The Hexed by Heather Graham

Available on amazon.

I picked up The Hexed by Heather Graham on one of my library trips.  I grabbed it off the shelf because of the cover (yes, I judge books by their covers) and tossed it in my take home bag because the back cover piqued my interest.

Devin Lyle inherited her great-aunts cabin, when suddenly a woman is murdered nearby.

Craig Rockwell is a new member of a special FBI team known as The Krewe of Hunters.  They are paranormal investigators.  The recently discovered body is very similar to one he found int he woods as a teen.
Devin and Agent Rockwell, of course, start to fall for each other as the case progresses. But will they get to the bottom of the case before Devin becomes the next victim?

It turns out that The Hexed is the 13th book in a series of 20.  Normally I hate picking up a book and finding out its part of a series.  This time it didn't bother me.  There was enough back-story of the characters that you didn't feel like you missed anything, and its not part of a continuous series where you have to have read everything before and everything after to get the complete story.

What I Liked About The Hexed

I liked that it was a stand alone novel instead of me having to worry about getting my hands on the whole series to know what I was reading about.

Of course I liked the paranormal aspect of The Hexed.  FBI agents who not only see but also can communicate with ghosts!  What's not to like?

I liked that the romance between Devin and "Rocky" didn't take over the whole book.  It was about them finding the killer, not about their mad love affair.

I liked "Crazy" great-aunt Mina, even though she didn't really add much to the story.

I liked that Devin inherited a raven from her Aunt to go along with the cottage instead of a cat.  Cats are so overdone.

What I Didn't Like

There are two main arguments throughout The Hexed that annoyed me.

One was the "It looks like this murder is connected to Wicca." vs "Wiccans don't kill!" argument.  This popped up many times throughout the novel.  Usually it came to light when two people, who are both open-minded and agree on the second point, kept talking in circles about it.  Certain aspects of the murders clearly pointed towards witchcraft, but any mention of it brought out a "Wiccan's don't kill" argument.

The second was the "It can't be one of my friends, it must be one of your's!" argument.  Something they might have said once and gotten over, but not after every single interview.

The Verdict

3 out of 5 stars

I didn't hate the book, but I didn't love it either.  It took a couple of tries for me to get into the story, and the 2 annoying arguments above kept making me set it aside.  I may go on to read more of the series, but I may not and won't be telling ayone "You HAVE to read this!"

If you do want to give it a try The Hexed by Heather Graham is available on amazon in Kindle, Audio and Paperback forms.

Or, if you're rather start from the beginning you can check out Phantom Evil: Book 1 in the Krewe of Hunters series.