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    Dead on the Delta
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    Dead on the Delta
    Unavailable
    Dead on the Delta
    Ebook344 pages5 hours

    Dead on the Delta

    By Stacey Jay

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Once upon a time, fairies were the stuff of bedtime stories and sweet dreams. Then came the mutations, and the dreams became nightmares. Mosquito-size fairies now indulge their taste for human blood—and for most humans, a fairy bite means insanity or death. Luckily, Annabelle Lee isn’t most humans. The hard-drinking, smart-mouthed, bicycle-riding redhead is immune to fairy venom, and able to do the dirty work most humans can’t. Including helping law enforcement— and Cane Cooper, the bayou’s sexiest detective—collect evidence when a body is discovered outside the fairy-proof barricades of her Louisiana town.

    But Annabelle isn’t equipped to deal with the murder of a six-year-old girl or a former lover-turned-FBI snob taking an interest in the case. Suddenly her already bumpy relationship with Cane turns even rockier, and even the most trust-worthy friends become suspects. Annabelle’s life is imploding: between relationship drama, a heartbreaking murder investigation, Breeze-crazed drug runners, and a few too many rum and Cokes, Annabelle is a woman on the run—from her past, toward her future, and into the arms of a darkness waiting just for her. . . .
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPocket Books
    Release dateMay 31, 2011
    ISBN9781439189887
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for Dead on the Delta

    3.5/5

    25 ratings9 reviews

    What did you think?

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    • 5/5
      I liked this a lot!
    • 5/5
      totally unexpected premise. excellent and just thrilling to the end!
    • 5/5
      this is so awesome makes me glad i read it
    • 1/5
      This book was...bad....not like awful, but bad none the less. There was absolutely no chemistry between the heroine and either of her romantic interests , the plot made little to no sense. I was left going 'Who the hell is that?!?' several times. None of the supporting characters were anything more than one dimensional. I will not be reading any more books in this series, and I should have gone with my first instinct, which was not to read it.
    • 5/5
      Really, really enjoyed this book. After I finished I checked Amazon twice to see when the sequel would come out: once because I wanted it to be out immediately, and twice because I wanted to find out that the first answer (as far as i can tell, the second book doesn't have a title or release date yet - waah) had been wrong, and it would be out immediately.

      So now you already know my least favorite thing about DEAD ON THE DELTA: the sequel is not out yet.

      I loved Annabelle. She's damaged and self-destructive without being incompetent or stupid; she's wounded and prickly but likable and easy to root for; she's got two amazingly hot, hot guys interested in her, but both relationships have problems that go much deeper than just "oooh, who do I pick?" - though the choice itself is a familiar one. She's already in a long-term relationship with Cane. He's a good guy who treats her right and they've settled into a comfortable groove. Then her old flame Hitch steps onto the scene, and he's a total heartbreaker. He offers higher highs and lower lows; he's too unstable himself to be her rock, and her encounters with him are anything but comfortable. The scenes with Hitch literally made my chest ache they were so bittersweet (which is why I'm rooting for Cane, at this point).

      I thought the alternate reality would be super lame. I didn't think radioactive swamp-fairies would be that interesting, which is the main reason I didn't snatch up DEAD ON THE DELTA the day it came out. But it's been said before and let me say it again now: the author matters more than the idea. I'm sure that 9/10 authors would have taken this radioactive fairy idea and written a really stupid book with it. But Stacey Jay is that one author who can make tiny radioactive fairies AMAZING. In fact, I cannot wait to find out more about them. (again: why is the sequel not yet available?).

      The mystery has a nice southern gothic feel. It winds its way through the book, false clues mixed up with the true, and while I didn't find the big reveal surprising I did enjoy it a lot. I thought that Annabelle missed a lot of clues, to be honest, but then her struggle through DEAD IN THE DELTA isn't solving the mystery - it's committing to the idea of taking action, and by the end she's there. At the beginning of DEAD ON THE DELTA she is knowingly, willingly apathetic. By the end, she's willing to risk her neck to get answers. Awesome character development.
    • 2/5
      I wanted to love this book but I couldn't get past Annabelle's issues to enjoy it. It's got a great premise but I just couldn't love it as much as I wanted to.
    • 4/5
      *Sans spoilers.


      New favorite series? Yes, I think so. Wowsers. I loved this book. I’d liken it to Stacia Kane’s Downside Ghosts series, not because it’s similar in plot, but because they’re both gritty and emotional. Makes sense as I read it based on Kane’s recommendation. =D From the first paragraph, you can tell that the author isn’t going to hold back any punches. It’s pretty much all-in right off the bat. I woulda read this in one sitting had my body not protested the all-nighter.

      First off, there was a great “sidekick” and I’m a sucker for those. Secondly, Anabelle reminded me of Kane’s Chess Putnam in that she’s flawed and ornery, but she also reminded me of Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels with her snarky and hilarious inner monologue. Did Anabelle always do what I want her to do? No, but I never stopped liking her. She’s a very fleshy character and I can see where there is potential for much growth. Lastly and most importantly to me, there was not a lot of inner turmoil and angst. While there was reflection on her part, it wasn’t a never-ending litany of should I’s? & woe is me. There was a small part of a scene where I literally held my breath and I just lived it with her - it left a raw spot in the middle of my chest. Been there, done that, and I felt her pain. It was poignant. It was raw. It’s what I value most in a book and so rarely do I find that.

