Book Review: “That the Dead May Rest” & “Knock Out”

About That the Dead May Rest

After a life of peril and fear, Millie has reached the peace, beauty, and security of the afterlife. But one day, when she is performing her glad duty of welcoming a new spirit, that spirit recoils from her in horror — because her body had become a zombie, and had brutally killed him.

As more spirits make the same terrible discovery, they ask themselves, and each other: is this somehow my fault? When will it end? And finally: what can we do? Is there something we can do to stop this?

And are there people among the living who can help them to do it?

Purchase Link: https://www.amazon.com/That-Dead-Rest-Karen-Wyle-ebook/dp/B0FLRK4VC1

My Review of That the Dead May Rest

I received a digital review copy of That the Dead May Rest, by Karen A. Wyle through Sandra’s Book Club review program. All opinions stated here are my own.

This multiple P.O.V. story has a lot of telling, rather than showing, and the number of characters made it difficult for me to relate with any of them, or even keep track of who is who. I had to stop reading and pull out of the story multiple times to go back and figure out which character’s head I’m in at the moment. This made it difficult to really care about what happens to them, as well. I think the only way this tale could be told is from multiple P.O.V.s, so the author had the right idea, but as a reader, I needed to be able to invest in at least one or two of the characters, and I didn’t get to know them well enough to be able to do that. I didn’t feel the character’s fear, or grief, or pain, but I knew they were feeling these things because the characters expressed how awful these feelings were for them.

I believe the cover was what drew me to this book. At first, I thought I had picked up a typical zombie story, but this book is definitely not that. Although, there are zombies, the characters, alive or dead, just talk about the zombie attacks rather than being attacked themselves. In fact, zombies only make appearances a few times. But we know they are there, because the characters tell us they are. That may have made it more difficult for me to take the gravity of the situation more seriously.

It actually isn’t a bad story line, but the author could have done so much more with it. The ghosts are quite disturbed when they discover their former bodies are rising from their graves and attacking people. The living are slow to make the connection between what’s happening and zombie activity, and at first write it off as ‘mysterious creature attacks’. If I could have felt the anger of living characters who lost loved ones to the attacks, or been able to feel the horror at learning the character’s former body had done such a hideous thing, I could have rooted for them and cheered as they came closer to reaching their goals had they behaved in a manner that communicated their feelings instead of just telling me about it.

The ghosts/spirits reach out to the living, and they join forces to find a solution. The afterlife should not be so stressful and something must be done. But, what is causing these vile creatures, and how do you stop a zombie epidemic? There are several ideas from the members of the group, both alive and dead. This is the tale of their quest to help the living to live and allow the dead to rest.

While the story line is original, the multiple points of view made it a bit confusing, and I had difficulty getting into the story and relating with the characters. I give That the Dead May Rest three quills.

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About Knock Out

In this action mystery thriller series by #1 bestseller Mia Gold (whose books have over 5,000 five-star ratings), Holly Hands, 29, single mom and former boxing pro turned Repo Woman, lives in the bad slice of Baltimore and dreams of getting the medical treatment her daughter desperately needs. But when she discovers a dead body in her trunk during a routine repo job, Holly has to tap into her fighting skills to solve the mystery. Hunt down the killer, and save her from a wrongful conviction that would take her away from her daughter…

Purchase Link: https://www.amazon.com/Knockout-Holly-Hands-Cozy-Mystery-Book-ebook/dp/B08K9CYX9Q

My Review of Knock Out

I purchased Knock Out, by Mia Gold as a Bookbub bargain on a day when I felt like reading out of my norm as an impulse buy. All opinions stated here are my own.

A quick glance at the title led me to believe the book was about boxing. Boxing is one of my least favorite sports, so the boxing world always feels quite alien to me. I surprised myself when I purchased this book, and I’m glad that I did. Knock Out is book 1 in Mia Gold’s Holly Hands Mystery series.

I was pleasantly surprised when I started reading, to discover that Holly Hands is a single mother and ex-boxer, who has been suspended for taking a dive in the ring because her daughter needs a series of expensive operations. Our heroine did something wrong for all the right reasons, so we can empathize with her when she discovers it was all for nothing. The loan shark who agreed to pay for her to lose is nowhere to be found, her boxing career is down the toilet, and she still can’t pay for the procedures her daughter, Olivia desperately needs.

In her search for the lying loan shark, she turns to an acquaintance from school, who has pull in all the right circles, and he agrees to help her find him if she’ll come to work for him as a ‘ repo agent’, offering the suspended boxer another opportunity to get the money for the needed operations. On her first job repossessing a car, she gets pulled over and police find a body in the trunk, and they are looking at her as a murder suspect. She must find the real killer to clear her name, sending her on a mission looking for clues to what really happened to the murder victim.

I really liked Gold’s complex characters, like Holly Hands, the fighter, who was raised in a family of fighters and managed to hold her own against her two brothers, yet has a soft spot in her heart for big sad looking dogs and her eight-year-old daughter. At the same time, she’s a struggling single mother with an ill child, who will do whatever it takes to heal Olivia and give her a better life. As a repo agent, she walks a fine line between legal and illegal activity as she maneuvers her way through the local criminal elements, and in her spare time she searches for a killer, coming up against some dangerous people along the way. You can’t help but like her, and she’d a fun character that you want to root for. Holly strikes me as a female James Rockford, (James Garner’s character in The Rockford Files); always falling into unexpected situations and coming up with solutions by the skin of her teeth.

No spoilers, but to say that by the end of the book, the author had each subplot wrapped up nicely while wrapping up with a hint that finding the lying loan shark may be just around the corner in the second book in the series. And since I had been rooting for Holly throughout the entire book, I definitely wanted to see that main storyline through to the end. I may have to buy the second book, so this book does what every series writer hopes for: readers to want more.

A wonderful amateur detective mystery. I give Knock Out five quills.

About Kaye Lynne Booth

For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets; Books 1 & 2 of her Women in the West adventure series, Delilah and Sarah, and book 1 in her Time-Travel Adventure series, The Rock Star & The Outlaw, as well as her poetry collection, Small Wonders and The D.I.Y. Author writing resource.

Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press, where she edits and publishes two short fiction anthologies and one poetry anthology every year amidst her many writing projects. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.

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Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? You can request a review on the Book Review tab above.