Grave Sight

Harper Connelly Mysteries, Book 1

By: Charlaine Harris

Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan

Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

Grave Sight draws listeners into the intriguing world of Harper Connelly, a woman with a unique gift: she can "see" the deceased and how they died.

A teenage girl from a small Ozarks town is missing and feared dead. Hired by local police, Harper locates the girl's body in a nearby forest. But there's more than one corpse in those woods, and the second one raises questions no one wants to ask. Soon Harper and her stepbrother/assistant, Tolliver, are under suspicion. All they want is to get out of town, but they will have to clear their reputations first.

Charlaine Harris writes best-selling mysteries described by Booklist as "gripping and spicy", and praised by the Denver Post for their "goofy charm".

And hear more from the Harper Connelly series!

©2005 Charlaine Harris (P)2006 Recorded Books LLC

Critic reviews

"A strong debut that will have readers dying for more." (Booklist)
"Harris delivers a knuckle-gnawing tale populated with well-developed, albeit edgy characters. A nifty puzzle toward the end will challenge the most jaded mystery buffs." (Publishers Weekly)

Entertaining

This series has an interesting character with an unusual talent. It's a nice change from all the supernatural creature novels. I don't like this series as well as the Sookie Stackhouse series, however, Charlaine Harris still does a good job of entertaining her readers. Good mystery!

Strong Start to this Series

I finally finished the last Sookie Stackhouse book in the series and it was as disjointed and unfulfilling as most readers claimed. But I enjoyed the early books in the series so much and didn't have a book in my TBR stack that was screaming to be read, so I decided to check out the Harper Connelly series.

I am very glad I did. Harper and her step-brother Tolliver weren't bubbly or vivacious. They didn't have the charm of Sookie and the whole feel of the book lacked the humor running throughout the Sookie series. But I found them fascinating. Kind of depressing, but fascinating. I found Harper's "magical" abilities a little creepier than the typical fantasy heroine and she seems to willingly be governed and controlled by them. She has given up a normal life in order to share her gift with people who reluctantly tolerate her and don't believe her most of the time. Most of the time they seem to be totally aimless, moving through events they would prefer not to be involved in, but feel they have no choice.

I could tell Harris was finding her footing with this first book in the series. I don't know if she knew where Harper and Tolliver's relationship was headed when she started the series. While this book did provide a good overview of the two and their relationship, it didn't really give the ultimate result away.

The plot wasn't that complicated and there were a couple of points why I wondered why the pair stuck around. But it kept my interest and the light story line allowed plenty of space for character development.

While Johanna Parker is hard to beat as a narrator on the Sookie books, I was glad another voice was used and Alyssa Bresnahan did a very good job.

Ok... if you can get thru the narration

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The Narrator!

If you’ve listened to books by Charlaine Harris before, how does this one compare?

Have always enjoyed the ones reads by Johanna Parker. Alyssa Bresnahan's reading was too flat, with little emotion, spoken/read in clipped, rapid staccato fashion. Did not enjoy this at all!

Would you be willing to try another one of Alyssa Bresnahan’s performances?

No!

Could you see Grave Sight being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Not sure...

Great story

Would you be willing to try another one of Alyssa Bresnahan’s performances?

I like this series but she has no change in tone in her voice as Harper. Sad, mad, happy, scared same monotone no emotion voice. Almost makes me miss that something exciting is happening.

Just okay.

This is not any great but not a bad story either. It was interesting somewhat, but the reader read it like she was reading it. Very short and curt in a lot of places that made this story get a 3 instead of a 4. The twist was good, Maybe someone else got the who dunit quicker than I. I didn't get it before the last 2 chapters.

A little slow, but overall not bad

Where does Grave Sight rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It took me a bit to get into this book. The narrator is a little bland but I think it fits the character of the book. That's not to say that the book is bland, just that, to me, the main character is still trying to find herself and get herself out of the past and the blandness of the narrator helps to portray that. This book was enough to make me give the next book in the series a try.

Liked It!

Read from May 15 to 16, 2012

Read for Fun
Overall Rating 4.00
Story Rating 3.75
Character Rating 4.25

Audio Rating (not part of the overall rating): 4.00

First thought when finished: I really enjoyed this story!

What I Loved: Harper Connelly is a quirky, off-beat, and different type of leading character and I LOVED that about her. She embraces her gift of being able to tell how someone died and even turns it into a career. I am still not sure if the career is finding dead people or if it is identifying how someone died. It could be either and both would be super useful. Even though she is constantly met with cynicism she still helps people when she can. The mystery was pretty strong in this story and I enjoyed working it out. I figured out part of it half way through but the last twist I did not see coming. That is always fun!

What I Liked: I really enjoyed learning a little bit about Harper's back story and getting glimpses of her family. I think these little windows into her past really rounded out Harper as a character and I can't wait to learn more.

Audio Specific Review: Alyssa Bresnahan did a pretty good job at the narration. It took a bit to warm up to the male voices but I think she pulled off Harper well!

Final Thought: This was a pretty good little mystery with a quirky lead character that I really liked!

Good but not great

I liked the premise of the book (a woman who was struck by lightning and now can sense the presence of dead bodies and know how they died) and found the characters interesting but the "mystery" was too predictable. I enjoy mysteries and know I'm not really good at solving them, so it was a bit frustrating when I had the "whodunnit" figured out around the middle of the story while the main character (who is supposed to posses a considerable intelligence) is still befuddled until the end.

Awesome story

I love the entire series. A great departure from other sups. Great and intriguing read.

I enjoyed the story

the story was cute with some attitude. the character kept my interest. it was not your average "who done it? "