Dead on the Delta: Stacey Jay

picture from goodreads.com

I Love, Love books set in alternate settings when they are done well. Maybe some catastrophe has happened, maybe a nuclear blowout. All I ask, is for the author to just make it believable.

Dead on the Delta does just that. This book is set in a world where fairy venom is dangerous even deadly to some. The cities are surrounded by iron, to keep out the mosquito-sized bad guys. There are a few people out there who are immune to fairy venom, those people do the dirty jobs that may take them into areas filled with fairies.
Enter our protagonist; Annabelle Lee. A sassy, red headed border-line, okay across the line, alcoholic. Her abilities find her helping the right side of the law, and in the arms of her main love interest, a detective in the Bayou's police department.

The story is set in the Bayou of Louisiana. Jay does a great job of capturing that dirty charm the South has to offer. Living in the South myself, I feel like I knew these colorful characters. The bitchy sisters, the charged racial tensions, the drug runners, the rapscallions. I've met them, grew up with them, befriended some,  oh hell I'm related to most of these types of folks.

Annabelle Lee is flawed, she's far from perfect and she stumbles through life. I like this. Where many authors don't let their main character get dirty and make mistakes, Jay gives her character a breath of realism. Many heroines are so perfect, so very moral. Annabelle Lee, is not confined to those constraints.
This book brings you drug addiction, sassiness,  two sexy love interests, a murder investigation and a feeling that even in the gritty bayou, things may be dirtier than you first imagined. Plus a good dose of Paranormal otherness that makes this book stand above other Urban Fantasy type books.

I know some of these elements I mentioned sound familiar. But rest assured, Jay doesn't follow the rule book in Dead on the Delta. Her writing is entertaining, the pace is great and you don't feel like your treading water waiting for something to happen. I absolutely recommend this book if you like a little grit in your reading catalog. 

Lucky for us, there is a sequel in the works!

My Rating: A solid A-