Drop Dead

Tess Skye #1

by D.N. Erikson

I just woke up in a motel.
I have no idea who I am or how I got here.
But I do know three things.

One, there's a body on the floor...and one in the bathtub.
Two, there's a bullet in my arm. And it hurts. Bad.
And three...there's a vampire warlock right outside my door.
And he's coming to finish the job.

Genres: Urban Fantasy, Fantasy, Paranormal, Magic, Vampires, Audiobook, Mystery

Kindle Edition

First published May 12, 2019

About the author

D.N. Erikson is a USA Today Bestselling paranormal and urban fantasy author. To get your free copy of the novella BONE REALM - and join D.N.'s mailing list for the latest news on upcoming novels - visit dnerikson.com/bone.

D.N's series include THE HALF-DEMON ROGUE TRILOGY (complete), THE RUBY CALLAWAY TRILOGY (complete), and THE EDEN HUNTER TRILOGY (in progress).

Reviews

[Simon Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half stars maybe. This urban fantasy started well enough, our protagonist waking in a cheap hotel with no memories, just a bullet wound and a dead Vampire in the bathtub! The action was handled well, dialogue was okay a little stilted maybe, the plot was mediocre and felt rushed and the big bad was so generic to the point of being bland. Has room and potential to grow though.

[Marsha · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Drop Dead” is the first book I read from D.B. Erickson. The storyline evolves around a woman named Tess who is a former cop, a soul walker and someone who has lost her memories. She awakens in a seedy motel room with a dead vamp on the bed and another in the bathtub. Did I mention there is a vampire warlock on the outside of the door waiting to attack?

It seems our heroine is in possession of a highly specialized syrum and she needs to get it to someone named Javy. Unfortunately, Tess doesn’t know who Javy is. As she barely escapes one bad situation to another we run across a bevy of villians all who work for the big ball guy, Dominic Rillo and he has evil plans in store for the city of Ragarnok.

Honestly, this was a mediocre read hampered by poor world building and underworked characters. The bad guy was equally mediocre as well making me less than vested in the plot or his demise. I was not emotionally invested in this read despite the great potential of the plot and I wasn’t much a fan of the author’s writing style. Obviously I won’t be going on to the other books in this series despite the glowing reviews of others. As with all things it is best to read it for yourself and decide.

[Mandy Sickle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this one up for my scavenger hunt because it fit perfectly. This is my first book by the author and I enjoyed Tess's story. She wakes up with no memories but as the story progresses things start to work there way out. I loved finding out about her abilities. I'm planning on continuing the series!

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

An awesome, intriguing action-packed book! Poor Tess wakes up in a dive motel, with amnesia, a bullet wound in her shoulder, lots of blood in the room and a vampire lying beside her who appears dead. What happened to her? It’s a good thing she’s an ex-detective, because she has quite the mystery to solve. If she could only be left alone by the people chasing and trying to kill her, she’ll live to figure it out! This action-packed book is filled with danger, murder, crooked cops, kidnapping, blackmail, mystery, magic, a vampire/warlock, werewolf, the last Soulwalker, Navigators, suspense, a psychopathic billionaire, suspense, family, friends, Vitalysm, bombs, a golem, wards, twists and turns and more!

[Patrick Stirling · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gave up at 40%. A very standard Urban Fantasy with the usual thin stereotypical characters, written in the usual first person colloquial style. These are a dime a dozen, and you get what you pay for! A dollar in this case. I got suckered in by the "waking up with amnesia" trope, which I really like. I think Ludlum did it best with The Bourne Identity, and this isn't a patch on that. 2 stars is being generous!

[Debbie Eyre · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great read this is! A new urban fantasy series that is off to a great start full of action and with such a captivating read that I could not put it down! Twists and turns to keep you on your toes, and some very entertaining and interesting characters and I am so looking forward to reading more!

[JP · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely Fan-Freaking-Tastic 😁

I came across this book accidentally, but I sure am glad I did, cuz it's AWESOME 😃. Non-stop action, intense situations, nasty bad people and totally Amazing characters 😊. Thanks so much D.N. I'm so looking forward to reading more 🤓.

