ONCE DEAD, TWICE SHY

This urban fantasy promises attitude and mystery but doesn’t deliver. Seventeen-year-old Madison Avery was mostly killed on prom night by a dark reaper, Kairos. Since she stole Kairos’s amulet she’s technically dead, but for reasons involving Kairos and the morgue, she’s still in possession of a corporeal form. Dark reapers are after her, and she’s determined to protect herself and the cute boy, Josh, who’s a part of the reason she’s dead in the first place. Readers may not know that this novel is a followup to the events of Harrison’s short story “Madison Avery and the Dim Reaper,” which appears in Prom Nights from Hell (2007). The events of that story set the stage for this novel, but the author does a poor job of recapping. She’s equally inadequate at connecting the afterworld to Madison’s present, explaining the many powers the supernatural creatures have and making readers understand complicated afterlife politics. Madison’s thoughts and dialogue are uneven, and the revelation of the reasons behind her unusual death feels anticlimactic. Readers looking for stories of the afterlife are advised to look Elsewhere. (Supernatural. YA)