Early Review: The Prophet by Amanda Stevens
The Prophet by Amanda Stevens
Graveyard Queen #3
My name is Amelia Gray.I
am the Graveyard Queen, a cemetery restorer who sees ghosts. My father
passed down four rules to keep me safe and I've broken every last one. A
door has opened and evil wants me back. In order to protect myself, I've
vowed to return to those rules. But the ghost of a murdered cop needs
my help to find his killer. The clues lead me to the dark side of
Charleston—where witchcraft, root doctors and black magic still
flourish—and back to John Devlin, a haunted police detective I should
only love from afar. Now I'm faced with a terrible choice: follow the
rules or follow my heart.
After the ordeal of narrowly escaping the revelations from her past in the small town of Asher Falls, Amelia was very eager to be back home. Unfortunately, things aren't much safer as no matter where she goes, the evil will never stop trying to consume her. She's got a ghost tied to her, demanding his killer be found or he will continue to drain her energy. To make matters worse, John Devlin is back in her life despite her vow to stay away from him and his ghosts. And this time she may not have the strength to walk away again, even if it means her life.
The creepy factor was severely lacking in The Prophet compared to the two previous installments. In fact it seemed to focus more on Amelia's inner turmoil over her attraction to Devlin as well as her fear at abandoning Papa's rules. The latter really started to grate on me after a while because she just kept worrying over it continuously. I guess I just found this to be a little frustrating since she had already made the irreversible decisions to break those protective rules by directly helping ghosts. I just wish she would have accepted that fact and moved on the best that she could, especially since she continues to break the rules. It isn't like she wasn't warned, nor can she go back to that bubble of safety, so I just think it's more than time at this point to put her big girl panties on and accept the way thing are. Perhaps I am being a little hard on Amelia, but I just miss the iron strength she displayed in the first installment and into the second. I'd love to see that Amelia come back with a vengeance.
In the first and second books all I wanted was for Amelia to get together with Devlin. I just found him to be so yummy despite his baggage and secrecy. Now, however I am really not sure. In The Prophet, Devlin is the same as he has ever been, but Amelia is definitely not. I really just don't care for the person she becomes around him. She loses all of her self-confidence, and to be honest becomes rather weak. I understand she has a soft spot for him, and really cannot resist him, but that doesn't mean she had to become quite so needy. It just seemed completely out of character, and made it really hard to support her.
While The Prophet was still an enjoyable read, I just wasn't as sucked into things as I had been in the previous installments. In fact I found myself easily distracted at times, and I kept walking away from it Between the lack of the expected creepy factor, the repetitiveness of her angsting over papa's rules and the change in Amelia, it was really hard to stay attached. However, that being said, based on the ending of The Prophet, I have a feeling those issues won't be a problem in the next installment. In fact, I'm still rather anxious to get my hands on the next book as this series is still quite phenomenal despite my frustrations this time around. In all honesty, if it had not been for the very high bar set by the previous installments, The Prophet probably would have earned a higher rating from me. So, putting all that aside, The Prophet was an enjoyable read in the stellar Graveyard Queen series that fans won't want to miss for the long running subplot resolutions.
(Received a copy from Netgalley)
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