Don’t Wake the Dead by C.C. Wood

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Wraith Files, Case File #53

My name is Zoe Thorne and I’m just an ordinary woman. My life is mundane, and that’s perfectly fine with me; I work a boring job, watch TV, read books, and sleep alone. There’s nothing special about me. 

Except that I can see ghosts. 

After suffering years of rejection due to my freakish ability, I’m determined to hide my “gift” from others. That is until I meet Malachi Flemming and his peculiar yet amusing friends. Mal hosts a paranormal web show titled The Wraith Files and when he discovers my talent, he offers me a job. Well, offer may not be the right word. 

He won’t take no for an answer. 

One night, we stumble across a spirit on the side of a deserted, country road. He seems lost and scared, convinced someone murdered him. Mal’s interest is piqued and he insists on helping me investigate the accident. The deeper we dig, the clearer it becomes that the killer doesn’t want us to discover the truth. 

Desperate people will go to any lengths to keep their secrets buried. Sometimes it’s best not to wake the dead unless you plan to join them.

Don’t Wake the Dead

Scintillating paranormal murder mystery!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💙🖤💜💖
Heat/Steam: 🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘📔
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌍🌎
Character development: 🤨😟😳😍🥰

The heroine: Zoe Thorne – she sees dead people. Literally. She has seen ghosts, ghouls and zombies since she was five years old when she died for a few minutes. Zoe has adapted to the fact that they confront her at odd times when other ‘living’ people are around. She knows not to talk to them when they talk to her, so she often pretends to be texting on her phone and has them read what she types. When the insurance company she worked for went through restructuring, her job was eliminated.

The Hero: Malachi Flemming – he is a Paranormal Investigator and Host/Creator of The Wraith Files, a successful YouTube show. He is in town for a few weeks to film at a few different locations and was told by locals about a house that was haunted and was on the market for a very long time due to that fact. However, when he gets to the home, he finds that Zoe Thorne bought the house and is now living there.

The Story: Mal offers to pay Zoe a good amount of money to film in her home, especially after Zoe’s ghost friend Teri slams a door and flickers the porch lights on and off while he is there. She has been trying to get Zoe interested in men for quite a while, though most of the men in town think Zoe is an odd duck. Malachi is handsome in a geeky way and Teri thinks he has a nice butt. Zoe can’t argue with that and needs the money since she has been stuck doing temp work, so she agrees to let them film.

While returning from a job, Zoe sees a ghost along an old highway and finds out that the man was murdered nearly twenty years ago. This sets the team on an adventure to figure out what really happened to the man and who killed him. The investigation stirs up a lot of old feelings and resentment within their small town.

I loved this story as it contained paranormal and mystery all in one and the fact that it was set in Texas was kind of funny as well. At one point someone shoots at their van yet they aren’t totally at the mercy of the killer since two people in their van happen to carry guns as well. Only in Texas! I love the ghost aspect of the story since not many paranormal romance books center around ghosts. I would say it was very original, though the book I read yesterday turned out to be very similar to this one, having a Ghost Whisperer/Ghost Hunter plot just like this. Both books were great, and I didn’t mind the similarities at all.

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