Talk about a very dangerous predicament. The blows come fast and furious in this novel, and its a damned hard one to put down. A lot of authors could learn from Armstrong’s ability to form a connection between not only the characters and each other, but the characters and her audience.

Enough glowing remarks. I give this novel four out of five skulls.

The Women of The Otherworld Series (in order up to this book):

Bitten: Women of the Otherworld
Stolen: Women of the Otherworld
Dime Store Magic: Kelley Armstrong
Industrial Magic
Haunted
Broken
No Humans Involved
Personal Demon
Living with the Dead

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