The Reluctant Reaper by Gina X. Grant

The Reluctant Reaper, Book 1

Synopsis: Life for Kirsty d’Arc might not be perfect, but it’s far from hellish. She likes her job, has a great BFF and truly admires Conrad, her boss. But when she dives in front of a lunatic’s blade to save him from certain death, she finds out Conrad isn’t so admirable after all. In fact, he’s traded her soul to the Devil!

While her body lies comatose on the Mortal Coil, Kirsty’s spirit is dragged straight to Hell…which is not quite the fire-and-brimstone abyss she’d expected. In fact, the place is quirky, wacky, and not without charm. Desperate to reunite body and soul before her time runs out, she seeks out allies, earning the friendship of a powerful drag demon, a psychic server and most importantly, Hell’s civil servant. But what of her growing attraction to Dante, the sexy Reaper with a flair for romantic language—can she forgive him for scything her soul?

Stuck in the netherworld, Kirsty vows she’ll do everything on her postmortem bucket-list, starting with getting her life back and ensuring that Conrad has Hell to pay!

Review: When I read the synopsis of this book I was excited to be able to discover the first volume of this new series. I must say that it is always a pleasure to read more about reapers. They are not featured a lot in books, even if we can see them a little more now. I had a lot of expectations and hopes for this book, maybe a little too much…

Kirsty is a young woman who loves to help people, and don’t have any grudge even when they do very bad things to her. She is now working in a company, a job she enjoys and hopes to keep for a long time. Everything would be perfect if her boss had not tried to sell her soul in exchange for his. And one night when our young heroine attends a meeting between her boss and an invisible entity, she finds herself thrown into hell by Dante, the reaper who took her by mistake. But the problem is there and although Kirsty wants to return home at any cost, she will have to stand a trial and discover hell, a world very different from what she had thought. Fortunately Dante will also be there to assist and help her when needed.

Dante is a character that I enjoyed. He is quite mysterious, and I was curious to know more about him. We know he had a pretty eventful life and I was always happy when the story goes back on him. He is good with his self-control at all times but it is very different for our heroine. She is very naive and ends up in pretty incredible situations. She tries to find her place in a world she does not know and where she does not want to stay.

I enjoyed discovering this hell full of rules and at the same time very free about many points. It was interesting to see how the author was able to develop this world and had many people cohabit together. The environment is very original and I enjoyed the ideas. My concern was more based on the story … I felt it was a bit disjointed and the ideas weren’t linked together. As much as I appreciate everything about the construction of the world and the plot, the relationship of the characters seemed wrong and too fast for me. I was quite surprised to see how everything evolved without I could really understand it. It’s a shame because this fact put me back from the events and characters.

I’m a little mixed but I’m curious to read how the story will progress.