Living with the Dead.

Lori A. Dunn is a ESL teacher, instructional designer, and freelance
writer in New Westminster, B.C.

Living With the Dead is the latest book by Kelley Armstrong, the author of the Otherworld series of stories. The Otherworld books drop the reader in our very own world, but a world where unexplained phenomena are the result of a reality in which supernatural beings walk among us. Capturing the interest of an audience which hungers for the supernatural, Armstrong creates stories where demons, necromancers, werewolves, and clairvoyants interact with our more normal world—and maintain organizations for their own preservation.

In Living With the Dead, we meet the very human Robyn, a young widow. In an effort to shake herself out of her grief, Robyn takes on a rather unique PR job—as the manager and handler for a wealthy young woman styled as the next Paris Hilton. This is a job that gives her, thankfully, little time to dwell on her own life, until the unfortunate night her charge is murdered, and Robyn finds herself the chief suspect. What Robyn has unknowingly stumbled into is the fact that her employer had drawn inadvertent attention to herself from some supernaturals, and now that attention is centred on Robyn. To her aid comes her dear friend Hope, a successful tabloid writer whose nose for unusual stories comes from her secret life as a semi-demon.

Living With the Dead is literary candy—an entertaining story along a trendy theme. The trendiness of the story elements do not detract from the compelling story and solid writing. It is easy to see why Kelley Armstrong has a strong following and this is her eighth book.