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Book Review of Reaper's Justice (Shadow Reapers, Bk 1)

Reaper's Justice (Shadow Reapers, Bk 1)
ladybird avatar reviewed on + 44 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


I am a Sarah McCarty fan, but this book didn't work for me for several reasons. 1) I just didn'g get into the plot (what little there was). I was confused throughout a good bit of the book, and I thought the storyline was very weak. 2) There were a lot of short choppy sentences that didn't flow very well. I think the sentences were supposed to indicate the disjointed-ness in Isaiah's mind, but it didn't work. I couldn't connect or relate as there was no depth to either character. There were a lot of missed opportunities where Ms. McCarty could have gone into more depth about Adelaide's rituals and state of mind since her previous abduction, in addition to more info about Isaiah. And the developing romance is VERY unbelievable. After having been abducted as a younger girl by indians and not rescued for 2 years, then just abducted by outlaws (for what reason, we never really know), she decides to jump in bed with the scary, rude man who rescues her (that night) because she wants to experience 'making love' before going back to her life in town. Really??!! 3) My biggest complaint, and I have had this complaint before with Ms. McCarty's books (although this one is the worst), is that she frequently fails to identify the speaker during dialogue. This will go on for a whole page and I find myself having to go back and re-read the page, mentally keeping track of alternating speakers every other line. It really gets challenging when there are more than two speakers. And with the short 4-5 word sentences, it's hard to figure it out via context. This could be alleviated with a simple 'he said' or 'Isaiah replied' every now and then.

All in all, this book falls really short of the mark in many ways (character development, plot development, cohesiveness, believability, flow) and I will not be continuing this series. For those wanting to read a good series by Sarah McCarty, try the Hell's Eight series. Smoking hot, and better written.