Three Days to Dead by Kelly Meding

Three Days to Dead
(Dreg City #1)
Kelly Meding
Release: November 4, 2009
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They’ll never see her coming. . . .

When Evangeline Stone wakes up naked and bruised on a cold slab at the morgue—in a stranger’s body, with no memory of who she is and how she got there—her troubles are only just beginning. Before that night she and the two other members of her Triad were the city’s star bounty hunters, mercilessly cleansing the city of the murderous creatures living in the shadows, from vampires to shape-shifters to trolls. Then something terrible happened that not only cost all three of them their lives but also convinced the city’s other Hunters that Evy was a traitor—and she can’t even remember what it was.
Now she’s a fugitive, piecing together her memory, trying to deal some serious justice—and discovering that she has only three days to solve her own murder before the reincarnation spell wears off. Because in three days Evy will die again—but this time there’s no second chance. . . .

Review:

It's not every day that someone sees a reanimated corpse. Likewise, it's not every day a person becomes a reanimated corpse. My day was decidedly much worse, so I did the first sensible thing that came to my mind. I stole her tennis shoes.

I'm going to give this book a subtitle - Three Days to Dead: Evy Takes a Beating.

The start to Meding's Dreg City series has nonstop action and a kickass heroine. This is a series I can't wait to read more of already! Obviously, I'm a little late to the game, as this was first released a few years ago. But better late than never, right?

Evy is a terrific leading lady with all the ass kicking skills you'd want out of your urban fantasy chick. Meding puts her in the unique position of waking up in someone else's body and gives her quite the constraining time limit of three days to figure out what happened to her. Evy is smart and tough as nails, but even she has to get used to being in this new body. Her new body isn't exactly the same as her old one and she has to get used to being taller and out of fighting shape.

I loved watching as Evy got used to this body. My only complaint is that she seemed to be pretty complacent about being in a different body for a large part of the book. I know that, in her world, the unusual is fairly normal, but it seems that being in a different body would take more of an emotional and psychological toll. Evy does finally breakdown and eventually come to terms with looking, sounding, walking (etc.) different, but I think it would have made sense for this to happen a little earlier in the story.

The world that Meding has created is riddled with paranormal creatures, from vampires to trolls to goblins, etc. Everything under the sun exists here and Evy's job as part of a task force of humans is to police those creatures when needed. Evy must now figure out why her team was murdered and who eventually killed her. The way that Meding set up the chapters, with the beginning of each telling the reader how much time Evy had left before, is very creative. Also creative is the way the readers discovers what happened leading up to Evy's death in bits and pieces as Evy remembers it herself.

A big part of the story is also Wyatt, the leader of Evy's former team and someone who has harbored feelings for Evy for a long time. He is equally strong and sensitive and is quite the ass kicker himself. He's the one who brought Evy back from the dead and he works with Evy to figure out the events leading up to her capture and death. Evy continually pushes away his affections, knowing how he feels about her but not willing to give in. Sometimes it was a bit heartbreaking to watch her push him away.

"This was [his] idea of a happy ending?" I asked. "Me dying, you putting yourself on the line to bring me back, and for what? To stop a war in a world that doesn't want us here?That wouldn't give a rat's ass if we both keeled over and died? Is that what we're fighting for?"

Wyatt shook his head. "No, I'm not fighting for this world. I'm fighting for you, because against my better judgement, Evangeline, I fell in love with you. With your sparkle and every and wit. With the way you used to cut your own hair, even though it was never straight or even. With the look on your face when you drank hot chocolate. For everything you put into your job and never got back from it."

This is a terrifically gritty and sordid read and I look forward to the rest of the series!

Recommended for fans of: dark urban fantasy, ass kickery, difficult relationships, original plots,  paranormal creatures.