Dead Sexy by Tate Hallaway

What do you get when you combine a witch that shares her body with a powerful goddess, a vampire love interest, and a bunch of college kid zombies?

If it’s a story created by Tate Hallaway you get a well-written, evenly paced, paranormal fantasy that’s difficult to put down.

The Story

Our main character, Garnet Lacey, is a witch that works in a combination occult bookstore/herb emporium. In this book she’s got more trouble on her hands than she can possibly handle. Not only has a gorgeous detective linked her to the murders of several Vatican assassins but she’s started noticing a dramatic increase in the local zombie population. It seems as if someone is deliberately making zombies from innocent college students. Additionally, her vampire ex-boyfriend is in town, something her current vampire boyfriend has a hard time dealing with.

Although Lacey wants to investigate the zombie problem she also knows she has to do something to get the police off her track. She decides to cast a love spell on the detective investigating the Vatican murders. Unfortunately, she makes the spell a little too strong and spends a lot of her time fending off his affections. She reverses the spell but that of course makes the detective restart his investigation. This is where Lacey’s ex-boyfriend comes to the rescue by devising a clever solution for closing the murder investigation for good.

The closer Lacey gets to finding the person responsible for making the zombies the more she puts herself in danger. This causes Lililth, the goddess that periodically possesses Lacey’s body, to go into “attack mode” and attempt to wreak bloody havoc on those around her.

Tate Hallaway does a fine job combining humor and romance with darker subjects like witchcraft and zombie possession. That’s not an easy task to accomplish but she pulls through by writing believable characterizations and fleshing out a very detailed urban setting. You realize these are people you could meet everyday and just not know about their special powers.

This all makes for a great entertaining read. Although Dead Sexy represents the second installment in the series you don’t need to read the first book, Tall, Dark, and Dead in order to understand the storyline. You should, because it’s a good book, but it’s not necessary. This is, in my opinion, a testament to the effectiveness of Tate Hallaway’s talented writing style.

Get the books in the series:

Tall, Dark & Dead (Garnet Lacey, Book 1)
Dead Sexy (Garnet Lacey, Book 2)
Romancing the Dead (Garnet Lacey, Book 3)
Dead If I Do (Garnet Lacey, Book 4)

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See also: Romancing the Dead by Tate Hallaway