ARC Review: Queen of the Dead by Stacey Kade

After being sent back from the light, Alona Dare - former homecoming queen, current Queen of the Dead - finds herself doing something she never expected: working. Instead of spending days perfecting her tan by the pool (her typical summer routine when she was, you know, alive), Alona must now cater to the needs of other lost spirits. By her side for all of this - ugh - “helping of others” is Will Killian: social outcast, seer of the dead, and someone Alona cares about more than she’d like.

Before Alona can make a final ruling on Will’s “friend” or “more” status, though, she discovers trouble at home. Her mom is tossing out Alona’s most valuable possessions, and her dad is expecting a new daughter with his wicked wife. Is it possible her family is already moving on? Hello! She’s only been dead for two months! Thankfully, Alona knows just the guy who can put a stop to this mess.

Unfortunately for Alona, Will has other stuff on his mind, and Mina, a young (and beautiful) seer, is at the top of the list. She’s the first ghost-talker Will’s ever met—aside from his father—and she may hold answers to Will’s troubled past. But can she be trusted? Alona immediately puts a check mark in the “clearly not” column. But Will is - ahem - willing to find out, even if it means leaving a hurt and angry Alona to her own devices, which is never a good idea.

Packed with romance, lovable characters, and a killer cliffhanger, Queen of the Dead is the out-of-this-world sequel to The Ghost and the Goth. (YA) Release date June 7, 2011

Review:

**Happy Dance**

Ooh …it makes me very happy when a sequel to a book I loved measures up to the first and Queen of the Dead does just that.

Alona and Will are back, still bickering and taking baby steps in their burgeoning relationship.

Will can see dead people and that almost ruined his life until the recently departed Alona became his spirit guide acting as a go between for all the ghosts that are trying to get Will to complete their last wishes. They drive each other crazy at times but they have formed an unbreakable bond and always watch out for each other.
Suddenly there is a new player in town, Mina, another young seer like Will. For those of you who have read The Ghost and the Goth, you know how lonely Will’s life has been being the only one of his kind. So it’s understandable that he would take an interest in Mina and the information that she can give him about his “gift” and even his father.
As you would expect Alona is not pleased….at all. Hell hath no fury like a teenage beauty queen, spirit guide scorned. Alona is dealing with her own troubles. Her parents seem to be moving on without her and she’s confused about her feelings with Will and adjusting to a death that she has little control over. Will is her anchor - but what if he leaves?
Stacey Kade once again takes a premise and characters that could be one dimensional and cutesy and imbues them with tenderness and depth. Will could come off as a whiny goth complaining about his gifts but instead he puts himself out there. Sure he stumbles and makes mistakes but he becomes a better person for understanding his weaknesses and strengths. Alona could be the simplistic, shallow, self-absorbed cheerleader and she is…up to a point. She’s also smart, principled, brutally honest and fiercely devoted to Will. I just can’t help but love them and their snarky banter when they are together. I think if I had one complaint is that I wished they were together more throughout the book.
I can’t really talk much about the plot without giving too much away. There are plenty of twists and turns and the story turned out to be about something completely different than I thought it would be going in. Love that!
The ending, while not a cliffhanger gives the reader a lot to ponder about where Alona & Will’s story goes next. I have a theory but since I’m wrong almost 99.9% of the time I’ll try not to drive myself crazy, considering I have to wait well over a year for the final installment of the series.

Rating: 3.5 out of 4 I really enjoyed this one! I’m sad that I have to mail the ARC on – I’ll be buying my own copy when it comes out in June!

Author's website: http://www.staceykade.com/
Twitter: @staceykade
Pre-order the book! Queen of the Dead (A Ghost and the Goth Novel) (The Ghost and the Goth)
**Thank you to Aten Ra from Just Another Book Blog for hosting the blog tour for Queen of the Dead as part of her Different Area Codes book tours.