Reluctant Reaper

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Grant , Inferno , LoL! You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. Grant Quirky fiction that's pretty, witty and gritty. Grant writes ingenious plotlines with twists, turns and sometimes magic. She is represented by Rosemary Stimola, the agent who also represents the Hunger Games series.

She lives in Toronto, Canada, just blocks from the house she grew up in. Storm Grant—the writer, not the hound dog—writes engaging action adventure with two heroes. Since , she has published with a variety of e-publishers and more recently, self-publishes. View all posts by Gina X. Kirsty d'Arc has been reaped accidentally. Now stuck in afterlife hell, she is awaiting for the hell's version of court of appeal, to hear her case.

In this widely quirk and unusual novel, we are introduced to several after-life creatures, funny puns and a wholly different world. Arc received via NetGalley I was a bit disappointed with this book for several reasons. Firstly, the humour seems unnatural and too forced; I didn't find it funny and since it is overused and omnipresent it quickly annoyed me. As for the story, the premises were original and interested me but I don't really care for what the author has done with it. Kirsty doesn't really do anything in the story apart from wandering around and I didn't grow attach to her.

Some emotional moments like when Kristy Arc received via NetGalley I was a bit disappointed with this book for several reasons. Some emotional moments like when Kristy discover that all her coworkers don't care about her, when she is betrayed by her boss or when she discover the depth of her aunts' sacrifice could have been interesting to explore but they were gloss over. I was curious about the Reapers, but we don't learn a lot about them here. However I think that we learn more about them in the next books of the series. Thirdly, I didn't like what the author choose to do with Dante Alighieri, which is a shame since a big part of why I wanted to read this book was because I was curious to see how the author would use him.

Indeed, he is the hero of the story but doesn't remind me of the historical figure or of someone of this time period, but rather of an awkward adolescent.

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He is supposed to be a master of language and to have participate in Florence politics and I would have like to see it reflect in something else that badly done poetry. In addition, he says that his major work,the Divine Comedy, was supposed to be humorous and that he can't stand the interpretations done by scholars, that's why he doesn't want to be reborn.

I really can't stand that. People appreciating this kind of humour may like this book better than me. The world building was interesting and you may also appreciate it better than I did if you don't know about Dante Alighieri. I would recommend this book to people wanting a quick and light read with a lot of humour. Oct 10, Frances rated it it was ok Shelves: This review was originally posted at: Once there, Kirsty goes about gathering evidence for an appeal against her old boss so that she can return to her comatose body lying in the Hospital.

The problem is that Kirsty starts to like Hell and the people who are there, particularly Dante, the reaper who accidentally reaped her instead of Conrad.

Gina X. Grant

Will Kirsty stay in Hell? Or, is her drive for revenge to strong?

The world-building in The Reluctant Reaper was well done. I found it interesting that people in hell essentially wait in line for years and years to appeal against the decision to reap their soul. Most appeals fail and the people then have to earn points by working in order to be reincarnated. Although this is not the traditional idea of Hell i. I also like how time worked differently in Hell. Time might move fast and a month may slip by in what seems like a day, or the days can drag on far longer than usual.

Time also works differently for each person, for example, a month passed by in what seemed like a matter of hours for Kirsty, yet, the month went by slowly for Dante. Finally, the demons were well done in the sense that they were different. One demon, for example, wore a tight sparkly gown, long nails, make-up, and jewels on his horns etc He was different and I liked the demon for that.

I wanted more demons though, particularly evil demons. Although, Dante tells Kirsty that some demons will rip the flesh off her bones, there's never any real threat that this will happen. I think this may have helped quicken the pace. I didn't really gel with the main character, Kirsty.

The Reluctant Reaper

It seemed like the author was trying to create a female character who likes shopping and designer clothes, but who will also stand up for herself. I like this idea in principal but this was clumsily done. In theory, a female character that is fairly tough yet vulnerable should have created a more three-dimensional character. However, the switch back and forth happened too frequently and too closely together, meaning it read more like bi-polar disorder instead. I also disliked how the author threw in so many puns and references to other books. At the back of the book there is a description of the author that says her sense of humour reads throughout the book.

I agree that the puns she came up with are clever, but I found them very distracting and annoying. The puns did not endear me to Kirsty and I often groaned at them. I think a couple scattered throughout the book would have been fine, but there were so many that I might not read the next couple of books in the series as a result.

The chemistry in the book was lacking. Although it was painfully clear that Kirsty had a thing for Dante—because she repeatedly talked about how insanely hot he was—it wasn't clear that Dante had a thing for Kirsty until two-thirds of the way through the book. As a result, the tension was lacking. Then, when Dante and Kirsty do get together, it seems like Dante is much more invested than Kirsty. Kirsty is still insistent on returning to her old life even though she didn't really start living until she was reaped, with the aim of reuniting with Dante when she dies naturally.

Quirky fiction that's pretty, witty and gritty.

I think this was meant to be romantic because he'd wait for her. I didn't understand why she wanted to go back if she was in love with Dante. It was clear that if she won her appeal, Dante would be in a huge amount of trouble. Plus, she is mostly responsible for her situation as she jumped in front of Dante's scythe and blamed him! The book ends rather suddenly.

I didn't realise the book was a series until that point. I was rather angry at the ending because it felt like nothing was really resolved. I'm guessing that the second book will be fairly similar to the first book as a result. There was nothing in the ending of the book that made me want to read more. Something needed to happen that ended the book on a cliff hanger. Although, technically the book does end on a cliff hanger, it's a cliff hanger that indicates the next book will pretty much repeat the first book in the overall plot points.

What the book needed was a cliff hanger that indicates the next book will be different and more exciting. I think that this book probably needed to be combined with the next book in the series. That would have prevented the inevitable similarity between the books and the author could have spent more time developing the chemistry and tension between Kirsty and Dante.

That way, I might actually have been invested in their relationship rather than feeling ambivalent. The Reluctant Reaper is okay; not awe inspiring brilliance or excruciating torture. Sep 07, Doug rated it it was ok. The Reluctant Reaper is an urban fantasy drawing on Dante's Inferno with plot and setting elements not entirely dissimilar to similarly inspired works by the likes of Piers Anthony and Amber Benson. Grant's style is is short on description and long on puns, as this early paragraph demonstrates: Leaping up, I threw myself against the far wall, grateful for the support as my knees wobbled.

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