3.5 Spooky Stars

Like most of the people who have read the first three books of this series I was waiting and anticipating the release of this one. Due to personal reasons Amanda Stevens wasn't able to release the fourth installment of the Graveyard Queen sooner so 4 years went down between the last one and the fourth book. Unfortunately this was not in favor of the story. I totally should have re-read the other ones first. However, the key points came back to me while reading.

Ms. Stevens has yet again created an atmospheric story, set in the lush South of the US, Charleston, SC. The descriptions of landscape and situations are full of the beautiful mood and gloom you can find only there. The story itself is as always focused on the mystery and on Amelia's gift. It is creepier than the last ones and it spooked me quite a bit - for all those factors it receives high marks in my book.

Unfortunately Amelia's relationship with Devlin fell flat for me. After the build up in the prior stories I expected that they'd grow together...all I found though were insecurities and distrust on both accounts, which went so far that I was starting to ask myself what they saw in each other? Why were they together? Did they even have good times during which they'd bond? I don't think there was any situation in which they weren't dead serious and actually laughing about a joke.  Yes, their relationship is highly complicated but even then...there was nothing tangible that made me root for them.

Amelia with her inner monologue kept saying how they were close one moment and then distanced the next. I didn't feel the closeness...to me those were two strangers trying at something they couldn't grasp because they didn't bond and connect on an emotional level.

While I said that the focus was on the mystery I still expected some romance which was simply lacking. Finally Ms. Amanda Stevens left us hanging with somewhat of a cliffy. I hope that she can resolve it in the next book which of course I'll definitely read again!