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Title:  Dying for a Living

Author:  Kory Shrum

Published:  2014 by Timberlane Press

Genre:  Urban Fantasy

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“This is Ms. Jesse Sullivan.  She will be your agent today.”

He turned his narrowing eyes from her to me.  “She’s the zombie?”

Was it my job to remind him “zombie” is a derogatory term?  Yes.

“Necronite,” I corrected.  I threw the muffin wrapper in the bedside trashcan.  “I’m the Necronite here to die so you can keep on a-livin.” (location 56 on Kindle.)

Jesse is a death replacement agent.  Only Necronites can take this position as it requires the agent to die in order to save the client.  Necronites come back to life after a day or a few days, depending on their injuries.  One day on the job, a client tried to cut off Jesse’s head, which would prevent her from coming back to life ever again.  This stirs up a bunch of events that lead to Jesse getting in trouble and investigated by the government.  And to top it off Jesse begins to hallucinate and starts to see an angel named Gabriel.  Or perhaps Gabriel isn’t a hallucination after all…..

I love Jesse; she is a girl of my own heart.  She’s not afraid to assert her opinion, and it’s usually in a sarcastic manner.  She made me smile and laugh out loud.  She likes to dress comfortably, and you can usually find her in mismatched sneakers (she usually loses one when she dies).

There are two possible love interests in Jesse’s life, Ally, her personal assistant, and Lane, who Jesse has a ‘no strings attached’ friends with benefits relationship with.  They both care about Jesse a lot, but she tries to avoid relationships with both of them for her own reasons.

I love learning random facts while reading for fun.   Do you know that feeling when you go to sleep and then it feels like your falling and you jerk awake?  That’s called a myoclonic jerk.  Your brain sends a signal causing the jerk, because it’s mistaking your slow breathing for dying.  The ‘jerk’ makes your muscles and heart contract for the purpose of waking you up.  I bet you’re a little creeped out now after reading this; I know I was!  (This was brought up by Jesse when explaining to others how a Necronite’s body and brain reacts differently than the average human.)

I only have praise for this book.  The editing was good, the characters were awesome.  It was fast moving and interesting.  But also, it was unique.  It wasn’t another vampire or werewolf book that’s already been done.  Dying for a Living is a one of a kind novel, and a really good one at that.  So if you’re into urban fantasy go read it, just don’t call Jesse a zombie; she takes offense.

My Rating:  4 out of 5 stars

~Pam

*****I received this book free from the author in exchange for an honest review.*****