June 9, 2013

Review - Dead on the Delta

Dead on the Delta 
Stacey Jay

Released: 31 May, 2011

Pocket Books, Mass Market, 400p.
ISBN: 9781439189863

From the author's website:

Once upon a time, fairies were the stuff of bedtime stories and sweet dreams. Then came the mutations, and the dreams became nightmares. Mosquito-size fairies now indulge their taste for human blood—and for most humans, a fairy bite means insanity or death.

Luckily, Annabelle Lee isn’t most humans. The hard-drinking, smart-mouthed, bicycle-riding redhead is immune to fairy venom, and able to do the dirty work most humans can’t. Including helping law enforcement— and Cane Cooper, the bayou’s sexiest detective—collect evidence when a body is discovered outside the fairy-proof barricades of her Louisiana town.

But Annabelle isn’t equipped to deal with the murder of a six-year-old girl or a former lover-turned-FBI snob taking an interest in the case. Suddenly her already bumpy relationship with Cane turns even rockier, and even the most trust-worthy friends become suspects. Annabelle’s life is imploding: between relationship drama, a heartbreaking murder investigation, Breeze-crazed drug runners, and a few too many rum and Cokes, Annabelle is a woman on the run—from her past, toward her future, and into the arms of a darkness waiting just for her. . . .


This is book one in a series, and although I found the overall ideas to be great - feral faeries that kill... ha! - there was just no getting around the fact that I didn't quite like our inept, inebriated, and mostly zonked on whatever-meds-she-can-find heroine.  Seriously, I really want to connect with, or at least care about, the characters I'm following.  However, with Annabelle, I just wanted to give her a good scrubbing down, dose her up with some strong black coffee - and then kick her butt!

Okay, so she has a screwed up past.  So what?  So do a lot of other really great characters - and those books are great!  But I digress.  Annabelle's life is stagnant, until the murder of a local girl draws ex-boyfriend to town as part of an FBI investigation.  Hitch is an hot, arrogant, potentially-cheating, so and so, who blows into town with his partner (in every sense of the word), Stephanie, who is the current lover looking to get revenge on the ex.  Add to the mix rabid faeries, Breeze-heads (drug addicts), weird supporting characters and a current sort-of boyfriend who also happens to be one of the cops investigating the murder and you have a whole lot of crazy packed into a book.

The one saving grace in my mind, apart from Gimpy the Cat, was the Invisible Man and Tucker.  They have added a dash of mystery to the story and I will be checking out book 2 just to see what their deal is.  I know I have dumped on Dead on the Delta, but there is so much potential in this series.  I hope that Annabelle starts to figure out her life in book 2 so I can give it the review I would so love to.  So, having given this book low rating, I will try this book again at a later date - just to see if it's as bad as I think is was, or if I'm just having an off day?  But for how it's going on the bottom of the bookshelf.  If you like you're gals pretty messed up, then Annabelle is for you.