Interesting premise, interesting choice of characters, and clever plotting. Somehow, the novel ended up...well, a little dull. I love Rachel Caine's novels, and maybe I came into this one expecting a little too much. I felt that there was very little sense of control, or order, throughout the story, and while the plot twists were surprising, there was a lack of direction or focus. I also felt that I never really saw much character development, especially in regards to Bryn or Patrick. So although the book was fast paced and potentially engaging, the blandness of the characters and the disordered plot left me dissatisfied. ( )

Good start on the series. ( )

Was well done, but the constant reminders of how very dead she was were creepy. I was ok with the real dead bodies but the images of what could happen to her...gross. It wasn't gratuitous or anything, but that really isn't my style, so I probably won't continue the series unless I decide to skim some of those descriptions in the future. Other than that, it was a solid, fun read. ( )

Initially, I thought I'd found in "Working Stiff" a new Urban Fantasy series to carry me through this year. The twist on the zombie trope was original, the ex-soldier, aspiring Funeral Director female lead seemed promising and the dead were handled in a way that seemed factual and emotionally distant without becoming weird.

The plot continued to twist and turn and our heroine found herself in peril in many places and from many people. Things should have been good, Then everything started to sag. The story dragged. Routine romantic elements were added that developed neither the plot nor the characters. New characters, important to moving the plot along, popped up rapidly and with little explanation. None of the characters really developed beyond the pen-sketch level.

The book had the potential to be very dark, The main character is confronted with the very real prospect of slowly rotting to death. The process is described in some detail. The people making the threats are deeply unpleasant. Yet the novel kept drifting in a current of light banter and hate-him/love-him superficial romance.

I persisted to the end because the novel always felt like it was on the edge of realising its potential. Then I realised that I reading an extended pilot episode, intended to set up a season of novels, which meant the denouement, while plausible, didn't grant me any i sense of resolution.

Overall, this felt like a sponge that has failed to rise, a little too doughy and undercooked to be satisfying. At the moment, even though the set-up for the series is intriguing, I'm not inclined to add the next two Revalist books to my TBR pile.

( )

I have read other books by this author and loved them. Currently fascinated by The Great Library series. I would almost think this deadly dull, confusing and not at all intriguing storyline written by someone else entirely. I barely finished before my 21day borrow period was up. In contrast I read Ink and Bone by her in 4 hours. Make what you will of that. ( )

Ex-soldier Bryn Davis is starting her new job as a funeral director when she has a very bad case of "wrong place at the wrong time." Killed, then revived by a corporate agent and his company's miracle drug, Bryn gets to stay alive, via daily injection of this drug, as long as she's useful to them. Bryn's zombification is almost an afterthought, something that she thinks about and that can be used against her, but for the most part the talents she had as a soldier are the talents she uses to save the day and keep herself alive. ( )

Working Stiff
4.5 Stars

I'm not really a fan of Zombies but Caine's version is unique and compelling. The plot is excellent with numerous unpredictable twists and turns and the heroine comes across as very real despite her circumstances.

The books deals with some interesting concepts, such as the idea of death as a business and the types of people involved in the funeral industry. It also offers a criticism of the cold, corporate entity willing to do anything for the bottom line and a government more interested in a cover up than justice.

Bryn is a likable heroine, which is important as the entire story is told from her 3rd person limited point of view. She is intelligent and resourceful although the inconsistency between her military training and the fact that she is constantly getting beaten up and knocked unconscious is often very jarring.

The love interest isn't immediately obvious and I will keep his identity a secret so as not to ruin the effect. However, once their attraction becomes clear, Bryn's relationship with the mysterious and enigmatic hero builds slowly but surely, and is quite satisfying overall (once you get past the slightly icky necrophilia issue).

The secondary characters, from the revolting morgue attendant to the high powered, cold hearted business executive to the obsessive-compulsive paranoid genius and is cute sidekick, are all well developed and contribute to the fascinating world Caine has introduced.

In sum, my first foray into Rachel Caine's writing has been a unadulterated success and I look forward to continuing both this series and looking into some of her others. ( )

Although I wasn't completely blown away by this book it was a really good book with an interesting twist on the zombie trend within the Urban Fantasy genre.

