Book Review of Queen of the Dead by Stacey Kade

Title:  Queen of the Dead

Author:  Stacey Kade

Release Date:  May 31st, 2011

Genre:  Young Adult Paranormal

After being sent back from the light, Alona Dare – former homecoming queen, current Queen of the Dead – finds herself doing something she never expected: working. Instead of spending days perfecting her tan by the pool (her typical summer routine when she was, you know, alive), Alona must now cater to the needs of other lost spirits. By her side for all of this - ugh - “helping of others” is Will Killian: social outcast, seer of the dead, and someone Alona cares about more than she’d like.

Before Alona can make a final ruling on Will’s “friend” or “more” status, though, she discovers trouble at home. Her mom is tossing out Alona’s most valuable possessions, and her dad is expecting a new daughter with his wicked wife. Is it possible her family is already moving on? Hello! She’s only been dead for two months! Thankfully, Alona knows just the guy who can put a stop to this mess.

Unfortunately for Alona, Will has other stuff on his mind, and Mina, a young (and beautiful) seer, is at the top of the list. She’s the first ghost-talker Will’s ever met—aside from his father—and she may hold answers to Will’s troubled past. But can she be trusted? Alona immediately puts a check mark in the “clearly not” column. But Will is - ahem - willing to find out, even if it means leaving a hurt and angry Alona to her own devices, which is never a good idea.

Summary from Goodreads.com

My Review: I fell in love with Will and Alona in The Ghost and the Goth (review here) and reading Queen of the Dead  just affirmed my love of this series.   This book is a perfect case of opposites attracting, the Goth guy and the homecoming queen.  When I first read the summary for this series I did not see how that was going to work, but Alona dying and Will being able to see ghosts shoves these two together.  In The Ghost and the Goth they are forced to learn more about each other and now that they have, they like what they see.

In Queen of the Dead we get to explore the relationship with Will and Alona, which was so sweet.  They pretend to not really care, but these two are having a hard time keeping their hands off each other.  Things quickly take a turn, however, when Will meets another person who can see ghosts like him.  He is swept into a world he is not familiar with and is anxious to learn more information about others like him.  Alona is not so happy about this new revelation and it quickly causes tension between her and Will.

I have found that some young adult paranormal books have characters constantly bickering in book two and sulking without the other, which is extremely annoying, but this is not the case with Queen of the Dead.  Does Alona have some issues to work through? Yes.  Does Will need to find out more information about people who are like him?  Yes.  During the course of this book those are the topics they address and while they were doing it separately, I did not miss the two of them together.  They need to be apart to work through their feelings and discover more about themselves.  Alona and Will spending time away from each other felt like the naturally progression for this book and therefore I was not upset when those events occurred.

One of my favorite things about this series is the dialogue between Alona and Will and how real it always feels.  They talk to each other like the teenagers today actually would.  They are not afraid to curse, speak their mind, or act awkward when they need to share their feelings.  Their language and their actions make the story more believable and I have always appreciated the way Stacey has managed to do that.

Overall, I love this series.  Even though the ending of this book is killing me!  I did not see the situation unfolding this way and I have no idea how Stacey is going to wrap this all up.  All I know is I am on the edge of my seat dying to see what happens next.  I am not sure when the next book comes out, but I know I am already itching to get my hands on it!

FTC:  I received this ARC from the publisher.