As first time novelists go, I was truly taken aback with Ann Kelly’s writing voice in Dead On. It caused me to question what makes for a good novel for one reader yet not for another? A very difficult question to answer yet not impossible: everyone searches for something while reading, either to escape from their everyday chores and duties, to forget some of their own misery and delve into a fictional character’s world of sadness, joy, love, and hate, and other personal reasons, which finds them sitting comfortably and reading a book.

Dead On interlaces romance, suspense, and reincarnation for a thrilling edge of your seat murder mystery.

The story begins in May 31, 1865 then jumps to the present. Our main character, Ann Yang, a medical examiner embarks in an investigation to try and help solve an outbreak of gruesome murders.

Taunting the police and investigative detectives, the serial killer begins to haunt Ann’s thoughts and dreams, causing her to believe they somehow have a connection…but what? Believing in past lives, Ann accepts to be hypnotized in the hopes of discovering something more…something perhaps hidden in her subconscious about the killer and their correlation.

Along the way Ann falls for her sexy carpenter restoring her Victorian home. Yet she suppresses these feelings as she continues to profile the killer, leaving little room for romance in her life. Her past failed marriage also plays a big role in her cold stance to open up to someone new.

The killer gets daring; visits Ann’s home at one point, leaves emails, which have the police scurrying to trace its origin.

Yet there is one sentence within this book which will forever remain with me: “Where do words go when they die?” Perhaps as a writer they hold more meaning for me than to a reader, yet all it takes is one memorable character, one hypnotic scene, one sentence to forever plaster an author’s name and book in a reader’s mind. This particular sentence did this for me and you can be sure I will be on the lookout for future books by Ann Kelly.