What worked for me: The tone of the book is set at a pretty dark pace which worked for this story. There are no rainbows and butterflies found in this book. It is a book about death and the corruption involved when humans control whether people die and stay dead or become undead.

Our characters are quite complex from our heroine to our (maybe) hero. The bad guys are very nasty and the good guys live in a gray area where you constantly wonder if they are good or bad. Bryn is a capable heroine with a military background and an ability to work with the dead from a mortuary standpoint. The secondary characters are well developed and I'm looking forward to seeing more of them in the second book.

There were enough twists and turns within the book to keep me more than interested and I couldn't help but connect with Bryn in her need to stay alive while other people used her as their puppet.

What didn't work for me: The fact that Bryn had quite a military background yet seemed to have no survival skills unless she had a gun in her hand. I was getting quite tired of her constantly getting smashed in the head or face, getting knocked out and/or walking into situations blindly with no apparent strategy.

The fact that this book introduced a romance between reanimated Bryn and a fully alive man boarders on the ick. The only way I was able to go with it was to keep reminding myself that Bryn was not a traditional rotting brain eating zombie. The drug that Bryn has to take every day keeps her organs working or as Caine said "The drug maintains you. It doesn't bring you back to life, just supports your vital functions. If you wanted to get poetic, I'd say it replaces your soul." So, without getting into theological debates, essentially while Bryn is taking the drug she is, in fact, alive.

Overall: A book that won't appeal to everyone but for myself, it worked. I liked the darker path Caine took with this book and my inner psycho loved every gory scene. I am looking forward to the second book in this series. ( )

A new zombie (life-impaired) series from the author of the "Weather Warden" series. I always enjoy Rachel Caine's writing; her conversations between characters never seem forced or too "exposition-y," even when they are giving lots of background information.
Lots of mysterious cabals, like in the Weather Warden series, and some cabals behind the cabals. One character seems straight from The Lone Gunmen profiles on the X-Files- I can hear his voice with Dean Hanglund's Langly tones behind it.
Good intro to the universe, plot twists, shady backgrounds, and a bulldog named Mr. French.
Hope our local library has Book Two. ( )

This was one of those extremely gripping and chilling conspiracy thrillers with excellent characters, pace and world-building. Why then 4 stars and not higher? you would ask.

To put it simply, I'm squeamish. I love zombie novels, but my perfect zombie is someone who I can kill away as a mindless monster. You know, like in Zombieland?

Bryn, the main character, dies on her first day at a new job as a funeral director simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Her boss is selling this new powerful drug from a medical corporation Pharmadene, which literally can revive the dead to the same age and perfect condition when they died.He does it under the table, and the corporation investigates him to find the leak - his supplier. All clients are recently dead who agreed to pay extortionate sums of money just to keep living.

Bryn stumbles onto one such transaction and in a struggle of a corporation security team bust she is killed and revived for an interrogation. The catch is she has to prove her worth to keep on getting injections of Revive once a day and keep on living. If you miss just one dose you body starts decomposing... but the subjects can't die easily unless they are dismembered or incinerated...

You remember that black comedy with Bruce Willis, Death Becomes Her?

This book is very much like it.

Only there is not an ounce of paranormal, and Bryn's situation is truly horrific. At one point the sadistic corporation vice-president decides that she doesn't need her anymore and wants her to die naturally while she records the process, and you go through all the pains of decomposition with Bryn...

I truly felt for her and admired her sheer will to keep plodding along no matter what.

However in all this the attraction of McCallister, her overseer, to Bryn was making me feel slightly queasy.

All in all, this is intense and gripping story which I hope to God will never happen in real life. There is much more to it than I mentioned and I really recommend it. It just wasn't exactly right for my constitution, which doesn't mean you'll feel the same way.

( )

Working Stiff

The Characters

Bryn Davis
Patrick McCallister

The Story

There is so much going on in this story. It all starts when Bryn is caught up in a crazy scheme and ends up being ugh…. less than alive. Like a lot less. Like really she’s dead and being revived by a drug. A drug that’s causing a lot of problems. Problems Bryn has to clean up. Of course that is never an easy task.

This was an excellent read (er.. listen). The narrator was great. The story itself was excellent. Rachel Caine’s imagination never ceases to amaze me.


