I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Madison Avery’s prom was killer—literally. For some reason she’s been targeted by a dark reaper—yeah, that kind of reaper—intent on getting rid of her, body and soul. But before the reaper could finish the job, Madison was able to snag his strange, glowing amulet and get away.

Now she’s stuck on Earth—dead but not gone. Somehow the amulet gives her the illusion of a body, allowing her to toe the line between life and death. She still doesn’t know why the dark reaper is after her, but she’s not about to just sit around and let fate take its course.

With a little ingenuity, some light-bending, and the help of a light reaper (one of the good guys! Maybe . . .), her cute crush, and oh yeah, her guardian angel, Madison’s ready to take control of her own destiny once and for all, before it takes control of her.

Well, if she believed in that stuff.

Short and Sweet Review

Once Dead, Twice Shy follows a teen named Madison who was attacked by a reaper at prom, but before he could finish the job she took his amulet and now she’s stuck on Earth dead but certainly not alive. The amulet gives Madison an illusion of a body, but now she’s really in danger because Kairos wants his amulet back. Madison has her guardian angel and her crush working with her so what else could possibly go wrong?

I can’t exactly pinpoint what I didn’t enjoy about this book but I know it wasn’t up to par. This is a pretty short novel and I don’t think things were completely fleshed out. The biggest thing that we’re missing is Madison dying, we hear about it but that would have been great to have in the prologue. Most of the characters were one dimensional and didn’t have any depth to them. Madison is our main character and she made a lot of mistakes and it didn’t seem like she grew from them. I didn’t really care about Josh her love interest or her guardian angel Grace, I also thought that we would see more of Barnabas another angel but I was wrong.

Overall, I didn’t enjoy this book. The biggest problem was that the story starts when most of the plot has taken place and by the time I figured out what was going on the book was over. I will say that the plot was interesting but not well executed. I plan on reading the second book just to see what happens and I’m hoping it’s better than this book.