      The only thing that prevented me from giving it the 5th star, was that there was a lot of “tell” near the end and I would have preferred more “show”. In addition, I felt the author dumbed down our heroine a little too much in the final scenes and I had given her more credit than that throughout the book. Despite this, I thoroughly enjoyed it and while I can’t go into too many details, so as not to spoil, I’ll wait anxiously for the next book.
    • 3/5
      Not the YA typical faeries, here. These are nasty little Tinkerbells. Poor Louisiana. You have all the bad crap happen down there even in fiction. I like Jay's interesting take on the CSI slash crime novel slash urban fantasy genre. Looks like a promising start of a new series for her.
    • 5/5
      Everything I'm Looking For in Urban FantasyWhen terrorists hit a chemical plant the last thing they're expecting is to cause a massive mutation of the Louisiana delta's fairy population. Lesson learned a little too late for the people who call the delta home. Now the fairies have a taste for human blood and if their venom doesn't cause a massive, deadly allergic reaction it'll drive you mad. The tiny percentage of the population who are immune get stuck slogging through fairy infested swamps to deal with things the rest of folks can't. from researching the little monsters to investigating Breeze houses. Oh yeah, fairy poo and a little bleach make Breeze, a drug that rivals ecstasy for popularity.Enter Annabelle Lee, a little lazy, at risk for a DUI most of the time and one of Donaldsonville, Louisiana's immune. When a local child is found murdered outside the iron fence that seperates D'ville from the fairy infested bayou she gets sucked into the investigation quicker than she can drain a rum and coke. As if that wasn't complicated enough her current beau, Cane Cooper, is one of the DPD cops on the case and the FBI sends in a team to aid him... a team that consists of a hard-assed female agent and her partner Hitch, Annabelle's ex. Trying to be professional with her ex and sort out her feelings for her current boyfriend is complicated but the investigation gets even more crazy when Annabelle discovers a Breeze house out in the bayou and an arrest is made for the little girl's murder. Strange stuff keeps happening to Annabelle and if she's going to get to the bottom of this murder mystery to save the day she just might have to lay off the hooch and avoid getting dead herself.As the great debate of paranormal romance versus urban fantasy races on it's easy to start drawing lines in the sand. I feel safe saying that Dead on the Delta is exactly what the readers on the Urban Fantasy side are looking for. It might not sound like it based on the blurb but there's no romance here. No HEA ending. No steamy smutty goodness. I love a good romance for certain but when I'm in the mood for a good mystery peppered with paranormal elements and plenty of rich world building DEAD ON THE DELTA is exactly the kind of book I am looking for.DEAD ON THE DELTA is not about the fae, these are killer mutant fairies, think Tinkerbell with a retractable jaw and a taste for human blood. Throw in venom that is a death sentence for 19 out of 20 people and temper it with the fact that fairies can't live in colder climates and this is scarily real. The deep South cut off from the rest of the world by iron fences and still recovering from Hurricane Katrina? Yup, quite easy to buy into. Add in a murder mystery centered around the adopted daughter of a local family of wealth and status, drug dealing and a small town where folks know far to much of one another's business and this plot packs a punch.As a reader a great, fast-paced plot is a plus but without a great protagonist backed up by a cast of memorable secondary characters I don't get pulled in. Annabelle wormed her way into my top three heroines of the genre with an ease that shocked me. She's richly flawed and annoyingly charming for it. I love her because aside from her immunity to fairy bites she's utterly human. Her relationships with Cane and Hitch are complicated by realistic issues people face. Annabelle's drinking has roots that somehow make it seem okay even as I—the child of an alcoholic—wanted to smack some sense into her. In contrast Cane and Hitch are interesting characters that we barely get to scratch the surface on. Fans of Devon Monk's Allie Beckstrom series will recognize a similar quality in the Annabelle/Cane relationship that we love in Allie/Zayvion. Meanwhile, as we are introduced to Hitch he's a character to love and maybe dislike a lot.D'ville is peppered with other characters of note. In a way the town as a whole is essential to this story, taking on a personality based on the mix of people within it. From the clannish Beauchamp family and Cane's troublemaking sister to Annabelle's nosy neighbor and her gossip-mongering friend Fernando it's easy to feel right at home dropped into the iron-protected community.What really makes this book unique among its peers is not only its strength as an Urban Fantasy gem but its freshness. Candid and unafraid Jay writes her dialog the way people really hold conversations, peppering Annabelle's storytelling with humor that may not work for everyone but gives it a flavor I personally found addicting. Between tiny stabs of side-busting hilarity and jolting action, DEAD ON THE DELTA offers something for both fans of horror—one nail-knawingly spooky scene had me hunting for a nightlight—and readers who gravitate toward the lighter side of the paranormal. Quite honestly the only real complaint I had is pretty passable... the story resolution was just a little vaguer than I would have liked but ties everything up. A little more detail on some spoilerific things I won't share wouldn't have felt out of place.If you are a fan of Stacey Jay's young adult novels and can tolerate some potty-mouthed narration/dialog you will love DEAD ON THE DELTA. If you're new to Jay's work imagine a blend of Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series and Devon Monk's Allie Beckstrom series with a dash of Sophie Littlefield's crime novels. Overall I think this book will appeal to both male and female readers who enjoy Urban Fantasy with little to no romantic elements and readers who enjoy non-vampire/shapeshifter paranormal themes. Definitely one of my top reads for the year.