Resort service, cocktails, and the coroner. Right up my alley.
I have officially found my perfect commute audiobook series.
Still Awake is the third book in Ava Strong’s Lily Dawn series, and Lily and her partner, Xander Jackson, are rapidly becoming one of my favorite crime-fighting teams. Lily is a strong female protagonist without being insufferable about it, while Xander is a hotheaded Southern boy who seems to quite enjoy getting on her nerves. They work well together, they annoy each other just enough to keep things entertaining, and I genuinely like spending time with both of them. This case, however, was DARK.
Someone is murdering people at various resorts and then posing their bodies so they appear to still be alive. They're sitting around looking like perfectly normal vacationers until some unsuspecting resort employee wanders over to see if they need anything. Another drink, perhaps?
Surprise! Dead person.
At that point, they're really not requiring much of anything except the coroner.
It is a wonderfully creepy premise because the victims are left right out in the open. There's no body buried in the woods or stuffed into a trunk. They're simply sitting there among vacationers who have no idea they're sharing the resort with a corpse.
Lily and Xander once again made the story work for me. I especially like Lily because she's capable and determined without falling into that particular fictional-female-investigator trap where "strong" apparently means "obnoxious to everyone within a ten-mile radius." Xander's temper and Southern-boy personality make him a great counterbalance, and their banter adds some much-needed lightness to an otherwise very dark case.
The audiobook continues to be exactly what I want for my commute. It kept me interested, was easy to follow while driving, and apparently I liked it enough that it escaped the car once. That's significant. My four-star audiobooks generally remain obediently in the vehicle.
Four stars. Still Awake didn't keep me up at night, but it did escape the car, and I've already downloaded the next book in the series. At this point, Lily and Xander can ride along with me anytime.
Preferably somewhere without a resort.
Or suspiciously motionless people sitting beside the pool.