The Random Thoughts

I’m so mad that neither my library nor Scribd has the next installment.

4 Stars ( )

4 ½ Stars

This review is also published at http://thebookaholiccat.com

After a four-year tour in Irak, Bryn Davis is ready to go back to a civilian life and is very happy to start her new job as a funeral director at Fairview Mortuary. But her first day on the job turns in matter of hours from wanting to impress her boss to fighting for her life and losing the battle.
The last thing Bryn could have imagined was that her boss was trafficking a new and illegal drug call Returné, a drug that could bring a person back from the death. But for that person to stay “alive” he/she needs to receive a daily maintenance dose, if doses are missed the body will start to slowly decompose; without receiving the dose a revived person could last up to 6 days until his/her body completely decompose. While this process is going on the person would be conscious and cognizant all the time until him/she finds his/her final death.
Joe Fideli works for Pharmadene, the company that created Returné. He is investigating the trafficking of the drug and his investigation leads him to Fairview, where he crosses paths with Bryn during the day, but when he returns at night to investigate he confronts and kills Mr. Fairview and his accomplice and finds Bryn dead. Joe takes Bryn to Pharmadene, where she is given Returné and is brought back to “life”.
Now Bryn awakes to find herself undead and in a daily need of Returné. Pharmadene offers her a deal; they will give her the drug in exchange for her help catching the person who was giving Returné to Mr. Fairview. Bryn doesn’t have any other option than to accept their offer, her “life” is literally in Pharmadene’s hands. Bryn is supposed to pass as Mr. Fairview niece and heir of the Mortuary and wait for this person to contact her and help Pharmadene to apprehend him/her, she will be working in the Mortuary with Joe Fideli and Patrick McCallister will be her handler and contact with Pharmadene.
But, what would happen to her after they catch this person, are they going to continue giving her Returné indefinitely or are they going to let her rot? And what is the real purpose Pharmadene has for this drug?

Working Stiff is book one in the new Revivalist series by Rachel Caine.

Mrs. Caine really surprised me with this book because it is very different compared to everything I had read by her before (Weather Warden and Morganville Vampires). To begin with Working Stiff is darker, gruesome and very emotional and its main character is a weak woman with no powers or any weird ability, just a normal woman with a great inner strength.

Bryn Davis may have a military background but that doesn’t make her a kick ass heroine or a G.I Joe kind of girl, actually her background is just noticeable because of her PTSD. It was easy to connect with Bryn because her reactions and feelings are the same, as I would have in her place. Her life is completely messed up and now her future and actions are fully dependent of others. She has lost her autonomy and now she has to live with the daily fear of what could happen if Returné suddenly is not available for her. Let me tell you that I would not like to be in her situation.

The secondary characters are full of surprises, and I don’t want to giveaway too much away because Mrs. Caine really tricks us a little bit with them, so it’s better if you discover by yourself what I’m implying here. Let’s just say that Joe and Patrick are great, both are very sexy, strong, smart and as I said before full of surprises. There are other very interesting characters like couple of crazy Scientifics, a corporate dictator and psycho bad guys.

The plot is neatly drawn and well developed; the characters are enticing and real. There is action, intrigues, complots and mysteries. There is also a romance with unbroken promises and an uncertain future.
I knew Working Stiff was going to be good, Mrs. Caine knows what she is doing with her words and with Working Stiff she didn’t disappoints us. Working Stiff is a great first book to a new series and a must read to all Urban Fantasy lovers.

Please don’t feel deterred thinking that this book is another zombie book because it is not. Working Stiff is a very well written-original book, with an out of the norm theme.
I will be looking forward to the next installment of the Revivalistseries. ( )

Bryn Davis was honorably discharged from the military after 4 years in Iraq and now seeks employment with funeral home. It may not be glamorous, but the work is steady and she's good it. Then she discovers her boss might be a drug dealer after hours. Turns out that he is reviving people from the dead with a drug called Returne and then charging those people exorbitant fees to continue the treatment that keeps them alive. Bryn tries to escape, but her boss kills her. She's then revived by Pharmadene, the pharmaceutical company that created the drug, to find out where the leak in their company is. Unfortunately, if she doesn't complete her task, they see no value in keeping her alive. Can Bryn figure it out in time? Will they even keep her alive if she completes the task?

