A review by cece_rants_raves_reviews
One Foot in the Grave by Jeaniene Frost

3.0

For a second book, I wanted....better secondary characters, more Cat and Bones: fight fight fight kiss kiss kiss, the mom to die, and what happened to Timmie? #the real MVP

Overall this second book did pretty well on delivering but it left a Timmie-shaped hole in my heart.


So Cat is working for the government: stabbing people and getting paid for it. A regular white-collar, tax paying job. But without boy-toy Bones, she is lonely and there's some friend who just hangs around and tells her to get some *smh*

“Dazzle Noah with your drinking skills, burn his ears with your language, but try to have a little fun with a guy you’re not intending to kill by the end of the night"

I had some high hopes for Denise, her introduction into the supernatural world really set up some great possibilites:

“To her credit, she hadn’t screamed, fainted, or done any of the things a normal person would. She’d simply blinked and said, “Wow. I owe you a beer, at least.”

However, their friendship together was explained rather than shown I wanted more bonding between the two, so whatever.


Cat's character definitely matured more, realizing the dangerous positions from the first book and being more cautious:

“I slept with one of my knives under my bed, telling myself I wasn’t being paranoid. I was just being cautious. Yeah, right. I didn’t believe it, either.”

But for all you violent lovers that needs a heroine threatening to beat people up all the time, don't you worry your lil butt

“Her prim tone made me squeeze my glass so hard to avoid slamming it over her head that it shattered”

So of course Bones tracks her down at the agency and was somehow both extremely helpful and aggravating at the same time. ~Like I'm helping you but it aint for you sweetie...? ~

“I have been stabbed, shot, burned, bitten, beaten unconscious too many times to count, and even staked. None of those held a candle to the pain I felt at seeing his mouth on hers.”

This book also *thankfully* answered some of questions about Bones, ooo backstory. Plus it entertaining as they were both trying to figure out their place within the vampires society together.

The first book literally revolved around Cat and Bones stabbing the shit out of vamps.



Other characters only had importance if Cat and Bones were fighting them and that was it.

As such that first book, had a vibe of the vampires being college frat-boys where vamps all went to clubs to get drunk and feed off of humans. It was fine for the first book but lets be honest: some vamps have been alive for hundreds of years, I'm sure someone got their shit together .

Well lo and behold: this book delivered with wayyy more sophisticated societies and vampires who weren't there just to get stabbed *whoaaaa* Annette being the main one who was part of Bone's pastttttt.....

“A catfight, no pun intended. Annette said some nasty things and so did I, and then i stabbed her to make a point. Now that was a pun.”

One of the best scenes was definitely Annette vs Cat followed by a clean-up afterwards where Annette " became blur of cleaning motion, like Martha Stewart on crack cocaine.” Lol

Now enter angry Bones:

“And that, Annette, is called Pilates,” I said, giving an exaggerated stretch.
“Very entertaining,” she hastened to agree, turning blameless eyes to him”
“Unless Pilates has become downright lethal, I’d say the two of you were fighting.”

One thing I definitely noticed was the improvements on secondary characters. They were more 3D and some of them were pretty funny/interesting so it added to general story. Juan, Tate , Dave, and Don. This group of guys were pretty hilarious- training, stabbing, and shamelessly flirting with each other.


The banter between them was pretty great at times

“You called her Kitten? And she let you? She put me in a coma for three days when i called her that! My balls never recovered from her smashing them into my spine!”

But not quite the same as the first.


*side note there was wayyy 2 much "mommy issues" in here*

Then of course some great lesson in the end that Cat ironically teaches even though the first book was about beating this very thought into her stubborn head..?

“... overcome an unexpected heritage. We are who we make ourselves to be, no matter what. No matter what. You’re still you. You’ll still laugh, cry, do your job, lose at poker…

For a sequel it wasn't bad. An entertaining read, I'll definitely keep reading because the characters are entertaining as *fuck* and the plot seems to keep building up. This is less of a paranormal detective and more of a paranormal assassin. I dig it.