Charley Davidson – A year ago, I met my second Charley

How time flies! It was a year ago that I was either anxiously waiting for a call from the library to tell me they’d received my books or devouring one of the Charley Davidson books. To be frank, waiting for the library is the reason it took me over a month to read the whole 13 books of the series.

Flashback to a little over a year ago…

I had just finished my yearly reread of the Dr. Charlotte Stone series (whose review you can read here) and as is custom, I was talking about it with my friend Lyne, telling her that despite having read the last book of that series I don’t know how many times (five, I think), I still bawl my eyes out at a certain scene in the fourth book.

That’s when she mentions that she is reading this series, which makes her think of that one a little, with the main character also called Charlotte and also seeing dead people. So my curiosity was piqued and I searched for it, but because I didn’t want to make the same mistake I’d made countless times (buying a book and not liking it at all), and because I was seriously piss poor, I checked with my library, and they had the first two!

Irreversibly hooked

So I went and borrowed them. From the first couple of pages of the first book, I was completely and irreversibly hooked.

What’s not to love? Charley is clumsy but strong, has little to no filter, names everything she can (I still want a George!), is a total coffee addict, and is The Grim Reaper on top of being an independent PI.

Add to that her best friend, Cookie (and her daughter, Amber), her Uncle Bob (or Ubie), a pubescent dead teen named Angel, a drop dead gorgeous skiptracer, a bunch of sexy bikers, the hovering and never talking Mr. Wong, Aunt Lilian, a sexy demon wearing a top hat, her father and sister, her crazy stepmother… and Reyes, the man of her dreams (literally), and you are in for 13 books, a short story, and now two (soon three) novellas of complete and incredible adventures.

What got me so into those books? How human the characters are. Cookie is the BFF we all want to have, Ubie is one of my favourite father figures, Amber is a 12 going on 40 tween. And Reyes is the book boyfriend we all need.

There is also a lo-hot of humour, sometimes to the point of stopping your read because you simply can’t stop laughing. There were also a few times when I had to stop my reading because I couldn’t stop crying, which especially happened in the last book.

It was my first foray into Darynda Jones’s writing, but definitely not my last! Those books are perfectly awesome, as a first read or as many subsequent rereads. A complete must!

Although I’m warning you all: the sexy times are extremely sexy (so if you don’t like sex scenes in a book, the series is not for you), and Reyes’s story (Brighter Than The Sun) is extremely difficult to read, emotionally.