"A Grim Reaper's Guide to Cheating Death" is a S.C.Y.T.H.E. mystery, the second in a three-book series. The third is due out in November 2026.

The first thing I discovered when I opened this book was that it features a new cast of characters unrelated to any of the originals from book one. The only connection is that our lead, Nora Bird, works as an administrative coordinator for S.C.Y.T.H.E., the company that employs modern-day grim reapers. That makes it an easy standalone read as well as a companion to the first.

Nora finds it fitting to work on her birthday, since it's also the day her parents died when she was eight-years-old. What better way to acknowledge that than to be surrounded by death? As Nora's sorting files of souls for various agents to collect, she runs across her twin brother's name. She reads and re-reads the file and sees that he's due to be struck by a vehicle and die within a few hours. Nora can't lose him. He's all she has left, even if they hardly ever talk to each other. Without thinking, she grabs the file and runs out of the building, with no plan in particular, to go save her brother.

The minute Nora gets to her brother’s house, the reader discovers that for twins, they are different as night and day. Charlie is laid back and rolls with the flow, while Nora is extremely cautious and afraid to actually get out and live life. She convinces him his life is in danger and that he has to trust her and get in the car and go, he agrees, but only if he can bring his new found friend, a parrot named Jessica, who has a lot to say and who mysteriously showed up on his doorstep recently.

From here on, the story picks up in pace. Every time Nora manages to save Charlie from imminent death, the cause and time of it changes up in his file. Things start to point to the mystery surrounding their parents death and they decide to follow a lead that takes them to their father's hometown, Virgo Bay, a town that no one seems to want to either discuss or step foot in, aside from the actual townsfolk themselves.

Can Nora and Charlie figure out the secret that their father was hiding, the origins behind Jessica and why she was sent to Charlie, all while keeping safe and alive long enough to unravel the mystery of who wants Charlie dead?

I really enjoyed this sequel, which is very fast-paced and full of action. I think I enjoyed it more than the first book, "A Grim Reaper's Guide to Catching a Killer", though both are good reads and can be read either individually or as a series. ~~ Dee Astell

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