I found this book in a used bookstore and thought I'd give it a try. I'm glad I did because Bryn is an amazing character. She faces impossible situations and works through them. She's strong, yet human and still feels emotion. I can't help put root for her even though her situation is pretty bleak. I did wish her military training would have been utilized more because she was quite passive at times when I was infuriated and wanted to punch other characters in the face. The zombies are pretty much like people on borrowed time. If they are not administered Returne, they will slowly and painfully decompose while alive over the course of about 5 days. They are very resilient and can withstand a lot of damage, especially if more Returne is administered.

I had a few problems with the book. There were so many squicky issues and villains that it was a pretty bleak read. Here are our villains: the funeral director who extorts grieving families, the gross mortician who sexually harasses and tortures women, and Pharmadene the company who puts their own profits over lives. The good guys are few and far between. I don't mind depressing books, but this is marketed as an urban fantasy romance that doesn't really deliver on that. The romance is lacking as well. The situation is so bleak with all these bad guys and the lead character, despite being pretty awesome, has next to no autonomy. I literally would not have been surprised if she decided to kill herself.

Working Stiff is well written, but had a lot of problems. I might try to continue the series, but I hope it gets less super depressing. ( )

For some authors, I reverse my usual logic in the star-assignment process: they've proven to be consistent in their good jobs, so I just assume a starting point of a maximum rating and eventually go down from there.
Rachel Caine surely has a place in this empyrean of trustworthy authors. So why the missing stars? What did go wrong in this book?
Nothing major.
But from Rachel Caine I would have expected more.
God, I'm sounding like my literature teacher back in high school. But I felt a bit let down and there you have it, the unsatisfied-teacher talk.

So, here's a brief summary of what really had bothered me, apart from some editorial oversights that I surely haven't enjoyed but that didn't annoy me (much).

First of all, I'm used to better heroines in Caine's novels. Bryn is somewhat plain; less clever than Claire (Morganville Vampires), less sassy than Joanne (Weather Warden), less assertive than Cassiel (Outcast Season). She is just plain.
I kept waiting for her to pull some rabbits out of her hat, but she disappointed me.

The amount of villiany in the book is distributed among differnt characters. And that's good, it keeps things lively. But the one supposed to be the villainest of the villains (uh) was an unsatisfying character. Here's a direct, spoiler quote:
“I knew it’d be you,” Harte said, from a great distance away.
“Not McCallister. You. Because you never understood the good we were going to do here.”
What kind of motive is that for Harte to feel threatened by our heroine? Because she didn't share the same POV? Well, 90% of the other characters in the book didn't, either. And many of them were much more resourceful and dangerous than Bryn.
As bad-guy's-speeches go, this is a bit on the lame side. Not that usually bad-guy's-speeches are so great... I always wonder why they have to say them in the first place, instead of just killing the hero (who invariably gets away) and be done with it.

And now, finally, for the deserved praise.

Rachel Caine gives a whole new spin on the concept of "undead". And I'm talking about the kind of ideas that leave you saying "why haven't I ever thought of that before?", the ones you feel are so obvious and just so practical that you don't know why anyone else hasn't come up with them.

The plot was past paced and captivating. Definitely a page-turner, so much that I finished the book in a matter of hours because I wasn't able to put it down.

( )

great storyline very original and really keeps you guessing all the way along, can't wait to start book 2 ( )

see review of [b:Blood Bound|12096557|Blood Bound (Unbound, #1)|Rachel Vincent|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1311397659s/12096557.jpg|15080228] same feeling haha. ( )

Read/Listened for Fun (Audible/Kindle/Paper Copy)
Overall Rating: 4.00
Story Rating: 3.75
Character Rating: 4.25

Audio Rating: 3.75

First Thought when Finished: Wicked, Dark, and just a bit funny! I really enjoyed Working Stiff!

Story Thoughts: I am a fan of zombies in all shapes and forms: Scary, Mindless, Thinking, Snarky, Scary, and Functioning. If the story frames the "zombie" lore well, I can totally buy it. Working Stiff manages to make me believe that we can revive the dead and they can survive on something other brains. The strongest part of this story though was the mystery. I was really caught up in the tracking, planning, and taking down of the baddie.