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a hard book to describe. It is the fist book in a soul walker series. Her name is Tess, and she wakes up in a murder scene, where she herself is badly wounded, but she does not know who she is, or how she got there. The story moves forward, and you learn she was a cop who tried to arrest the wrong man, and was fired by her boss, who is crooked. The problem I found was it felt like we were just dropped ,in book three of a series, instead of book one. Important characters were brought into it, or talked about, that had very little background set up. There is a serum, and some other information that a very psychotic mass murder wants her to obtain for him, or he will kill her partner, and destroy her town. Her partner is still on the force, but you never really know their relationship, or the young man they are training. There is a lot of running, hiding from where wolves, and vampire creatures that seem to be under the control of a very bad man. He sells, and creates pharmaceuticals, but they have a magical touch to them, a sort of spell. The ending felt rushed, and Tess gets hurt a lot trying to save everyone. The soul walker left their body, and not only knew the dead persons life, and secrets, but could use it as a puppet. They had to be grounded by someone, who could pull them back out. Although the ending was exciting. One wondered why she could not have done that earlier, and not felt she had darkened her soul. The characters needed more depth, as did the story line. It could have been so much more. I gave it a 2.5 rounded to a three. The twist at the very end came out of no where, and did not really go into much clarification. Sad because I usually love special police with gifts that control paranormal murders. I finished it, but it really didn’t pull the story, and all the good, and bad characters together enough to make me want to go further.

[SunnySue · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Half vampire, half warlock .. all asshole"

Audiobook 🎧

An action packed story with a leading lady that drop some killer one-liners along the way 😎
4 ⭐ might be a little generous, but the more I learned about Tess Skye's backstory, the more invested I got.
Looking forward to the next book in the series.

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one didn’t work for me.

[CJ - It's only a Paper Moon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Such potential

[Caker Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually liked the story. I think there was room for improvement. I usually love a shorter book that can get it done in under 300 pages. But I felt like this could have used some more detail, world building, and a little more depth, and it would have been amazing.

But like I said, I did like the idea of the story. I'm going to continue reading and see where it goes.

[Book Chomper · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yikes. This started well, the first couple of chapters it roared out of the gate - kick ass heroine in charge.... and then it fell flat incredibly quickly. Having the main character experience amnesia is an incredibly tricky thing to pull off - and this author was not up to the challenge. The flashing recalls of memories. Other characters appearing that know way more than her, and just casually dropping all this intense unwieldily info, that still leaves heroine in the dark. The casual death of a lot of the secondary characters, seemed to yank the plot around for no particular reason, and because the heroine doesn't remember them then her reactions come across bland and one note.

And then there was the bombs in the dam - bombs in the dam!?!!! That felt so over the top childish villainous I just couldn't carry on.

[Red Tide]

Rating: minus 2

Marsha, Simon Howard and the other reviewers all posted good notes about aspects of the novel. Reading their reviews is worth the time. It is a mix of reactions and should give a better picture of what to expect than any single opinion. The opinions on most of the books that I have read were of little use to me, so this set of varied reviews was a pleasant surprise.

Before reading my own opinion, please see my review of "Dark Horse", a good story by Diener or Powers of the Earth (a silly book) and the comments by Claes Rees, Jr/cgr710 . From loving bad writing to bragging about his racism (he is a NeoNazi) his comments shocked me. He supposedly spoke for all Goodreads english speakers, seemed to expect a parade of congratulations and reacted badly to the absence.

GLORY TO UKRAINE !!!

The story was better than most of the low effort science fiction that I've read over the last three years. There are problems with the main character's character, personality, relationships, values. They are contradictory and patchy. The world building could use more work. I recently read a Janet Evanovich comedy mystery that had much better world building. This is common in science fiction but when a writer does a thinner job than that of a comedy, there is a problem.

The character cast is a strange collection. They are written as if total strangers yet are supposedly great chums. If this were a movie, the first criticism would be a lack of chemistry. The main character has no emotional connection to any of the people with which she interacts, unless she hates them or tries to kill them. The villain does not meet anime standards (more effort there would have tied the story together better and every little bit helps this book). The main character seems to seesaw between needing help and rejecting help. The catsuit wearing for years because of a stupid bet, was probably the most annoying detail. I will not bother with plot issues, parts of which were good and parts made little sense.

I gave up science fiction for years at a stretch, several times in my life. I am losing my taste for the genre again. I realize that reading low effort science fiction had dulled my taste. Bad writing as a diet will degrade the ability to objectively and critically evaluate entertainment sources. I saw that in myself and came to understand why I lost respect for Amazon/Goodreads as arbiters of good print stories and members commenting to reviews as supposedly engaged readers (and responding as teen mean girls instead).

