Keepers verses Reapers

Title: Keeper Vs. Reaper
Author: Jennifer Malone Wright
Genre: Paranormal Fantasy
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars


After the death of their father, Lucy Estmond inherits the family business even though she is the youngest.  She knew she would be the one to take over watching the souls in the graveyard and keeping them from being stolen from the Reapers.  Reapers are beings that eat souls to keep their strength.  Each despise each other and Lucy continues the age old battle.  But everything changes when Lucy finds out about a prophecy of a Chosen One..  A prophecy that she fulfills of being the  keeper to bring the end of the Reapers.  During a chance encounter at her sister's bakery Lucy meets Jack.  A gorgeous man....and a Reaper.  After their meeting the two realize they now have an attraction they cannot break.  They have a need to be together, almost like breathing.  When Lucy gets kidnapped by Jack's own mother, he joins the Estmond family to save her.  Will they be able to figure out what is behind this unnatural attraction in time?  Will Lucy discover answers to all her lingering questions?





So the premise is interesting keeper and reapers battling over souls and a chosen one to bring down the end of the other.  But it is an idea that has been done many times including the idea of the chosen one being the seventh child, born on the seventh day of the seventh month.  I've seen this 7 theme in other books (the 7th son of the 7 son will be a chosen one type of thing)  Star crossed lovers, too cliché of the Romeo and Juliet ideal. I don't want to give spoilers but several times quotes from Romeo and Juliet entered my head as I was reading this.


The pacing is super slow, it takes a long time to build up and even then the climax sort of falls short of what I was expecting and the ending made me think "that's it?"  It didn't really make eager and excited to read the next book in the series.  There were too many questions left unanswered, and readers are left wondering why the characters are doing the things that they are doing.  The language in this is fowl lots of f words and other cussing.  I understand people do this and do it often, but sometimes in novels it takes away from what the author is trying to do.  It was way overused and got old after a while. 


The characters had no depth to them, you thought they would at various points, but then their story gets dropped.  Lucy totally treats Ethan like crap, Jack is a man whore who changes his ways for Lucy.  There are so many of the siblings that sometimes you lose track of who is who and some aren't even really in the book or have side moments just as a reminder, almost like "Oh hey yea there is a sister named Steph."  The prophecy doesn't even get explained more other than Lucy is the chosen one to bring an end to the reapers.  There should be more to it at least for the readers.  It didn't seem like the Estmonds were too concerned with finding out more about the prophecy to help Lucy other than caging her into the house.


If I see the second novel available on like a free ebook day I may read it to see if there are questions answered, but I don't expect myself to read the next one.  As I always this book may not have been for me, but someone else might enjoy it, so if you enjoy paranormal fantasies and the like then sure check out this novel.


If you have any recommendations for a fantasy novel you want me to review feel free to let me know in the comments!


Happy Reading!

The Ninth Circle

Aiva has someone break into her house and steals the necklace off her neck.  The next day she collides with her sister who is missing her family necklace as well/  Tala informs Aiva that their third sister has been missing for several weeks and she needed her help to find Hartley.  Aiva has not been involved with the world of magic for years, and now she is thrown back into this world to save her younger sister from the mouth of Hell.  The clues they have lead them further and further into Dublin's criminal underground, where demons and other supernatural beings lie.  They are taken into the depths of the 9th Circle where a demon lord awaits their arrival. 


There were a few things that drew me into the book, and then a few things that kind of drew me away from it as well.  The cover and plot drew me in, but the pacing and character interaction somewhat drew me away. While there is a lot happening that moves the story along, it still feels like the plot moves slowly with things added into the story that don't pertain to the search of the missing sister such as a brothel using sirens to kidnap girls.  That felt like it could be a different story all on it's own. 


The take on the nine circles of Hell and twist on the Morrigan mythos was interesting and was one of the things that drew me into this story.  I haven't read too many books that address the Morrigan, but to get to that point seemed to drag on very slowly for me.  I can see how it would grasp the attention of other readers, it has a lot of action, suspense, thrills, but for some reason it'd didn't do it for me.  I have read other reviews linking it to shows like Supernatural and I can agree with those reviewers, but at the same time I can also see vast differences.  I don't think enough time is spend in each circle, I understand the need to get through each quickly to get to the Ninth Circle, but so more time in each would have helped keep my interest in this story.


