A woman died years ago, and the body’s still missing. Julie Hall’s conscience tells her she needs to use her skills to help a grieving family find their daughter’s long-missing remains. The problem is, Alice was last seen in Julie’s hometown–a place so full of traumatic memories, the very idea of returning there nearly paralyzes Julie. Clear boundaries help Julie overcome her fears and take … her fears and take the job. She’ll go all out with her search, but only for one week. An end date in sight will ease the anxiety she and her FBI boyfriend have about the price she’ll have to pay to do the right thing.
Despite a growing sense of foreboding as she hits one dead end after another, Julie is driven to keep looking for Alice. But after receiving vile threats and with her self-imposed deadline looming, Julie realizes she was right to be afraid–and she worries she may not survive this case.
Don’t miss the first three books in the Bodies of Evidence series by Wendy Roberts. A Grave Calling, A Grave Search and A Grave Peril are all available now from Carina Press!
This book is approximately 72,000 words
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Julie Hall is ready to go back to work finding bodies that no one else seems to be able to do.
She’s been approached to find the body of a woman who was killed years ago, but her body was never found. Her husband is sitting in prison, although he has always proclaimed his innocence.
The hard part comes when Julie must travel back to her hometown where she has no good memories. In fact, she was abused as a child and the thought of being back almost paralyzes her with fear. Her FBI boyfriend is terribly worried about something triggering Julie .. she’s a recovering alcoholic, been dry for several months, but he’s afraid this will push her over the edge.
She’s allowed herself one week to find the victim, but she’s getting absolutely no hits. Julie realizes that if the husband didn’t kill his wife … the killer may have Julie is his sights.
This has been an intriguing paranormal series with likeable characters. The suspense that comes with the story of seeking and finding dead bodies is vastly captivating.
I highly recommend reading this series from start to finish.
Many thanks to the author / Carina Press / Netgalley for the advanced digital copy of this paranormal suspense. This review comes voluntarily, unbiased, and entirely my own.
Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team
Avid Reader –
M/F Thriller
This is the continuation of the series where Julie is coming back from a less than great experience using her abilities. However, she’s ready to help someone she once knew and finding her body is how Julie can show her appreciation.
Alice was a woman who shared a secret with Julie. Both were abused as children. But Julie fled the first chance she got and Alice was kind of sucked back in.
When Alice’s husband is convicted of her death, despite the missing body, Julie is asked to help find Alice.
This is a story of friendship, love, betrayal, and redemption. It was a twisting and turning story where Julie is trying to remember a traumatic event and, despite her best efforts, she’s worried she did something unforgivable. But you also have Alice’s family and they are a strange bunch too.
While I enjoyed this story, it wasn’t my favorite of the series. It was much more predictable than the previous books and it just didn’t have the edge that I have come to expect. However, I did still like it and would welcome reading more from this series.
Potential Triggers: Murder, Stalking, mentions of child abuse
Reviewers received a free copy of this book to read and review for Wicked Reads.
I fell in love with this series because of its uniqueness. A woman who helps law enforcement and families find dead bodies with a pair of dowsing rods. She came from a childhood filled with abuse from her grandmother and a grandfather who turned out to be a serial killer. Julie’s only way of dealing with the PTSD of her childhood/life was alcohol. After FBI Agent Garrett Pierce came to her for help in the first book she started the road to sobriety, seeing a psychiatrist and embarked a relationship with Garrett.
Now we are four books into the series and Julie has turned her gift into job of helping families locate their missing loved ones. Her relationship with Garrett is going strong. She is still maintaining a friendship with Tracey and keeps in contact with her psychiatrist. The one thing she hasn’t done is join AA and get a sponsor. So without the help of the program and sponsor – Julie is still in her head too much constantly battling her inner demons and wanting a drink to silence them. She still chooses to keep the majority of her emotions to herself which is just like letting a boil fester and fester without lancing it and letting the poison out. This is my only wish for future books is that Julie gets the help she really needs so she gets of out her head and can start living life without every other thought being about taking a drink. With the surprise revelation at the end of this book that needs to happen sooner rather than later.