Character Thoughts: I LOVED Bryn! She was a great combo of snark, realism, and flippant enough to roll with the punches. The fact that she had an armed forces background helped sell the other parts of her character that made her kick-ass. The boys were great too! While I not quite on board with the romance (which to me was very secondary in Working Stiff-as it should have been), I see myself jumping on that train in book 2! All around great character development and introductions.

Audio Thought:

Narrated By Julia Whelan / Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins

Overall I think Julia did a wonderful job with the narration. It took about 3 hours for me to really click the characters with her "sound" but after that it was totally enjoyable. I expect that my audio rating will be higher for book 2.

Final Thoughts: I found a new to me series that I will totally enjoy, I think! ( )

Recently returned from a tour of duty in the middle east, Bryn Davis is ready to get on with her new career at Fairview Mortuary. Unfortunately for her, her new boss is a drug dealer - he's peddling Returne', a new designer drug that's guaranteed to make you look as young as you are right now, forever. Only one small requirement: you have to be dead.

With vampires, werewolves and things that go bump in the night all having their day, it was only a matter of time before zombies went from gray and brain-craving to sexy and stiletto wearing. A series with promise. ( )

This book surprised me from page one, Bryn's careful, quiet personality is so winning and fierce I was captivated. I love that she has a life and a job history prior to working at the funeral home, it made her all the more human and interesting. As much as I was interested in Bryn as an individual, the world in which she moved was captivating. So many familiar themes of immortality, loss and vulnerability were woven into this most delicate balancing act of rebirth. This book felt so much more like vampirism from a foot-soldier's perspective than a zombie story, Bryn's continued existence relies on an organization that is rotten to it's core. Anyone who has ever wondered if they could survive the collapse of society without prescriptions will relate to this book, Bryn has a daily death sentence hovering over her... and yet, even as she lives, she's caught in the perfect stasis that is immortality. No going forward and fear of falling back into darkness.

Bryn and her world were so interesting to me, it was easy for the friendships and love interest to get lost in the shuffle. They were there, they were sweet and sexy and dangerous by turns, but I was more fascinated watching Bryn adapt to the changes in her life than anything else. As I put down this first book, I'm still emotionally invested enough to worry about these characters even when they're "out of the room," I can't wait to pick up book two.

Full review to follow.

Sexual content: Kissing; references to sex, necrophilia, and sexual assault. ( )

There are some kindred spirits working at TNT/TBS/USA who choose which movies to show regularly on the weekends. It's like they somehow know that I will ALWAYS watch Overboard, What About Bob?, Hook, Father of the Bride, and about a billion other movies--and there must be tons more people just like me that regularly think about dressing up as Bob Wiley for Halloween every year because why else would they keep showing the same movies unless people are watching them? Death Becomes Her, which you may or may not remember as MY FAVORITE MERYL STREEP MOVIE EVER EVEN INCLUDING HER MANY AWARD-WINNING PERFORMANCES, is always on basic cable on the weekends...and I pretty much know it by heart. It is just so bizarre, I mean, Bruce Willis, Goldie Hawn, Meryl Streep, and Isabella Rossellini in a movie about two women dueling over a balding mortician and then taking a potion to live forever? That's pure cinematic gold. I saw Rachel Caine at an event last weekend and you can't really tell by looking at someone but I'm pretty sure she also likes Death Becomes Her.

Evidence:

click to enlarge

I haven't fully signed on for the new zombie love story trend in books and I'm sure many people would try to argue with me about the main character in this book not being a zombie, so here's a quick two-question quiz to find out if you are a zombie:

Question 1: Did you die at some point? If yes, move on to question 2. If no, congratulations! You are alive!
Question 2: Are you somehow still walking around and "living" to a varying degree? If yes, congratulations (?), you are a zombie!