At times the dialogue and character interaction felt forced and out of place, a little hard to believe. While the story didn't feel like a good fit for me, it could be that perfect story for someone else.  I do recommend the novel for others who enjoy the paranormal, fantasy genre.  I give this book a rating of 3 out of 5 and will return to it again in the future.


** I received a copy of this book from Netgalley.  The opinions in this review is completely my own and not encouraged or influenced by anyone else.**

Record of the Fallen Vampire

This was an interesting manga series to say the least.  I had picked it up because the art work looked interesting and the idea of a vampire king looking for his queen seemed interesting to me.  What I got was something a little different.  What I got included half-vampires, an alien invasion and a vampire queen bent on revenge.  There seems to be a lot of stuff going on in this manga series.  A lot of weird things mixed together.  There were things that didn't make sense with the storyline, I don't think they needed the alien invasion part, but the author made it work with the storyline. 

I have always loved the art of different manga series' and this one is no different.  I love the art work of Fallen Vampire and fell in love with it from the first volume I read.  With 9 volumes, it doesn't seem like there is enough time for the author to appropriately tell the story.  There were times when things seemed to happen too quickly and other times when it seemed like nothing was happening.  Although the storyline felt flawed, I still fell in love with the story!  I was surprised at how much I simply loved this series I mean vampires fighting aliens, how bizarre is that?  But it still draws you in, maybe it is the artwork that sucks readers into the story like a succubus.

Overall it was an interesting idea, how well it would have been executed in a traditional novel, I am not sure.  I don't think it would have been as entertaining to read.  I would give this series a 3 out of 5 rating because it was captivating at times and you couldn't help loving the vampire king.

Illusion by Sherrilyn Kenyon

In this installment of the Chronicles of Nick, Nick is expelled to a parallel universe where he is not the Malachi, his mom married Bubba, and everyone is normal for the most part.  The Nick from this world is now in his body cowering in fear as Caleb, Zavid and Kody are trying to figure out what happened to Nick and how to get him back before his generals destroy the world.  Someone did this to Nick, making him vulnerable in both worlds so that they may be able to kill him easier, but they underestimated Nick and those who care about him in both worlds.

I am a little sad to say Illusion felt like it was lacking something.  It seemed to progress slowly and drone on until the real action took place.  I missed seeing Acheron having a role in the book, even though he does make an appearance, it is not in the way that I expected.  But true to form Nick triumphs and kicks butt out of the big bad in this novel.  I expected more things to be revealed about Nick, but things are revealed about Kody and Savitar, making the plot thicken.  There is now a bigger mystery that surrounds Kody, and I almost feel the need to write down her family tree to keep everything in order. 

Like with the other books in the series there are twists and turns throughout the book.  Once you think you have everything figured out Kenyon changes things and blows you away.  I honestly started and finished this book within 5 hours or so.  I wanted to see what would happen, where the story would go and what would happen to our Nicky-poo.  As with all her other books, Kenyon brings the story life and makes her characters all jump off the pages.  I simply hunger for more about Nick and other members of the Dark Hunter series.  I like that she has a series devoted to Nick, and kind of gives an insight to his character more.  I have read almost all the Dark Hunter novels and always wanted a book just for Nick, and I guess his story took more to tell.  I almost hoped there would be a series dedicated to Acheron.  One could only dreams...hmm Acheron...oh wait we are talking about Nick.

I have this image of Nick in my head and I don't know if anyone else does, but I picture a young Gregory Peck, swaave and smoothe, sexy but at the same time a little awkward.  Somewhat of an old sole in a young man's body.  A man older than his years.  I wonder if that is something Kenyon goes for with Nick, maybe not. 

Anyway, I got a little sidetracked.  Illusiion is a good book for the series even if it felt a little slow.  It continues to set the stage for something bigger to happen to Nick and I can only speculate at what that will be, some things I know from the Dark Hunter series, but I am waiting to be completely blown away with the ending to this series whenever it happens.  But for now on to the next book!