Hidden abilities, haunting memories, and one confused girl.I’m a reaper. Death should come naturally to me, but it doesn’t. And the abilities I am able to conjure are forbidden by my kind. My parents try to hide my abilities, but when the elders assign my first target, they order my parents to stay back.Now I’m on my own, with no one to protect me, no idea what I’m doing, and no control over the … no control over the powers I’m supposed to keep hidden.
I should have known this would blow up in my face.
My family name is ruined, and I have to fix what I’ve ripped. I’m not sure I have what it takes. The fate of my entire kind is on my shoulders, and I’m the only one who can make things right. But if I mess up again, it won’t just be my family that I break—our entire world will be ruined.
Tomb Raider meets Touched in THE ARTIFACT REAPER SAGA, a paranormal read for those who love a dark twist.
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Listened to the boxset for this series on Audible; this set has all 4 main books for the series. The narrator does a really good job. She fits the main character well, and has a nice tone to her voice. Quality performance and recording; I’d recommend listening.
Also, at the time of this review posting, the boxset is only 99 cents on Amazon right now, if you want to just have the ebook.
I wrote reviews for each book, so this review is pretty long. The short of it is that this is an action packed series with some cool, unique magical ideas. Pretty much a YA type read; light on the romance. Loved that there’s strong heroine that grows as the series progresses. A fun adventure! Each book got a 4 star rating.
Book 1 – Reaper of Earth – 4 stars
Interesting premise with the whole being a Reaper scenario, and I enjoy the adventure aspect of searching for magical artifacts. The whole story is told in Christina’s POV; she’s around 20 years old, but she seems younger. Naivety and her tendency for making decisions too quickly cause major problems for Christina; she annoyed me at times, too much of a teenager. Very YA type of feel to her. She does have some moments of strength, but overall, she seems weak to me. Pretty much everyone treats her like trash; her parents included, and she just mostly puts up with it. Maybe this is one of those series that she’ll grow throughout the series, but I wanted to see more of that by the end of this book. I wanted to like her, but she makes it hard; especially when she’s making deals with some majorly untrustworthy and unsavory characters; demon and witch types. Christina is too easily manipulated. The fact she would even consider reaping people before their time seems an awful lot like murder to me, so she’s a bit tough to root for.
A little more about the premise. Christina is a Reaper, but she doesn’t like the feeling of reaping souls. She ends up bringing someone back to life instead of reaping her soul like she was supposed to; she does this because the girl looks like her dead best friend. She tries to hide it and lie to the Reaper Council; well, that doesn’t go over too well, she ends up in trouble with the Council. In order to appease the Council, Christina needs to use her magical power to find things to find some magical crystal and 3 other magical artifacts, or her family will be blacklisted in the Reaper community. The whole Reaper community seem like major jerks; including Christina’s parents, so if I was Christina, I would’ve said sayonara. What’s more important? Your jerk parents being blacklisted by the other jerk Reapers, or helping evil people find a crystal that can destroy Earth? Apparently, that’s a hard question to answer for Christina.
Overall, there’s some really interesting elements to this story; a little slow at times, but I feel like this story could go in some really cool ways in the rest of the series. I have the audio box set for this series; narrator does a good job by the way, and she has a nice tone to her voice, so I will keep going with the series. I just hope Christina stops being such an easy target.
Book 2 – Reaper of Wings – 4 stars
Entertaining story with some fun, unique ideas! Love that there’s reapers, demons, angels, and more! Some cool magical elements too!
Christina is still on the outs with the reaper council, so when this story opens she is moving to a different town and is living on her own; still nearby to where she lived, so I’m not quite sure how the council doesn’t find her. It turns out the Reaper council is willing to not kill her if she’ll work for them on finding those four magical artifacts. Of course, they don’t give her much choice when they threatened her parents and herself. There’s also more enemies out to make things difficult for Christina too; lots of shadiness and danger going on. Some good action going on too. Plus, she has a little help from Charlie too; they are finding out some new information about his sister that they want to look into, and Christina’s parents are finally acting nicer towards her. It’s nice Christina has some help, but Christina mainly works on her own; trust is difficult when people keep treating her poorly. Glad Christina is starting to realize that she should think through decisions before just helping undeserving people get super magical artifacts they could use for evil; she’s maturing which is good. Excited to continue the series and hopefully Christina will continue to grow as a character!
Book 3 – Reaper of Flames – 4 stars
Reaper Christina is still on the search for the 4 magical artifacts; she’s found 2 so far, but there’s a little problem when they absorb into Christina. Now, she’s dealing with how to handle all these extra powers; she’s becoming quite formidable, which is good because she has a whole bunch of people with nefarious plans for those artifacts out to control Christina.
This book opens up with Christina working as a waitress in a different town than her home town because she went off on her own without telling anyone because she’s unsure if she can control the power now within her. Her car broke down, so she’s trying to make some money to pay for the repairs. There’s no running for her though because there are some pretty powerful people that need her to find the rest of the artifacts. Love how Christina is realizing more and more that she needs to really be careful with who she can trust, and it’s super great that she’s getting training on how to work with her new powers. Still loving all the action in this series! Plus, I love that there’s demons, angels, reapers, witches, etc.; fun to have a lot of different types of paranormals.
There’s also a little more romance in this book, which I’m glad for. Christina is a bit awkward for someone who is almost 20 when it comes to romance, but there’s some sweet moments too. This series still leans towards the YA aspect I’d say; it’s all pretty tame. I like Charlie okay; he’s a bit too possessive at times, but he fits well with Christina.
Overall, this is another entertaining book in this series; I liked a bit more depth to the characters, but it’s a fun read and I do like all the characters. Looking forward to the finale with the next book!
Book 4 – Reaper of Water – 4 stars
This has been a fun, magical, entertaining series! Entertaining and lots of action!
Christina is still dealing with having all this extra power from the magical artifacts; plus, she’s still on the hunt for the final one. And of course, there’s still many evil forces trying to have control of the artifacts and Christina. Demons, witches, reapers oh my! Lots of danger! Christina is still practicing how to control her powers and how to fight; it’s great to see her becoming more accepting of herself, and it’s awesome that she’s kicking butt. She still is a bit too trusting; too many people in her world out for their own quests for power, but she’s gotten much better as this series has progressed. She’s also having to deal with some past bad decisions she’s made. Christina has a lot on her plate.
The ended was too abrupt for me, but overall, this series has been a fun adventure!