A Book Obsession..: One Grave at a Time

One Grave at a Time

, by Kt Clapsadl

One Grave at a Time by Jeaniene Frost

Night Huntress #6

The grave is one wrong step away.

Having narrowly averted an (under)world war, Cat Crawfield wants nothing more than a little downtime with her vampire husband, Bones. Unfortunately, her gift from New Orleans' voodoo queen just keeps on giving--leading to a personal favor that sends them into battle once again, this time against a villainous spirit.

Centuries ago, Heinrich Kramer was a witch hunter. Now, every All Hallows Eve, he takes physical form to torture innocent women before burning them alive. This year, however, a determined Cat and Bones must risk all to send him back to the other side of eternity--forever. But how do you kill a killer who's already long dead?

In the previous book, vampires and ghouls had been on the very brink of war, so now that things have calmed down, Cat wants nothing more than to spend some quality time with Bones. Of course she should have known that Marie Laveau's unwanted gift wouldn't go away without causing a little havoc first. When she learns of a murderous ghost set to strike yet again, she knows this is one battle she cannot walk away from as she has the perfect weapon against it.. Or does she?

One Grave at a Time had a very different feel to it than its predecessors. In a typical Cat and Bones book there is plenty of high stakes, serious romantic tension, and steamy sex. In One Grave at Time, the former two were practically non-existent, and while the latter was there, it was in much smaller doses than previously established. Usually the heat between Bones and Cat's interactions scalds right off the pages. However in this book, those extracurricular activities were much less frequent and just didn't seem to have the same spark as before. Perhaps I'm just holding them to a higher standard because of past examples, but I still found it all to be a little lacking. I'm really hoping the future books will show them back in that aspect, as I never thought a sex scene with Bones could have been described as ordinary, and I'm afraid this may just damage my mental picture of him if it continues.

I had a hard time feeling the sense of real danger and high stakes from the issues in this book. If anything, the subplot with her old team felt more of an issue to me than the major one with ghost. Throughout the entire book that ghost proved just how much of a threat he was, and yet I had a hard time feeling the danger. For some reason it all just felt repetitive as they just seemed to be having the same confrontation over and over again. I found myself caring much more about that subplot issue more than the danger "at hand." Perhaps the lacking sense of real danger had to do with the fact that the stakes weren't really high to them personally. Of course they wanted to stop the evil this man this ghost was committing, but when it all comes down to it they could have walked away without any real personal conflicts, lessening the overall risk in my opinion. I guess I would have been more invested if things had hit a little closer to home.

This will be the first Cat and Bones book that I will be giving less than a perfect rating for. I'm still rating it a four because One Grave at a Time was still very enjoyable, it just wasn't quite up to par with the previous books. That being said, the major set up for future books dealing with the subplot I previously mentioned, left me more than intrigued, and I cannot wait to see where that all leads. I have a feeling things will be back as far as the high stakes I've come to expect from this series. So while I can't say that One Grave at a Time would be my top pick of all the books, it still will go on my keeper shelf.

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