What I've Been Reading:'Dead Sky Morning' by Karina Halle

I adore the Experiment in Terror series by Karina Halle, I really do. It has everything. A kick-ass female protagonist, her snarky looney tunes colleague, ghostly goings-on, some seriously cool locations (a former leper colony for example) and a creepy clown lady. I mean what more could you want from a series? Plus, I think one of the things I really like about these books is that they're not just another vampire series. They're much more rooted in reality, in the real world. Okay, I know there are ghosts. But who the heck knows if ghosts are real... Perry and Dex might just have hit on something.

Anyway, 'Dead Sky Morning' is the third installment in the series, and for me it was a return to the things I loved about the first book in the series - real danger, some interesting history, and of course that old sexual tension between Perry and Dex. And without getting too close to spoiler territory, lets just say the sexual tension gets cranked up to the next level in this novel.

For the fourth episode of their web series, Dex is dragging Perry off to D'Arcy Island, a former Chinese leper colony. Now, intrigued by the story, I googled it (yeah I'm a geek, so shoot me) and discovered that D'Arcy Island is as real as they come. Which of course makes me love the book even more for being factually accurate...

So, Perry and Dex take a boat out to D'Arcy Island and anchor the boat as securely as they can manage on an island that is notorious for its dangerous approach and lack of safe docking area. And they hike to a campsite on the other side of the island. You know they're heading for trouble when the killer raccoons appear, or possibly before then when Perry sees someone watching her from the shores of the supposedly empty island. But then it wouldn't be an Experiment in Terror novel if there wasn't some peril involved.

And in this book it comes in the form of Mary, probably the creepiest damn dead woman I've ever had the displeasure of meeting in a novel. The ghost of a missionary woman, she has her own dirty secrets that keep her bound to the island and intent on stopping Perry and Dex from getting away. But we can't forget the mysterious coffins that wash up on shore, and the bizarre flash-mob Deer. The tension in this novel comes in wave after wave, cranking up notch by notch until you can hardly bear to read on. It was nail-biting, eye-covering, lip-chewing tension. And I loved it!

4/5