Search - Grave Sight (Harper Connelly, Bk 1)

What an interesting story! Harper Connelly, after being hit by lightning as a teenager, has the ability, when in the physical presence of a dead body, to communicate with it and see the cause of death. Usually she can also sense the name. She can "feel" the presence of bodies and is called in when they know generally where a body might be. She can usually find it. She can walk through a graveyard, pause at each grave, and recite the cause of death and the name of the person there interred. Amazing stuff.

What makes the book so interesting to me is that as we go along with the character, the ability is not amazing or fantastic or anything like that--it's just a workaday, normal reality for her. She goes from job to job--people hire her to either find bodies or determine causes of death--just doing what she knows how to do. It takes a talented author to sell such a thing, to make it believable and normal, which Charlaine Harris certainly does.

Of course, there are complications in some cases, and this book is about one such. Things don't add up as she finds bodies and causes of death, which are not what the local authorities and the people who hired expected.

I can't wait for the next book in the series. I like Harris' Sookie Stackhouse vampire series, too, but this isn't just frivolous frippery like those books. There is meat here.

Eh, it was ok. I didn't really like the main character (she was whiny and entitled) and the mystery wasn't that mysterious. Not my favorite book by this author.

Grave Sight is the first in the Harper Connelly series by Charlaine Harris.

After being hit by lightening at an early age Harper has a talent at locating a dead body if the general area is known. She can also tell how they died. This doesn't make her very much liked by both sceptics (who think she preys on the weak) and by those who hire her (because they don't always like the truth that comes out).

New spin on murder mysteries and worth a read. The murderer was someone I guessed at but it wasn't that obvious I think. The writing was absorbing - no troubles where I wanted to put the book down and go do something else, and interesting main characters. Really it's Harper's unusual talent and her life with it, that makes the book so interesting. I couldn't really pinpoint the genre here, it seems to cross a couple of them. There also seems to be a mystery in Harper's past (the abduction of her sister Cameron) which I hope gets more exposure in later books. My only reservation was how almost everyone in Sarne treated Harper and Tolliver badly. It seemed like this small-town, small-minded cliche, and I felt bothered by it. I had a hard time believing that so many people (including the police and city officials) could be so suspicious and rude, and I felt like it gives southerner's a bad name.

I was waiting on my next Sookie Stackhouse book when I decided to read the Harper Connelly series. I found this book delightful. The characters and plot are creative and the plot kept me wanting to read more and more.

I am looking forward to the rest of the series. Anyone who enjoys the hint of supernatural should definitely read these.

A good read, but I didn't LOVE Harper the way I do Harris' other heroines (Sookie and Lily Bard). Harper is fragile without the toughness of Lily or the social connections of Sookie. Fascinating premise, but the "big clue" in the story was pretty obvious to me. Worth a read, but not a keeper for me.

Harper Connelly was hit by lightning when she was 15 years old! Now she can find dead bodies! And...she can tell how they died.
Good book! I've read the three in the Harper Connelly series now, and will read others by Harris.