Grave Secret by Charlaine Harris Series: Harper Connelly #4
Published by Berkley on September 24, 2009
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 332
Format: eBook
Source: Library
Goodreads
Amazon, Audible, Libro.fm, Barnes & Noble, Apple
Lightning-struck sleuth Harper Connelly and her stepbrother Tolliver take a break from looking for the dead to visit the two little girls they both think of as sisters. But, as always happens when they travel to Texas, memories of their horrible childhood resurface.
To make matters worse, Tolliver learns from his older brother that their father is out of jail and trying to reestablish contact with other family members. Tolliver wants no part of the man- but he may not have a choice in the matter.
Soon, family secrets ensnare them both, as Harper finally discovers what happened to her missing sister, Cameron, so many years before.
As I arrived at this final Harper Connelly series mystery, I was excited and sad. I didn’t want it to be the last and yet, I also really wanted to see if there would be closure for Harper’s deepest wish in respect to her gift- being the one to find her long-time missing sister. Charlaine Harris built the series-long anticipation just right even as Harper and Tolliver with Xilda and Manfred Bernardo to help, using their psychic gifts, solved the dark, gritty standalone murder cases in each book.
Grave Secret is the fourth of the Harper Connelly series and works best read in order because there are plot points connected through the books.
Harper and Tolliver are setting out in this new situation- a relationship together- even as they press on with the next job on the way to seeing their younger sisters and Tolliver’s brother in Dallas. A rich ex-rodeo star wealthy rancher hires Harper as an entertainment more than anything. To Harper, it’s a living and its in the direction she and Tolliver are heading anyway so she heads to the graveyard for Lizzie to see her stand on the graves and tell who was there and how they died. Lizzie and her relations get a shocker when Harper sees how the grandfather passed and also a stunner about the granddad’s live-in nurse. But, Harper and Tolliver don’t stick around for this one and the case gets passed off to their private detective recommendation. Or so they thought at the time.
They arrive in the Dallas area for the planned visit and know their new relationship will shock the rest of the family – Hello, Harper, try hard not to think it let alone say “Brother” in relation to Tolliver if you don’t want folks to squick out on you in a relationship with your step-brother. Yeah, they get some feedback, but that is sidelined when someone shoots at them and keeps trying. There is the option of Tolliver’s dad who’s in the area out of jail and claims he wants a relationship with his kids, someone from their most recent job, or another past case.
And, then someone calls it in that they think they spotted Cameron, Harper’s sister whose been missing for eight years.
Manfred comes to help ride shotgun as Harper is forced to chase leads in a few directions to get the answers to the family tragedy and to who is gunning for her and Tolliver.
The ranching family’s murder mystery was easily worked out right from the get-go for me, but I confess to being gob-smocked when Cameron’s missing person case gets wrapped up finally.
The elephant in the room was the weirdo-factor to Harper and Tolliver becoming an item. Oddly, I wasn’t bothered by it when it came into being in the last book, An Ice Cold Grave, but that was when they were purposefully saying all over the place in thoughts, to each other and others that they WERE NOT actually siblings and made it crystal clear they were not really related. Then, this book, Grave Secrets. Harper is calling Tolliver ‘brother’ right and left still even in her head so that I was feeling uncomfortable with them being intimate.
But, fortunately there was their present case and her sister’s case, and the danger with Manfred helping them to tugged my mind back into the story and gave me a whopper of a finish. I definitely recommend this series, but just be advised about that uncomfortable bit and if it will be a thing for the reader or not when considering this wonderful paranormal mystery world of Harper Connelly.
About Charlaine Harris
Tired of abiding by the mystery rules, Harris wrote a novel about a telepathic barmaid that took at least two years to sell. When the book was published, it turned into a best seller, and DEAD UNTIL DARK and the subsequent Sookie books were adapted in Alan Ball’s “True Blood” series. At the same time, Harris began the Harper Connelly books. Harper can find the bones of the dead and see their last minute.
When those two series wound to a close, the next three books were about a mysterious town in Texas, called Midnight.
A change in publisher and editor led to Harris’s novels about a female gunslinger in an alternate America, Lizbeth Rose. The Gunnie Rose books concluded with the sixth novel.
She’s thinking about what to write next.
As a lifelong reader, it was inevitable that Sophia would discover book blogs and the joy of blog reviewing.Sophia is a prolific reader and audiobook listener which allows her to experience so many wonderful books, authors, and narrators.Few genres are outside her reading tastes, but her true love is fiction particularly history, mystery, sci-fi, and romance.Though, sorry, no horror or she will run like Shaggy and Scooby.
Friend or follow me at Goodreads.
- The Spiteful Shadow by Peter Tremayne #PeterTremayne @minotaurbooks.bsky.social @sophiarose1816 #SundaySeries - October 11, 2026
- A Debt Inherited by Barry Richman #BarryRichman@sophiarose1816 - October 7, 2026
- Three Steps Behind by Dani Pettrey #DaniPettrey #BethanyHouse @partnersincrimevbt.com @sophiarose1816 - October 4, 2026
Wow, there’s a lot going on for these characters in this book. I haven’t read this but I really like this author.
Yeah, this last book had a lot of brands in the fire. It was easy to follow, though.
I remember enjoying this series back when I read it, but don’t remember a lot of it. And yeah it would feel better if Harper doesn’t keep called her step-bother brother now that they are in a relationship. Glad you mostly enjoyed this last book in the series.
I was so glad it met up with my expectations and I did really enjoy it in spite of her calling him “Brother” so frequently.
Still debating if I’ll try this series. I still need to finish the Sookie Stackhouse series. I know part of why I didn’t finish is because the TV show veered so far from the books. And then I just didn’t get the last 2 read. I should make that a priority for my TBR this year! Great review!