At the moment, I prefer more to watch science fiction than read the awful product that is the bulk of low effort US fiction. Since I started using YouTube for book and reader channels that are both more civil and thoughtful, I realize how much I detest Amazon/Goodreads. From there I discovered a lot of documentary sites that are useful to me. Netflix and services for movies (better written and more cosmopolitan than the low end print), YouTube for bookish things and other entertainment and Curiosity Stream/Nebula for educational video at a cost of $15 for a yearly subscription. Some favorite YouTube channels are.

UA Courage, Northern Narrowboaters, Danni and Joe, Munecat, Some More News, Tom Nicholas, Sarah Z, Karolina Zebrowska, May Moon Narrowboat, Ben and Emily, Lady of the Library, Voices of the Past, Prime of Midlife, Future Unity, Novara Media, Chloe Stafler, Narrowboat Escape, Traveling K, Science Intuition, Well deck Diaries, Paleo Analysis, Swell Entertainment, Dr Becky, Between the Wars, Eileen, The Snake Charmer, The Shades of Orange, History in the Dark, Useful Idiots, Tech Space, Spacedock, The Armchair Historian, The Historian's Craft, Overly Sarcastic Productions, A Cup of Nicole, 2Cellos, The Great War, Filaxim Historia, Jabzy, IzzzYzzz, Tara Mooknee, The Gravel Institute, Lilly's expat life, Chugging Along, Philosophy Tube, History with Cy, Tulia, Books with Emily Fox, Dr Ryan Ridden, Ben G Thomas, Ana Psychology, History Valley, The Cold War, World War Two, Factnomenal, Neringa Rekaslute, A Clockwork Reader, Venom Geek Media, Mythic Concepts, Dan Davis History, Jack Edwards, Practical Engineering, We're in Hell, The Jacobin Show, Cruising Crafts, Camper Vibe, Book Odyssey, What Vivi did next, Then & Now, Beautifully Bookish Bethany, Hello Future Me, Austin McConnell, Patrick is a Navajo, Zoe Baker, Diane Callahan Quotidian Writer, Eleanor Morton, Boat Time, The Templin Institute, Three Arrows, Brittany the Bibliophile, Lindsey Stirling, Dan Davis History, Prime of Midlife, EarleWrites, Eckharts Ladder, Mythology and Fiction Explained, Ryan Chapman, Big Think.

I wish you a bright morning, a productive afternoon, a brilliant evening and a splendid night.

Hope and Courage are the shield and the sword.
Meditations, Thirteenth Route Trade Fleet

[Blake · Rating 3 out of 5]

(FYI I tend to only review one book per series, unless I change my mind on a series, so want to change my scoring by more than 0.50 of a star. -- I tend not to read reviews until after I read a book, so I go in with an open mind.)

2.75*

It could have done with more world building.

The author needs to re-watch James Bond movies because when things go bad, he's on his own, not contacting M for instructions. If you're going to throw in pop culture, at least get it right.

It was totally obvious why they bailed out Finn. So I was just waiting for the baddies to show up. Ditto with Javy's 'secret'. Tess is pretty dense and she'd got her memories back at that point to, so can't even use not having them as an excuse.

First time read the author's work?: Yes

Will you be reading more?: Probably

Would you recommend?: Probably


------------
How I rate Stars: 5* = I loved (must read all I can find by the author)
4* = I really enjoyed (got to read all the series and try other books by the author).
3* = I enjoyed (I will continue to read the series)
or
3* = Good book just not my thing (I realised I don't like the genre or picked up a kids book to review in error.)

All of the above scores means I would recommend them!
-
2* = it was okay (I might give the next book in the series a try, to see if that was better IMHO.)
1* = Disliked

Note: adding these basic 'reviews' after finding out that some people see the stars differently than I do - hoping this clarifies how I feel about the book. :-)

[Lana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an urban paranormal thriller with Tess Skye as the main protagonist. She is an ex-detective and a soulwalker who can never stay away from trouble. She wakes up in a dingy motel room, covered in blood with two vampires dead and a third doing his best to kill her and she cannot remember how she got there, or even remember who she is. She lives in Ragnarok and soon discovers that the city is being threatened by a corrupt and power greedy billionaire called Dom Rillo who upon discovering her powers threatened to kill all the inhabitants of Ragnarok if she did not agree to work for him. As a soulwalker she could inhabit the bodies of the dead, slip into their souls and recover their memories. She worked with a negotiator who helped to pull her back when she dived too deep and who through this magical bond could always sense her. Tess also had an ex-partner, a detective Javy, who was doing his best to protect her still, and to bring down the corrupt faction of the police force namely his chief, the Captain and a vampire Carter Price who were both working for Rillo. The story is full of tension as Tess starts to recover her memory, she decides to go after Rillo and his many goons as she is full of guilt for having been part of this evil psychotic man’s scheme. Finn, Miranda and Javy put their lives on the line in order to help Tess save their town but Rillo has money and power on his side and time is running out!

