The Hunted Series Book 1: The Reapers by Ali Winters Reviewed

Title: The Reapers

Genre: YA/Fantasy

Release date: May 31

The balance of life and death must be kept at all costs.

Having been a reaper as long as she can remember, Nivian knows that what she does is essential in maintaining balance. After being assigned to a rushed mark she finds that there is more to this human than any other she has encountered.

Kain had been living an ordinary life without a second thought until he meets Nivian who turns his world upside down. He is thrust into a world of hunters and reapers. The keepers of life and death have been feuding for centuries over a reason no one can even remember.

With Kain having been marked for reaping, and Nivian being hunted, they forge a friendship and together must find the truth in order to keep balance in check. Wrong choices could destroy everything. As they journey they discover hidden histories, powers, and lies and truths that have been spun since the beginning of time. The consequence of failure, unimaginable.

I want to say, “This book is great, read it!” and stop at that cause really, it’s hard to articulate intelligent after reading a book as good as this. But of course, if I do that, I’ll feel that I didn’t give justice to the trust the author gave me to review this book in exchange for my review. So here are my thoughts…

From the cover until the last word of the novel had me hooked. Covers usually don’t matter that much to me. But this book is one of the few books that had me itching to read it because of it’s cover. In fact, there are a couple of books that I needed to read before this if it’s not for that cover that totally distracted me every time I light up my kindle. So yes, to whoever the cover artist is, you did great. And I must say that I don’t regret being distracted by the cover.

Basing on some of the fantasy books that I have read, some of the authors have given me the thought, ‘this author is messing with me’. It’s because some of them kind of take the word fantasy as an excuse to write lame concept of a fantasy world that is so hard to imagine I can’t help my eyebrow getting up. But Ali Winter’s The Reapers was nothing like that. It’s as if she wrote the book with the mind set that she have intelligent readers and the phrase, “dude, it’s fantasy of course it’s impossible and that’s okay” simply wouldn’t do. The events, the characters, the conflicts, the twist – all of them was intricately woven I could feel how much passion she have poured in making this novel come out the way it is. It’s really hard to explain what I wanted to say regarding this aspect without some comparison or analogy and I’m afraid that might take me away from my review so you better read it and see for yourself.

I love how she had shown me a new take on reapers, or the Grim Reaper for that matter. She had shown me a new possibility of how death happens and why it happens. She had shown me a new kind of immortally without needing a couple of fangs painted into the picture. And she did all that in a unique and intelligent manner.

The characters had me torn apart. I don’t know if I would rather have Kain killed or not during the beginning and I was anxious about Silas which ended well for me. I can’t believe my instinct was wrong on Silas but somehow I was happy to be wrong. I am still torn apart. This first book poses some question regarding the main characters which I have no doubt will be answered on the next book. I like Kain but I like Caspian more and as early as now I can feel my heart breaking for one of them. And I’m not even sure if that will be part of the story.

There was no boring part from the cover til the last word. No fillers too, you can see that every word matters as to how the story will move forward and I guess that’s one of the factors that really captivated me. Though I caught a few proofing errors (double words and out of place words) which I can let pass considering the adventure of a story the author just had me experienced.

I’m really looking forward to where their friendship will lead them (Caspian, Kainn and Nivian) and if whether what’s waiting for them next will strengthen or sever their friendship.

If you love YA Fantasay, I highly recommend this book. It was full of humor, action and adventure and also a hint of mystery.

AMAZON

Ali grew up in the Pacific North West. She attended Oregon State University for photography. After many adventures she moved to Colorado and earning second degree, she found and met and married her husband. Ali currently lives in windy Wyoming with her husband and two dogs. When not writing Ali is either photographing, knitting, reading, dancing, or staying inside where it’s warm with a hot cup of coffee and dreaming of traveling the world someday soon.