REAPER'S JUSTICE – Sarah McCarty
The Shadow Reapers , Book One
Berkley Sensation
ISBN: 978-0-425-23668-0
February 2011
Paranormal Historical Romance

The Old West – Late 1800's

Isaiah Jones is a Reaper, a man who was kidnapped as a teenager and trained to be a killer—tortured, his identity stripped, even drugs were used to keep him under control.  There were many Reapers, and after the Civil War, where their talents were used extensively, they all rose up against their leaders and killed them and escaped to the West to start new lives.  Isaiah struggles daily with what he calls The Beast inside him; it wants to take over his body and become the animal that lives for blood and death, with no emotions involved.  For the past year, Isaiah has watched Adelaide Cameron carefully from outside her house.  He knows her routines, the way she likes things done, and even that she has a worry stone she rubs constantly to control her emotions.  Then one day something appears wrong, and when he enters Addy's, house he notices things aren't right, and after finding foot prints and blood spots outside, his enhanced powers let him know she has been kidnapped.

Addy's not just a single woman making a living by baking in a small town in the West.  Years ago she was kidnapped by the Indians, and it took her cousins over two years to find and rescue her.  They tried to get her to stay at their ranch, but it was so close to the Indians that it constantly reminded her of what had happened, so she forced her cousins to release their care of her and let her live her own life.  Addy has her daily routines that she strictly holds to, especially reading with a cup of hot tea before bed.  One night in the middle of her tea, she is kidnapped again and taken by force into the mountains.  It's cold; the men sound like a put-together gang mistaking her for someone else, and she is determined never to be a victim again.  Little do they know how dangerous her cousins are; it might take a while, but Reese and Cole will rescue her, and they will have no mercy.

When Isaiah rescues Addy, he takes her to his house, a simple lean-to in the side of a mountain.  He has only old furs on the ground, and that's it.  He's used to living like a wild animal, something he believes he is.  He has loved Addy from afar, but The Beast inside him constantly rears its ugly head, and he doesn't know if the torture he went through has left him even capable of love.  Isaiah, of course, is seriously hot, and though she can tell he has some serious devils inside him, Addy can't get him to tell her what has happened to him.  Can these two people who crave true love overcome the obstacles that pester them, especially the mental and physical damage done to Isaiah years ago?

Sarah McCarty has started a series about a group of men who were ruined by the people who took them and changed them.  After making them into killers, they used drugs to keep them content and under control.  And Addy was also under the control of the Indians for years, and it was her cousins who rescued her, and then it took time for them to loosen their control of her and let her live her own life.  Both Isaiah and Addy want peace in their lives.  Addy has found her peace in her daily rituals, and Isaiah has found his in watching Addy from afar.   As told from Isaiah's and Addy's points of view, Addy struggles with physical survival, and Isaiah struggles with his mental survival, as he is constantly at war with The Beast .

Secondary characters are Addy's cousins, Reese and Cole, who are almost as deadly as Isaiah himself, yet not Reapers.  Blade is one of the oldest Reapers, and one of the men who kidnapped Addy.  There are many men who keep trying to get Addy, yet by the end of the book we're not sure if they're after Addy or Isaiah for some unknown reason.

REAPER'S JUSTICE is a story of one man's struggle with his inner self, and whether the deficiencies inside himself make him unworthy of the love of a woman.  Addy has been through trauma and is surviving the best she can, determined to live by herself, and never expecting a wild man like Isaiah to be interested in her.  She was about to pick the dullest man she could, in order to keep her life as peaceful as possible.  REAPER'S VOW will be the second story in The Shadow Reapers series, and who knows who will be at the center of it?  Maybe it will be the secretive and illusive Blade, a really interesting Reaper.  Come and pick up REAPER'S JUSTICE and enjoy Isaiah and Addy's journey from separate sadness to true love.

Carolyn Crisher