Rating: 4 stars
Casey Kaufmann-Maldonado was in a fiery crash with her husband and infant son; the accident the result of a faulty part on their Pegasus Orion car. As Casey worked to get her family out, an explosion threw her 30 feet away and Casey could only watch in horror as her family perished.
After a private settlement with the car company, Casey couldn’t bear to remain in the home shared with her family and now roams from place in an attempt to outrun her grief; and the people from Pegasus who fear Casey will file a public lawsuit. Despite her loss, Casey is not alone—Death has become her new travel companion.
Now almost a year later, Casey end up in a small Ohio town called Clymer. On the brink of collapse due to the HomeMaker appliances factory closing its doors and grieving the loss of a beloved young mother, Ellen Schneider, due to an apparent suicide, Clymer is as damaged as Casey.
With Death by her side, Casey gets to know the town’s people through working at the local soup kitchen, which is struggling to feed the growing number of needy families and joining their small theater troupe. Casey begins to believe, as does most of the town, that Ellen’s death wasn’t self-inflicted. However, just as Casey has her secrets, so do the people of Clymer and the more she gets involved the more danger she’s in.
Embrace the Grim Reaper is a fast moving story that doesn’t get bogged down in loss and grief. Casey is a strong woman and despite her constant request for Death to take her so she can be with her family, her actions portray an intense will to live. Despite being a temporary resident and perhaps driven by her failure to save her own family, Casey has a fervent need to find the truth about Ellen’s death and to do everything she can to make things right.
With interesting secondary characters the story stands strong. Death as a companion proved to be quite entertaining. Despite Casey’s view that Death is there to annoy her—which he’s very good at—deep down she knows that Death just might be the best friend she’ll ever have.
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Hardcover: 317 pages
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press; 1 edition (May 5, 2008)
ISBN-13: 978-1590585894