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tess wakes up with a vampire in the tub of a cheap motel room and no memories of who or what she is. On a wild goose chase, she finds her navigator, her memories, and the reason why she's neck deep in bullet wounds, pissy vampires, and a megalomaniac's intent on ... doing... his... thing?

Here's what I didn't like: Present tense! Ooof. I almost DNFd this right back to KU, but it started out with a bang and Tess seems to feel the same way as I do about vampires, so I persisted. I have no idea what Rillo's end game was. Maybe it was supposed to be a given? But I never understood why he had to do behave like a villain to get what he wanted. I felt the bombs were flimsy. Like I get it's the motivation that spurs the book on and Tess, but I didn't quite buy the bombs, or Rillo's insistence on being a villain.

Here's what I liked: I hate vampires and so does Tess. This book moved fast, and it's probably what kept me reading too because it was so fast and I wasn't quite sure what might happen next.

Overall, fast book despite the jarring present tense. This series might help me overcome my repugnance of present tense. I plan to come back to it.

[Spinneretta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good

When Tess wakes up in a blood drenched motel room, she has no memories of her life before, and has very little understanding of what is going on now.
All she knows, is what she can piece together- she’s been shot, that she’s trying to take down a very bad man, and there’s a time limit…

This is a fast paced, very quick read (it’s on the shorter side), but is still an entire story.
Tess is a strong, and filled with a righteous fury that drives her to do the right thing, no matter the cost. Her choices aren’t always the right ones (because she is a flawed human being after all) but they are well meaning.
She has some interesting friends, though she has no memories of them, and a special ability she has somehow completely forgotten.
It all comes together to make for an exciting, and quite gripping read, that feels a little like an episode from an old film noire PI television show.
An enjoyable read, this one is good for urban fantasy lovers that prefer action filled tales, and quick reads.

[Dahrose · Rating 1 out of 5]

It has taken me a month to read to the 75% mark. I keep putting it down, completely forgetting about it, only to pick up my kindle and quite frankly be annoyed that I still haven't finished this book, so I'd read a chapter, sigh, put it down, forget about it... and the cycle goes on.

I give up. I don't care. There might be potential here but despite all the action, deaths, meeting with villains etc I'm just so bored.

This is PNR so this is going to sound stupid but the plot was just so over-dramatic, I kept rolling my eyes (bombs in the damn).

Yes, the first chapter (or two) is a great hook, as Tess wakes up in a hotel room with a dead vamp with no memory - but then everything goes frantic/chaotic, and because Tess can't remember, we the reader are also stumbling around for answers, and that kind of annoyed me.

Characters kept turning up - at seriously good and bad moments - that just weren't realistic. And worse, several characters who were dead, just resurrected themselves. So the plotting struck me as kind of childish.

[Ken Finlay · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Drop Dead" starts at a rollicking pace and it continues almost to the end.
If you're looking for an all-action read and don't worry too much about the very off-the-shelf plot you'll be more than happy.
"Instead of the silver-cored slugs turning his chest into liquefied vampire jam, he just grunts as the bullets vaporize into a purple ether courtesy of a bullet ward.
Half-vampire, half-warlock. All asshole."
Tess Skye, former cop and currently a P.I., wakes up in a hotel room without any idea of who she is, or how she got there. She doesn't have much time to think about it as battle immediately commences between her and a brace of vampires.
As her memories return she realises that she's on a mission to destroy a maniacal billionaire with dastardly plans. She's been forced to obey Dominic Rillo for the past year but now the gloves are off.
There's not much more to it than that except for a fair amount of magical bumph.
It's a very fast read.
3 Stars.

[Noone · Rating 2 out of 5]

I usually like it if a book drops me a bit into the deep end and lets me figure stuff out on my own as it goes along. But there is a difference between deliberately using this technique as a writing tool and an incoherent mess. This one leans much more toward the latter. It doesn't feel like it is deliberate. It feels chaotic and just not well-planned. More like a somewhat raw stream of consciousness than text written with structure and intent.
It makes heavy use of memory loss, not to create an intriguing mystery and deliberately reveal details of an intricate plot structure but as an excuse to make shit up as needed to move the narrative along.
It has all the hallmarks of the typical productive writing techniques many modern authors use to produce a ton of books within an incredibly short time frame. I still want to call it lazy writing techniques even though many of these authors are not lazy in this sense. They just prioritize quantity over quality in all ways but the cover.

