Dead Girls are Easy is the first in the Nicki Styx series. I began with the first book in the series even though there are four in the series currently. In this first installment I classify it more paranormal and much less mystery in the usual sense. This is very close to urban fantasy lite and no real burning mystery with multiple suspects exists.

Nicki Styx was unaware of a heart valve problem until she has a near death experience due to a heart atack. Returning to her job and normal life she finds that the owner of the shop across the street from her vintage clothing store has been murder and her boyfriend arrested for the crime. She sees the dead friend, Caprice, watching the police handle the crime scene. Nicki is quickly being maliciously haunted and blackmailed by Caprice's spirit. In trying to stop the malevant ghost Nicki finds herself hip deep in Jamaican Voodoo.

There are some effectively scary scenes around the voodoo and its lore.

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I really enjoyed this fun paranormal read!

When Nicki Styx has a near-death experience after suffering from heretofore unknown heart problems, she's sent back with the message "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

That sounded great, and the doctor who saved her life in the ER looks pretty dang good, too. But soon Nicki finds out just exactly what that whole "Golden Rule" stuff was about. The spirits of people recently departed, who have unfinished business on Earth, seem drawn to Nicki. And they all want her to solve their problems.

Some of these ghosts/spirits are friendly, some are funny, and some, like the spirit of Caprice Dumaine, seem downright evil. It seems Caprice was involved in some truly witchy voodoo, and now it's up to Nicki, along with Caprice's Granny Julep, to set things right.

This was a fast, breezy read that has some laugh-out-loud moments, along with some truly creepy ones. Although the issues with Dr. Joe, Nicki's savior/boyfriend at first seemed a little too far out there (even more than seeing dead people!!), I was interested in this side plot by the end of the book.

I can't wait for the next book in the series! ( )

There’s nothing particularly complex here, but I enjoyed it. Nicki deals pretty well with her newfound “gift”, and I like her relationships, both with her best friend Evan and her new (and unlikely) boyfriend, Dr. Joe. No one really knows why or how Nicki can now see and talk to the dead, but the voodoo makes for an interesting twist. Not every dead person is looking for the light. The tone here is also good… It’s not as silly as a MaryJanice Davidson, but not as serious as a Laurell K. Hamilton. I would definitely read more in this series. ( )

I just finished my first book of the year and it was alright. Dead Girls are Easy by Terri Garey wasn’t the best novel I’ve read in awhile, but it did keep me reading. I’m also hesitate to call it a part of the paranormal genre. The idea of voodoo is border line paranormal in my opinion. It’s a religion and not really a legend or a myth. You can actually go places and find someone who still believes in it and probably still practices it. Hit New Orleans and I’m sure you’ll find a bunch of voodoo shops.

I guess when I think paranormal, I expect to see vampires or werewolves or some kind of magic. In Dead Girls are Easy, you have a goth-minded girl who almost dies and now sees dead people. It sounds a little like Sixth Sense to me, but with a romantic twist to it. Girl almost dies in the ER…sees hunky doctor…sparks fly and there is romance. It’s not really something new and it’s kind of disappointing really. Just looking at the cover you expect to see something relating to vampires. I mean, the cover has a crypt on it and the title does say dead girls. Maybe I expected too much out of the title, but the story was mediocre.

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I loved the plot of this book by Terri Garey. Nicki has a near death experience and when she awakes, lo and behold, she sees dead people. The dead people all need a little help, "tell so and so this for me", "I need to give something to someone"...but then her neighbor gets murdered. Suddenly Nicki finds out she's fighting for her home, her mind, and her life! With a fun storyline, and interesting characters this story flies right off the words on the page. This is an extremely strong entry into what looks to be a new paranormal series. Two (minor) points bothered me. The first being that the ending wasn't as strong as I feel it could've been. I think it was fairly abrupt and a little too tidy, although there was a short string or two left hanging. Surely those strings lead to some future plot lines. The other thing, is probably my own special quirk but I everytime I read her name Nicki Styx, visions of Motley Crew danced in my head. Slightly odd. Basically, great kudos to this book. Pick it up and enjoy. ( )

The last book I read was a chore to get through, so in picking this one up I was hoping for a light distraction, and that's exactly what I got. This book is filled with clichés: the sort-of-goth girl who loves the goth look and music but swears she's not goth, her flamboyantly gay best friend, his muscular but quiet boyfriend, the normal guy who's intrigued by the freaks, the wise black woman who speaks in riddles, ... I could go on. It's not deep reading at all, rather more of a bubble-gum book. The story was decent though, and it was just the light distraction I was looking for. I will probably look for further books in this series to read when my brain needs a bit of a vacation. ( )

Clearly the start of a series, this very light, very slight romp through Near Death Experiences, introduces us to Nicki Styxx, a traditional chic lit heroine, with the obligatory gay best friend Evan, and new love, could he be true love, Dr Joe, who not only saves her life, but then sleeps with her and includes her in a study he is doing. So medical eithics is not his strong point.

I actually didn't like this book, because it was too chick litlike for me. I like romances and erotica, but chick lit heroines don't actually do it for me, I usually find them annoying. And Nicki is a bit annoying. Dr Joe is a cipher and Evan the gay friend was so stereotypical, you could predict every word that came out of his mouth.

The plot was actually a strong point for once, in that there were some interesting ideas there, but they were so poorly realized, and the writing was so banal, that the book didn't sustain interest for me. I was skimming by the end.

Could have been much better, so C+, I thought. ( )

I was very disappointed to find out that this novel was in the first-person narrative. It is not my usual fare, but engaging enough that I did read it all, which is more than I usually do with first-person novels.

What I especially did not like was the open ending. The relationship is not resolved, beyond that they are still "seeing" each other. I can just see it now, sequel after sequel of them flirting and having sex, but with no true resolution of their relationship. This is definitely miscategorized as romance and should have been labeled chick-lit instead. ( )

Light read, mostly fun although it felt a bit unfocused to me, particularly the way the ending of the mystery/suspense part of the plot was handled. I liked it enough that I'll probably read a sequel if there is one, but I'd hope to see some tightening up of the writing and editing in a second book or I probably wouldn't read a third.

One thing that *really* annoyed me was that the author seems to have an aversion to the phrase "want to." I lost count of how many times the word "wanna" was used instead of "want to." While that's fine now and then for adding flavor to dialog, it gets really old when it's used so often, even in sentences that aren't dialog!

I think I find it more frustrating when a book is "pretty good" and could've been better with just a *little* more work, than I do when I read a book that's out-and-out bad. That was my reaction to this one...pretty good, could have been so much better with the benefit of tighter editing. ( )