Jensen Murphy has been reliving the last moments of her life for 30 years until psychic, Amanda Lee pulls her out of the loop and into the world of sentient ghosts. Amanda Lee wants Jensen to help her haunt a confession out of man she believes has gotten away with murder.

This was a fun book. Since Jensen is new to haunting, the world building is done as Jensen learns more about her abilities. The mystery is pretty good and I was not sure who the killer was until almost the end of the book. Jensen makes some ghost friends who are entertaining as well as helpful in her investigation. I am looking forward to the next book in the series. ( )

I don't use star ratings, so please read my review!

(Description nicked from B&N.com.)

“My name is Jensen Murphy, and thirty years ago, I was just an ordinary California girl. I had friends, family, a guy who might have been the One. Ordinary—until I became a statistic, one of the unsolved murders of the year. Afterward, I didn’t go anywhere in pursuit of any bright light—I stayed under the oak tree where my body was found, and relived my death over and over. So when a psychic named Amanda Lee Minter pulled me out of that loop into the real world, I was very grateful.

Now I’m a ghost-at-large—rescued by Amanda (I found out) to be a supernatural snoop. I’m helping her uncover a killer (not mine—she promises me we’ll get to that), which should be easy for a spirit. Except that I’ve found out that even ghosts have enemies, human—and otherwise.”

This book takes a bit of patience at first, because as the first book in a new series, there’s a lot that needs to get set up. Along with the mystery that Jensen is investigating, a good chunk of the page space goes to setting up some of the rules of the world of ghosts. The patience is needed not because any of that is boring, but because there’s a lot of time devoted to it. It’s understandable, and I don’t fault the author for it, but readers may come into this book expecting a straight mystery and there’s more to the novel than this. Much of the worldbuilding concerning the ghosts occurs in the first half of the book, and it might have helped the pace to spread it out a bit more.

On the plus side, Green has created some very well-developed characters, especially the family of Gavin, the man Jensen is investigating. The four siblings each have depth and their characters get revealed slowly over the course of the book. Jensen’s ability to observe them without being noticed helps in fleshing them out as the readers gets to see them in unguarded moments. The author does a good job of keeping the suspicion on the original suspect while throwing doubt on his involvement. Jensen’s relationship with Amanda Lee also has some complicated aspects. There are issues of trust that come up as Jensen gets to the heart of why Amanda Lee is so gung-ho to prove that Gavin is guilty.

Not only is there a “bad guy” in terms of the murderer Jensen is trying to find, but there’s also an enigmatic spirit character who takes the form of Jensen’s former boyfriend. It’s not clear if his motives are good or not, but he does try to tempt Jensen into giving up on her new “life” as a roaming ghost. By adding him to the story, the author demonstrates that her afterlife is more than just a haunt-or-move-on proposition. It’s obvious that this will play a greater part in subsequent books.

Only the Good Die Young is a pretty solid start to a new series. While a little exposition-heavy in the first half, the story finds its rhythm in the second half and delivers a lively (or is that deadly) tale of mystery and betrayal. The next book is due out in November, and I look forward to seeing where the story goes from here.

This review originally appeared on Owlcat Mountain on February 17, 2014.

Vampires, werewolves, and even faeries and ghouls populate the urban fantasy genre in abundance, but it's not often that I stumble across a series centered around ghosts. Even rarer still to find a one that's told from the perspective of a ghost, which is why I was initially drawn to this book.

Only the Good Die Young is the first of a brand new series featuring Jensen Murphy, a twenty-three year old woman who was murdered in Elfin Woods sometime in the 80s. Her death was so traumatic that not only did she lose all her memories of that night, her spirit was also trapped in a time loop and became an imprint until a psychic medium named Amanda Lee came along and snapped her out of it. Ever since then, Amanda Lee has been helping Jensen get up to speed on all that has happened in the last thirty years. Not surprisingly, our protagonist's mind is totally blown by this whole internet thing.

It turns out the psychic has been keeping some secrets, however. One of the reasons she rescued Jensen was so that she could have access to a ghostly assistant, hoping that her spirit abilties could help identify the killer of one of Amanda Lee's dear friends who was murdered three years ago. The main suspect was the victim's ex-boyfriend. Convinced that he did it, Amanda Lee now wants Jensen to haunt the guy, and scare the bejeezus out of him so badly that he will eventually break down and confess his crime.

Putting it that way, I know the plot sounds rather goofy. It's possible I'm still coming down from the surprise at how light in tone this book ended up being, considering how I was expecting something a lot darker, given the brutal circumstances around Jensen's death (someone in a creepy mask, axe, alone in the woods). Not that this book is all sunshine and rainbows either, but it definitely contains less bleakness and horror, more humor and energy than I'd anticipated. For a ghost book, that is.

I have to say this one took its time to grow on me. I was so unimpressed by the main characters at the beginning, turned off by Jensen's yielding nature and especially by Amanda Lee's judgmental and cynical ways. Because someone designed a violent video game, he must be guilty of murder? Rich folks only adopt children from third world countries because doing it is a symbol of status? Get as far away as you can from this woman, Jensen, just get away as soon as you can. The fact that she didn't made it so hard for me to keep reading.

But then, something happened. As Jensen also noted about herself, she grew a backbone. She stuck up for herself, found some new friends to hang out with. And how fun these new friends are! I loved the "ghost budders" Randy, Twyla, Scott and Louis, who teach Jensen what it is to be a ghost and what she can do. Ghosts in this series have some pretty cool powers, actually. They can induce hallucinations, imitate sounds and throw their voices around. They can enter dreams and sift through your memories. These abilities take a lot out of a ghost though, which are made up of pure energy. So to recharge, they have to draw from a source of electricity, or do things like sit on powerlines to juice up again. Some really neat ideas in here, and that last imagery of Jensen and her fellow ghosts made me smile.

Amanda Lee also didn't turn out to be so bad after all. Of all the characters, she was probably the most invested in the outcome of the mystery, even more so than Jensen. As her character became more and more defined, it grew easier to see where she's coming from even if I didn't agree with her methods. At the end of this, the identity of her friend's murderer comes to light, and the answer may shock you! I certainly didn't see it coming.

So yes, I liked this book a lot more once it got going; certainly my feelings about it were more positive by the end, and I'm glad the plot ultimately sorted itself out. Still, there's a bigger murder mystery to be solved here, that of Jensen's, of course. Somehow, I have a feeling that story is going to be a part of a much bigger arc, but now that I'm fully on board, I'm look forward to continuing this series and finding out the truth. ( )

Good beginning to this series. Life in the afterlife is more complicated than you might think. Jensen is pulled from her loop by Amanda Lee to help solve a murder mystery. Not who you would think it was, but the clues were all there. Good character development, nice pacing. ( )