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A review by nnance
Organ Reapers by Shay West
4.0
Original review posted at Crazy Cat Reads.
Disclaimer: I received this book free in exchange for an honest review.
Crime mystery meets fantasy in Organ Reapers and this mash-up was a very enjoyable read! When you look at the title, you might think this story is full of blood and guts and gore, but to be honest, the descriptions of said guts (or lack there of) are actually quite minimal.
First we meet Tani and Keena, who end up being from another world and are called "Harvesters". They are sent to Earth to collect organs to bring back to their home world, which we never truly learn the name of.
We also meet Eli and his new, attractive partner, Ava Aguilar. The two of them happen to be the two detectives that get wrapped up in this bizarre case after investigating one of the murdered victims left behind by Tani and Keena. If you can't tell, these poor guys end up with a very frustrating case on their hands, given that their murderers aren't even FROM THIS WORLD. They also don't leave behind any evidence ... Most of the time.
I won't give anymore of the story away. You'll have to read it yourself to get the rest of what happens from there.
I liked the developments of the relationships for both Eli and Ava as well as Tani and Keena. However, my inner hopeless romantic also found herself extremely frustrated at times. Not in a bad way, per se. More often than not, as Eli dwelled on his thoughts of both his current situation and his previous situation I ended up usually shaking my Kindle and inwardly yelling something along the lines of "C'MON MAN, YOU DESERVE IT!" ... If I had yelled at my Kindle out loud, I'm certain I would have gotten strange looks from both the boyfriend and my cats.
Tani and Keena's relationship development was extremely slow throughout the book and I honestly thought they were incredibly adorable the entire time. They totally had a puppy love sort of relationship going on for almost the entire book. And yes, I am definitely calling murderers adorable, but you'll just have to read it to see why. Seriously. They're adorable.
Moving on from the romance aspect, I did find the main antagonist was pretty well developed and had just the right amount of batshit crazy to get under your skin somewhat early on in the book. I also loved that the author was able to portray Tani and Keena's confusion about Earth and how everything worked, including toilets. There was a fair amount of humor in the book that got a few chuckles out of me, but not enough that would distract from the story as a whole.
However, there were still a few shortcomings. I certainly would have liked to have learned MORE about Tani and Keena's world. I couldn't really decide on whether this was just an alternate universe of Earth that happened to be set in a sort of older time (with steampunk elements), or if Tani and Keena's people were even human. Apparently they appeared human enough since throughout a good portion of the book, Eli and Ava thought their perps were ON Earth, but were they actually human? I wish there would have been more explanations about this other world.
The ending also felt somewhat rushed to me. The suspense leading up to the final confrontation between everyone and the main antagonist was executed very well, but the actual defeat of the antagonist seemed too quick to me. However, at the same time I still enjoyed seeing that glimpse of his true character right at the end.It also got me thinking about how religion can affect - maybe even corrupt - an individual and twist their morals around so much that what they think they are doing right is actually evil in itself. It certainly reminded me of current events! The mention of these "dark gods" made me curious and I would have liked for that to have been expanded on as well as all of the other religious aspects of the fantasy world.
There were also some grammatical errors that I came across throughout the book that did bother me and bring me out of the story for a moment or two. But that's just my personal pet peeve. It happens.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this one. If you want something that definitely has a unique twist and an easy read to boot, I'd recommend this one!
Disclaimer: I received this book free in exchange for an honest review.
Crime mystery meets fantasy in Organ Reapers and this mash-up was a very enjoyable read! When you look at the title, you might think this story is full of blood and guts and gore, but to be honest, the descriptions of said guts (or lack there of) are actually quite minimal.
First we meet Tani and Keena, who end up being from another world and are called "Harvesters". They are sent to Earth to collect organs to bring back to their home world, which we never truly learn the name of.
Spoiler
It turns out that in some weird, almost twisted way, everyone on Earth has a person in this fantasy land that has matching genetics or something that will allow them to accept their organs for a life saving procedure. Unfortunately, this always happens to be a very important organ - a heart or lung, or BOTH kidneys, for example. So the Harvesters are tasked with the job of retrieving these organs in order to save their people's lives in their home world. Poor Earth people!We also meet Eli and his new, attractive partner, Ava Aguilar. The two of them happen to be the two detectives that get wrapped up in this bizarre case after investigating one of the murdered victims left behind by Tani and Keena. If you can't tell, these poor guys end up with a very frustrating case on their hands, given that their murderers aren't even FROM THIS WORLD. They also don't leave behind any evidence ... Most of the time.
I won't give anymore of the story away. You'll have to read it yourself to get the rest of what happens from there.
I liked the developments of the relationships for both Eli and Ava as well as Tani and Keena. However, my inner hopeless romantic also found herself extremely frustrated at times. Not in a bad way, per se. More often than not, as Eli dwelled on his thoughts of both his current situation and his previous situation I ended up usually shaking my Kindle and inwardly yelling something along the lines of "C'MON MAN, YOU DESERVE IT!" ... If I had yelled at my Kindle out loud, I'm certain I would have gotten strange looks from both the boyfriend and my cats.
Tani and Keena's relationship development was extremely slow throughout the book and I honestly thought they were incredibly adorable the entire time. They totally had a puppy love sort of relationship going on for almost the entire book. And yes, I am definitely calling murderers adorable, but you'll just have to read it to see why. Seriously. They're adorable.
Moving on from the romance aspect, I did find the main antagonist was pretty well developed and had just the right amount of batshit crazy to get under your skin somewhat early on in the book. I also loved that the author was able to portray Tani and Keena's confusion about Earth and how everything worked, including toilets. There was a fair amount of humor in the book that got a few chuckles out of me, but not enough that would distract from the story as a whole.
However, there were still a few shortcomings. I certainly would have liked to have learned MORE about Tani and Keena's world. I couldn't really decide on whether this was just an alternate universe of Earth that happened to be set in a sort of older time (with steampunk elements), or if Tani and Keena's people were even human. Apparently they appeared human enough since throughout a good portion of the book, Eli and Ava thought their perps were ON Earth, but were they actually human? I wish there would have been more explanations about this other world.
The ending also felt somewhat rushed to me. The suspense leading up to the final confrontation between everyone and the main antagonist was executed very well, but the actual defeat of the antagonist seemed too quick to me. However, at the same time I still enjoyed seeing that glimpse of his true character right at the end.
There were also some grammatical errors that I came across throughout the book that did bother me and bring me out of the story for a moment or two. But that's just my personal pet peeve. It happens.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this one. If you want something that definitely has a unique twist and an easy read to boot, I'd recommend this one!