Book Review: The Prophet

Author Amanda Stevens
Title: The Prophet
Publisher: Mira
Publish Date: April 24, 2012
Buy: Amazon
Review Copy Provided By: Net Galley
Book Blurb: My name is Amelia Gray.
I am the Graveyard Queen, a cemetery restorer who sees ghosts. My father passed down four rules to keep me safe and I've broken every last one. A door has opened and evil wants me back.

In order to protect myself, I've vowed to return to those rules. But the ghost of a murdered cop needs my help to find his killer. The clues lead me to the dark side of Charleston—where witchcraft, root doctors and black magic still flourish—and back to John Devlin, a haunted police detective I should only love from afar.

Now I'm faced with a terrible choice: follow the rules or follow my heart.

Review: I absolutely loved book 1 and 2 from this series. I devoured them. This book however dragged for me, from the very first page, it just didn't hold my interest.  I found myself putting it down quite frequently, which is not what I did with the other books.

I think the problem was, there was no restoration in this story. The focus was on Devlin and his relationship with Amelia, even though their romance was barely there in this book. After a few chapters I was starting to dislike both of them, Amelia the most because she seemed to have lost her spine since the last book.

The story was too much mystery and not enough spooky. And as things begin to wrap up with Amelia learning what she needs to know about the death of Robert Fremont and Mariama and Shani, I groaned in disbelief. I did like the elements of voodoo that made there way into this story. It added a new creepy element to the book, which was definitely needed.

This was not how I wanted this part of the story to wrap up, though. It came off a bit flat and tied up the loose ends a bit too easily. I'm actually quite happy that Amanda is going to be writing at least 3 more books in this series. The only thing that I'm wondering, is whether things are going to focus on the graves or if Amelia's going to turn into a more crime oriented Ghost whisperer, because that's what I felt she had become in this book.

Every author is entitled to a sub-par book. This one is definitely sub-par for Amanda. I hope things pick up when the next book comes out.

Rating: 3 flowers