Now to the cases Julie takes on in this book. One is solved fairly quickly and the other takes the whole book to solve. Both totally different but take Julie back to her hometown where those pesky past demons from her childhood wreck havoc with her mind. But as the story goes along and Julie digs further into trying to find the missing body of a wife whose husband was tried and convicted of her murder but claims he is innocent, it turns out it’s not only her subconscious trying to wreak havoc with her mind.
A Grave End by Wendy Roberts
I really like this series it is easy to read and has enough twists that it really keeps my interest. In this installment Julie has to go back to her home town with all her bad memories to try to find a body of a girl she knew back when she was young, throw in a “psychic” Ray who wants to team up with her and join forces, Garrett her FBI man and of course her Bestie Tracey and the fact that Julie is still trying to figure out what happened the night she fell off the wagon and you are set up for one roller-coaster ride! Thank you Netgalley and the Carina Press for this ARC and allowing me to leave my opinion.
A Grave End by Wendy Roberts
Bodies of Evidence #4
Julie Hall is back on the job with her dowsing rods looking for the dead. This time she finds two dead women, a murderer and a psychotic whack job with sites on her. I enjoy reading stories about Julie and the way she finds the dead, am interested in her friend Tracey and love the relationship she has with Garrett. In spite of all she has suffered in her life she is feisty, strong and indomitable. She wants to return the dead to their families and believes in what she is doing. In this book she has had a “lapse” in her sobriety and it is gnawing at her as she wonders what really happened that night. That mystery and a few more are exposed and answers found as she works her way through clues, people and events to find the answers she is searching for.
Did I enjoy this book? Yes
Do I want to read more books in this series? Yes
Thank you to NetGalley and Carina Press for the ARC – This is my honest review.
5 Stars
Julie’s back along with her FBI boyfriend, Garrett, and best friend, Tracey. Julie’s current case brings her much closer to her past than she’d prefer, so there’s some understandable angst with that. Plus, she has a more recent problem to deal with, but we don’t get the whole story on that until close to the end. We don’t see as much of the dousing rods as I would’ve liked in this one, which is where this character truly shines, and the case or cases are pretty easy to figure out. The clues are all there, and some things are almost right in your face, at least on the person or persons involved. The why of one part is a bit out there for anyone to figure out. We do get lots of Tracey, which is a big plus for me since she’s one of my favorite characters in the series. I also really like Garrett. He shows way more patience than I would, and he’s just one of those characters you can’t help but like. We do get more of him than in the last book, but he’s still popping in and out. In the end, I still like Tracey and Garrett more than our heroine, but Julie has grown on me. I’m not sure where this series will go from here or if there is even another book planned for these characters, but I will say that I’m happy with how this one concluded. I think it was just about right for these characters.
I am a fan of this author’s from way back, and this series has been more serious than the ones she’s written before. Not a bad thing at all, but a head’s up. This is the fourth book in the series, and I’ve read all of them. I like how these books don’t rely on the supernatural elements to solve the mystery, but more enhances finding the killer with what Julie’s ability is. What I mean is she has to know more about where the killer might have dumped the body so she does some detecting while finding out the place most likely the body will be. I really like Julie’s friend Tracey who keeps Julie from being way too serious and, man, can she be serious. She is so guilt-ridden at times, I am uncomfortable. There was a subplot about her alcoholism that bothered me a little because she was so obsessed, but at the end, I understood more why she was. I just wish she had dealt with it sooner. Anyway, overall I enjoyed this one as much as the rest of the series, and I can’t wait to see how the events at the end shake out in the next one. Recommend this book and was provided the e-book which I voluntarily reviewed.
A great who done it with a touch of paranormal on the side. Julie is heading back to her hometown and that brings back lots of bad memories.Lots of secrets and lies going on in this mystery and in Julie’s life.The first half of the book is kind of slow but the second half makes up for it. I would have liked more of Garrett in this book but maybe next time.