Format: Kindle, 266 pages
Release Date: April 18, 2024
Publisher: Black Dog Books, LLC
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Genre: New Adult / Fantasy
Forgot to feed your goldfish before your untimely demise? Need to jot down a will? Say a goodbye? See the Grand Canyon? Then come visit us at The Body Shop, where unfinished business is our business.
Mary Frances Talbot—Frankie—is a necromancer, probably. Hard to say since she never met her parents. She can see the dead, talk to the dead, and a few other things that aren’t strictly legal. It’s fine. No worries. As long as she doesn’t get caught.
The whole not getting caught thing was going well until Samuel Harrow blew back into town wearing a Savannah Police Department uniform. He might be a witch, but he hates magic. He’s not a fan of Frankie either. Which explains why he’s her ex.
When Frankie’s less than legal side gigs result in dead vampires, she knows she’s in trouble. Big trouble. And that’s before Harrow offers to help. With him waving a Get Out of Jail Free card in her face, Frankie doesn’t have much choice but to accept.
But that doesn’t mean she has to forgive. She’ll certainly never forget him breaking her heart or turning her over to the police or... Yeah. They were doomed from the start. Something tells her this investigation will be too.
Mary Frances Talbot—Frankie—is a necromancer, probably. Hard to say since she never met her parents. She can see the dead, talk to the dead, and a few other things that aren’t strictly legal. It’s fine. No worries. As long as she doesn’t get caught.
The whole not getting caught thing was going well until Samuel Harrow blew back into town wearing a Savannah Police Department uniform. He might be a witch, but he hates magic. He’s not a fan of Frankie either. Which explains why he’s her ex.
When Frankie’s less than legal side gigs result in dead vampires, she knows she’s in trouble. Big trouble. And that’s before Harrow offers to help. With him waving a Get Out of Jail Free card in her face, Frankie doesn’t have much choice but to accept.
But that doesn’t mean she has to forgive. She’ll certainly never forget him breaking her heart or turning her over to the police or... Yeah. They were doomed from the start. Something tells her this investigation will be too.
Fair Market Value is the first installment in author Hailey Edwards' The Body Shop series. This is a brand-new series with a new cast of characters. The cast of characters includes Mary Francis Talbot aka Frankie (Necromancer), Josie Talbot (Dryad), Matty Talbot (Onerios), Samuel Harrow (Witch), and Carter (Redcap). The story is set in and around Savannah, Georgia. Frankie is a necromancer, probably. Hard to say since she never met her parents. She, like Josie, and Matty were orphans who grew up together and escaped to form their own family unit.
Frankie can see the dead, talk to the dead, and do a few other things that aren’t strictly legal. It’s fine. No worries. As long as she doesn’t get caught. Frankie has created her own rules for her business: Do No Harm, Break No Laws, Honor the Donor, Secrecy is Key, and No Physical Acts of Intimacy. Frankie's business literally says that if you have unfinished business, and want to have some additional time, she will loan out a magical preserved body for spirits.
Necromancers are normally governed by the Society for Post-Life Management, but Frankie and the Society have a love-hate relationship. She hates them with a passion. Things seem to be going well. The siblings even have their own auto shop to generate money. That is until a loaner appears to have killed a vampire, and the return of one Samuel Harrow, Frankie's ex. Samuel, now with the Savannah Police, once hated magic, but now appears to have come to use it in his new position as part of a new group.
Harrow offers to help. With him waving a Get Out of Jail Free card in her face, Frankie doesn’t have much choice but to accept. Harrow works for a group known as 514 aka the Unmentionables along with Carter who seems to quickly take to Frankie and Josie. There's not a whole lot I can say about the group since they seem to be entirely focused on Frankie's abilities and her curious relationship to a mysterious character named Kierce.
But when it appears that spirits in several cemeteries have also disappeared, it makes Kierce worried, and for very good reasons. There are a few surprises at the end of this story that seem to have resolved open questions about villains. Frankie and Kierce have a curious relationship, and I have to ask if this is going to be a triangle with Harrow, or will the author focus on only one aspect? Josie being a dryad comes with plenty of interesting storylines. Matty being a oneiro means that he spends most of his time in people's dreams.
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