Some people might say that you need to be craving brains to be a zombie. Then again, some people think bands like Nickelback and Creed make good music. Bryn, the MC of this book, dies and is subsequently revived by a chemical compound that must be taken daily to maintain her zombie, oops, I mean revived person's body. I know what you're thinking here--that's hot. You totally would be attracted to an animated, walking, talking, thinking corpse, right? Wait...something's not right here. We had a discussion at book club about whether or not the romantic element in this book was off-putting and it totally was to me BUT it is mostly for one reason and surprisingly, it isn't because Bryn is revived. Patrick sees her die. He sees her as a dead body. He sees her beat up, shot, and basically mangled and then sees her tissue regrowing in front of him. Um, that's gross. That is a constant reminder that the person you are looking at is artificially alive. Necrophilia is so in right now. I couldn't truly get on board with it in this particular book but she does basically live a normal life so I'm not ruling out romance with some future guy who doesn't know she's dead (SPOILER ALERT FOR HIM! "Hey, I've been meaning to tell you...I can't have kids." "Oh, is it something genetic?" "Meh, actually I'm a reanimated corpse. No biggie.")

Overall, the mystery and intrigue were entertaining and the series started off with enough world-building and quirky characters that I'll come back for more. (*cough*some of the side characters are more interesting than the main girl*cough*) Since Bryn was in the military, I expected much more badassery to be happening but she gets punched out pretty regularly. Perhaps she'll really come into her zombie self in future Revivalist series books? Until then, you can most likely find me watching What About Bob? on repeat... ( )

On her first day on the job as a funeral director, Bryn Davis discovers that her employer is able to revive the dead for a price. This discovery results in Bryn's untimely demise, but never fear. She is revived by the company that makes the revival drug in hopes that she can help them find the leak in their company.

This was a fun book. It took me a while to warm up the Bryn but I like the premise and found that she grew on me. The other characters are fun and interesting. I also like that there are no vampires, or anything like that. OK, zombies, but pretty normal zombies. The only thing going for Bryn is that she can heal from almost anything. It was nice for a change. I definitely want to read the nex book to see where this is going. ( )

Bryn Davis left the army and became a funeral director. The idea of helping people with their dead appealed to her. It's people she sometimes has problems with. The job with Fairview Mortuary isn't bad until she discovers that her bosses have a sideline and that sideline is a killer.
Dying is a big enough problem, the corporation who developed the drug are a much bigger problem. She has to work out how to stay alive and how to keep the corporation from getting too much power.

Bryn was a believable character and I liked Patrick and Reily. I also really liked that Reily was married and his marriage was stable, instead of the usual two men dilemma prevalent in paranormal fiction at the moment.

I enjoyed this one, it's a different twist on the story. Another zombie story that I didn't hate this year... I'm looking forward to more about this series. ( )

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick & Dirty: Zombies that aren’t only about the brains…

Opening Sentence: Bryn’s first embalming instructor had told her, straight up, that two kinds of people entered the death business: freaks and true believers.

The Review:

This is not your everyday zombie novel. Zombie novels, by traditional definition, don’t usually include trying to save a zombie, rather everyone is trying their hardest to kill all of them and avoid becoming one themselves. And there is usually a disease or mutation or some other way that zombie-ism is communicable. And, lets not forget the whole appetite for brains, or flesh or whatever… In Rachel Caine’s Revivalist series, however, tradition has been given the metaphorical middle finger salute.

I will tackle the basics….modern day zombies in these novels do not eat brains. They do not wander around aimlessly, arms in front and you can’t catch their condition. In fact, these guys and gals are just like you and me. Creepily so. In fact, you could be dating one right now and you might not even notice. Eek! And if they miss a few doses of their “special medication”, eek turns into Ewwwww!! But I digress…

Bryn Davis is an Iraqi war veteran who has just taken a job as a funeral director at a local mortuary. She, at first is excited (though who could be excited about that job?) and pleased with the position. A shame that it pretty much only lasts 12 hours. This poor girl had to have the crappiest first day on the job of anyone I have read about or even known. Not too often you hear about a friend having a girl commit suicide in the bathroom, the place exploding and, oh yeah, dying on the first day.

But, alas poor Bryn suffers greatly at the hands of her new employer when she stumbles upon his basement side business. It appears the dastardly Mr. Fairview has been able to get his hands on some of the drug that returns one’s life signs and he is selling it to people desperate to hold on to their loved ones. When he finds Bryn has been snooping around he has her killed.

