Blog Tour: The Dead I Know by Scot Gardner

Title: The Dead I Know

Author: Scot Gardner

Publisher: Razorbill Canada

Release Date: August 1, 2012

Source: ARC from Publisher

Buy the Book: Amazon / Chapters Indigo

You wake in the middle of the night, your arms and feet pinned by strong hands. As you thrash your way to consciousness, a calm voice says, "Steady. We're here to help." Your mind registers a paramedic, a policeman, an ambulance. You are lying on the lookout at Keeper's Point, the lookout Amanda Creen supposedly threw herself off. And you have absolutely no idea how you got there.

Aaron Rowe walks in his sleep. He has dreams he can't explain and memories he can't recover. Death doesn't scare him--his new job with a funeral director may even be his salvation. But if he doesn't discover the truth about his hidden past soon, he may fall asleep one night and never wake up.

The Dead I Know by Scot Gardner is one of those books that I hadn't heard about at all until I was offered a chance to be a part of the blog tour for it. But the synopsis made it sound really interesting and like something that was really different from what is already out there. As it turned out, The Dead I Know, really was different and it surprised me in more than just one way.

Aaron Rowe never really thought there was a business surrounding death. But then he starts working as an assistant to a funeral director and he discovers that there is a lot more to death than he ever thought. And then there are the strange dreams coupled with sleepwalking. But Aaron has a lot more on his plate. When everything starts getting out of his control, Aaron doesn't know who to turn to for help, because help isn't really something he's ever asked for before. And when the nightmares become clearer and clearer, Aaron realizes he might be more familiar with death than he thought.

The Dead I Know by Scot Gardner was really something different. When I first started reading the book, I didn't really know what to expect, and even if I had any expectations they would have been completely off. It really was unlike anything else I had ever read. I'll admit that at first I had a little trouble getting into the story and sort of understanding what was happening. But the more I read, the more I started to sort of understand and the more I found myself getting into the story, despite how little there actually was. What I mean by that is the storytelling has a very medical feel to it. Even though it's written in the first person, all you get are the bare bones, nothing more than just the facts. While at first it did make the story somewhat more difficult to read, ultimately having it written any other way just wouldn't have worked as well when the characters are taken into consideration.

Just like with the story itself, the characters in The Dead I Know were completely different from anything I could have ever expected. The main character Aaron Rowe, appeared to be as dry as the story came across. But all the while reading, I was able to figure out that there was something more to him that I was missing. But even with that figured out, there was still so much mystery surrounding Aaron. And I think he was as much of a mystery to me as he was a mystery for himself. And that's what made him such an interesting character to read about. There was so much more to him than met the eye and seeing it all come together at the end of the story was I think a big part of why I wound up enjoying the story a lot more than I first thought I would.

Scot Gardner's The Dead I Know was completely different from anything I had ever read and for that, it definitely caught my attention and kept me interested the whole way through. If you're looking for something that is really different, then I definitely suggest you give The Dead I Know a try.