Series: The Veil Diaries #2
Author: B.L. Brunnemer
Stars: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Book Blurb:
My name is Alexis Delaney, and I’m your average 17-year-old girl. Except I’m a Necromancer. Which means I can see the dead, talk to them and help them move on. Well, I used to be able to. Someone has sealed the Veil. Now the dead are stuck here. And with the extra energy floating around town, the ghosts are getting stronger.
It’s been two months since I came to Spring Mountain to live with Uncle Rory. And the guys, my five best friends, have done everything they can to help since. Things for once were almost normal, my issues with the dead had become routine. Until they all found girlfriends. Now I’m back to hiding everything again. With ghosts leaving their haunting grounds at will, new people asking questions and trying to build my link to the Veil, I don’t know how the hell I’m going to pull this one off. But it can’t get that bad, right?
***
When the Dead Come A Knockin', the second book in The Veil Diaries series by B.L. Brunnemer, starts up just as school is ending for winter vacation. It might be vacation time, but Lexie can't catch a break. The ghosts are impatient to cross and Lexie pushes herself even harder to open the Veil when she finds that a certain ghost with a connection to the guys is stuck. There's a big heap of relationship drama adding to her stress on top of all the ghost problems. The guys all have girlfriends now and not all the girlfriends are happy with how close Lexie is to the guys. And the guys aren't the only ones in a new relationship; things heat up between Lexie and Dylan (who was introduced in book 1). There's trouble in paradise though as jealousy and secrets start breaking up couples. As if that's not enough to keep you interested, there are hints of a mysterious secret admirer that will probably have a larger roll in the third book.
The strength of this series is in the main characters. Lexie and the guys are well-rounded characters with their own unique flaws and strengths. I love reading about the group dynamics and interactions. In this book, Lexie learns more about the guys, particularly about the painful parts of their pasts. Lexie supports the guys and helps them deal with their own issues just as much as they help her. The way Brunnemer describes the characters and writes the dialogue really helps them come to life on the page.
Another thing Brunnemer does well is writing vivid descriptions. In this book, Lexie finally accesses her center and she starts the process of opening the Veil. The author paints a clear picture of what the Veil looks like and I was easily able to imagine this new place and how Lexie's actions affected the ghostly realm. Characters are also described in detail, though sometimes the descriptions were almost excessively detailed.
When the Dead Come A Knockin' is much longer than the first book (over 400 pages!) but the story moves quickly and I hardly noticed the time passing. The book is well paced and there are plenty of scenes with fun and laughter interspersed among the moments of drama, danger, and struggle. The book ends on a melancholy note, but the epilogue and two chapters from the guys' (Asher and Miles) points of view lifts the tone a bit and hints that the platonic friends-only dynamic between Lexie and all the guys might start changing in book 3.
While there were many things I liked about this novel, there were still some issues that detracted from my reading experience. To begin, there were still the same issues with paragraphs, punctuation, and grammar that I saw in the first book. There is an improvement in paragraph organization in this book compared to the first, but some paragraphs were still too lengthy and dialogue sometimes gets lost in the paragraphs. There were also some inconsistencies in the story, like it being Thursday at the beginning of a chapter and then one paragraph later, Lexie is waking up on Saturday, or Lexie being so surprised that the guys can see a ghost at one point when it is not the first time it has happened (they saw the really evil ghost when she haunted them in Miles' living room in book 1).
Additionally, there is the issue of Lexie's coffee consumption, which goes to the extreme at one point in this book and results in the guys pinning her down to try and make her nap (a scene which seemed too excessive and not well justified, in my opinion). As I pointed out in my review of the first book, Lexie's coffee addiction goes well beyond the safe and healthy limits. There are several times where she easily drinks enough coffee to give a grown man a caffeine overdose.
Lastly, I was not a fan of how the guys' girlfriends are portrayed. With the exception of one, they all hate Lexie and act really nasty. While the main characters are well developed, the side characters either end up falling in the pro-Lexie camp and are really nice and great or in the anti-Lexie camp and are horribly mean and petty. I wish there was a little more development of the side characters so that they could be as interesting as Lexie and the guys.
Even though When the Dead Come A Knockin' needs some more editing, it is still worth reading. It's an interesting story with engaging characters and I look forward to seeing what happens next in the following book in the series.
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