[Jagged · Rating 1 out of 5]

An empty read

This is choppy as hell. Amnesia tropes usually are. The reason for the amnesia was better than a bonk to the head, but it was also kinda just thrown there for no reason.
There's some action, but it's very clunky.
The dialogue is not done well. It doesn't ever feel natural or like anyone would actually talk to each other like that.
The storyline doesn't make sense. How anyone knew what Tess was when she didn't wasn't ever explained. The motive of the bad guy was not well put together, and his bad guy threats were ridiculous and didn't fit any reasoning. Like, why the town? And the FBI going from being uninterested to just rolling over made no sense, either.

I had hoped this was going to be the next urban fantasy read for me, but this was so empty I just felt apathetic to it. That's worse than outright hating it.

[Bobbi ❤️ Book Addict · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wrote one review and for some reason it deleted. Annnyway…

First book my this author and I was very pleasantly surprised and glad it popped up as a suggestion. I am now on to book 2.

MC is a bad ass agent who wakes up and has no memory of what is going. She has 90% of her memory but other things are fuzzy. The book is packed with action and fighting vampires and other unsavory bad guys.

Through the book she figures out her memory issue (trying not to spoil the who, what, and why) and learns other things that answer questions.

Not really any romance in this book but lots of action and crime fighting.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Drop Dead (Tess Skye #1), my first enjoyable read from author D.N. Erikson. I've been getting D.N. Erikson books since 2016 & never getting around to reading them until now, I even have 6 of them on my TBR list. Well-written with intriguing characters and a captivating storyline. The first book of the Tess Skye series. “I received a free copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review." The gifting of this book did not affect my opinion of it. I'll definitely be reading more from this author and look forward to the next book in the series, (RIP Marley January 20, 2014 - July 24, 2018).

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

*WARNING* This might be a little much for younger readers because of the bloodshed and gore.
The book started with happenings and there was never a dull moment. What Tess is or became when she was around 30, isn't something new, I have read about these abilities before, just wasn't call the same thing. Finn confuses me, with his role in Tess's abilities, I would think he would be more present. I think this would be an amazing action movie! The characters have little development, but when do they have time?

[Colleen M. Duncan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a well written series with plenty of action. There are several different magical creatures: Elves, Mages, Immortals, Shades, and Soul Walkers. The main character is a police detective who finds out that she is a soul walker. This is when the trouble begins...! Tess is an angry short tempered character who is very impulsive and manages to alienate most people. It is her ability to soul walk that enables her to solve murders. She is a troubled character that at times I found irritating. I want to see her mature and mellow.

[Kathy Wortham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amnesia, Mob Boss, Immortals, Physic Powers, Corrupt Cops, Framed for Murder, Town Held Hostage, Chemical Weapons, Bombs, Missing Parent, Trained Killer, Possession, Hidden Agenda, Hidden Escape Route, Serum that gives Super Powers, Killer that drank the serum and so now is the serum, and Vampire Henchman. There's probably more but this book was so packed with the action elements that for a short book that it was hard to enjoy. Otherwise the basic characters were good.

[Hope · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first book by this author. I really enjoyed it! It's a twist on paranormals that I haven't read before.
The book had a good plot, interesting characters, and plenty of twists and turns. I felt it lacked just a little in character development, but that's probably because it's the first book in s series. I'm hoping we learn more about Tess in book 2. For being the main character of the book, we really know little about her.

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A soulwalker

Tess can't remember what happened. And she doesn't know why she can't remember. With the help of a couple of her friends, Tess finally remembers it all. The plan to bring down Rillo, who is basically a horrible mob type. He holds all the cards, or does he? Tess is determined to end him and his reign of torture. She will use every weapon she has to end Rillo. Great start to the series!

[Tony Hisgett · Rating 1 out of 5]

The start of the book was interesting, if a little frustrating as characters appeared then died. My problem was as the story developed things didn’t become any clearer. Then there was the inane dialogue and the ridiculous action, some of it was straight from an adolescent comic book.
Perhaps the story improves towards the end, but I really wasn’t convinced by the author’s world building and character development, so I eventually gave up.