After the attack, Bryn wakes up a whole new person. Well, not so much a whole new person, more of the same person with a whole new set of rules, and friends, and medical necessities. Bryn is now a zombie….well a revived human anyway. And in order to keep the supply of her new (quoting the book here) “permanent portable life support” she has to start yet another new job. This time, the makers of the wonder drug that brings people back from the dead want to know how Bryn’s ex-employer found out about the drug, and exactly who was selling it to him.

So, in a rather short time, Bryn has acquired a new life, a new business, new friends and co-workers, oh and this neat superhuman healing ability. And all of these things take her on one heck of a journey fraught with danger and despair. And doesn’t that sound like I just ripped it off the cover of spy novel? Danger, that reaches out and touches even the members of her family, I’m afraid. And I’m also afraid I’ll have to tell you that not everything is tied up with a cute little bow at the end.

This storyline…conceptually, I think it’s fascinating. The idea that a drug for cancer could end up bringing back people from the dead is awesome. Imagine if it had existed when Kennedy was shot, or MLK or John Lennon. What would the world look like today? Anyway, I still gotta give you a big *shudder* at the love story bit. Ick. Cause, I mean, Bryn is technically dead. Nothing in her is going on its own, not her heart, lungs, nothing. But barring the necrophilia, Bryn’s words not mine, a good story, a great idea, and so I liked it. I did. You should try it out. I’ve never read any of her other books, but you should definitely give this one a shot.

Notable Scene:

After a few seconds, he indicated for her to wait, and he glided a few more steps ahead, checking the exposed point where the hallway emptied into the next room.

Gunfire shattered the glassy silence. Fideli hit the floor, return-firing from a prone position, and Bryn decked it, too, to avoid any ricochets. It was over in a couple of seconds. Her ears were still ringing from the hammer blows of the shots, but she heard running feet somewhere beyond.

Fideli stayed in firing position, but he keyed a throat mike and said, “He’s on the move, heading for the north fence—“ He coughed, and rolled over on his back. “And I took one,” he added. “Call nine-one-one, Bryn.”

She saw a dark stain of blood on the filthy floor, and for a second she couldn’t react at all—and then it all snapped together, and she flung herself across to him and pulled his jacket back, then ripped open his shirt.

“Be gentle,” he said. “Got to”—a pause for an ominously wet cough—“explain to Kylie later—“

“Shut up.”

Revivalist Series:

1. Working Stiff

2. Two Weeks’ Notice

3. Terminated (August 2013)

FTC Advisory: Roc/Penguin graciously provided me with a copy of Working Stiff. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. ( )

Even though I haven't read many so far, I absolutely adore Rachel Caine's books and I could read them all day every day.

Working Stiff was definitely no exception. I really loved everything about it.

First off, what I actually was disappointed in was a few parts in the book where it felt a little rushed because details and descriptions were lacking a little bit. It was in no way throughout the whole read though which was good.

As for why I loved the book, it was mainly because of the brilliant characters. They are so different and yet they work together so well that I couldn't help but love them. Bryn - the protagonist - was just thrown in the deep end more or less from the start so her character had to develop really quickly in what seemed like a short amount of time. She was strong without having to be the whole 'going on a killing spree' type. She was the most vulnerable of characters and yet she dealt with it however she could. The other supporting characters (I would list them all but it would take a while) were equally brilliant. All of the characters seemed to have an element of desperation to them which was understandable given what happens in the book but it shone through which made me really feel for each and every one of them for different reasons.

The plot was also fantastic. It was another read where I didn't want to get back to real life just to find out what happens and remain in Bryn's world for a little while more. It had a lot of depth to it especially for the first book in a series - I definitely can't wait for more of this one!

I also loved the writing. It had fast paced action alongside slow, emotional moments that made for fantastic reading. Apart from a few parts I definitely did not want to put this book down.

Overall, I think this is a fantastic read to stay on the shelf and to come back to. I don't think I'll get tired of reading this again. Obviously I sure do recommend this read for anyone, especially fans of Rachel Caine. ( )

Whoa. What a super-depressing story. If you thought vampire-angst was bad, wait till you read this new series from Rachel Caine. This girl needs some happy, stat! ( )