2024 urban fantasy, first of a planned series. Frankie and her
siblings Matty and Josie run a garage for classic cars… and Frankie is
a necromancer on the side.
But, you know, a good necromancer, who accepts body donations
and them rents them out to the recently-dead so that they can get
their affairs in order before passing on. (It's not clear how much the
world knows about this.) But it's still illegal because she can't get
her ticket from what sounds like the necromancers' union. She does
really thorough background checks… except apparently giving someone
else's address will get through them. In fact she's a bit rubbish at
the whole "running an illegal enterprise" side of things.
But really this book is much more about standing by your found-family
(they all escaped from the same orphanage, run by weird aliens who
didn't really understand how humans worked) and solving the puzzle of
the moment, which is: why are some of the rented bodies running off
and murdering people? Especially when they're enchanted not to be able
to do that?
The ultimate solution to all this is not entirely satisfactory,
needing the villain to have made mistakes in specific ways while
having a perfect mental model of their victims in others. But far more
importantly, the Hot Childhood Friend who betrayed Frankie and then
went to the far side of the country is back, and now he's a policeman
on the supernatural squad and seems to have grown up a bit, though of
course they aren't in love with each other no no don't be silly.
I don't know why this one worked for me when a lot of superficially
similar books don't; it rings many of the same cliché bells. I think
it may be that the found--family bond among Frankie and her sibs feels
genuine. Worldbuilding is sometimes superficial, and I suspect I'm
meant to have read Edwards' earlier books first, but it all made
sense.