Marked By Books: Grave Intentions Book Tour: Review & GIVEAWAY

Welcome to our stop of Lori Sjoberg's Grave Intentions book tour! This tour is hosted by Bewitching Book Tours and I got to read this awesome, awesome, AWESOME book a few weeks ago, so I'll tell you what I think of it. And then, because the author is so amazing, you'll get a chance to win a copy of the book for yourself!

He’s handsome, reliable, and punctual—the perfect gentleman when you want him to be. But this dream man is Death’s best agent—and now he’s got more than his soul to lose…

One act of mercy before dying was all it took to turn soldier David Anderson into a reaper—an immortal who guides souls-of-untimely-death into the afterlife. But the closer he gets to atoning for his mortal sin and finally escaping merciless Fate, the more he feels his own humanity slipping away for good. Until he encounters Sarah Griffith. This skeptical scientist can’t be influenced by his powers—even though she has an unsuspected talent for sensing the dead. And her honesty and irreverent sense of humor reignite his reason for living—and a passion he can’t afford to feel. Now Fate has summoned David to make a devastating last harvest. And he’ll break every hellishly-strict netherworld rule to save Sarah...and gamble on a choice even an immortal can’t win.

My Review

I almost never like the main characters. They're usually so naive and helpless, never having much of a story to tell unless someone else is willing to tell it for them. To me, the minor characters are the ones to watch. Their history is rich with imagination, and they can afford to be kind and selfless where the main characters cannot. They have the greatest personalities because they're not the ones trying to stay in the proverbial spotlight. They don't need to.

Grave Intentions really surprised me by refusing to fall for this trap. Yeah, I still liked the minor characters (I mean, really, who could resist Pearl and Adam?) because they still kept all of their unique depth and stories to tell on their own, but they weren't the only ones. David really surprised me by being pretty freakin' awesome.

Sure, I may tolerate the main character, but I don't usually like him, and he is certainly never my favorite. David is the exception. He had more history and depth and reason to him than most characters in any book could ever dream of having. He was certainly not perfect, but what else could you expect from that line of work? Being a reaper means being detached or losing your humanity to the countless deaths that surround you, like his boss did. Every time I saw David truly feel the pain from the souls he took, I couldn't bear to see him so saddened, but I was also happy in an offhanded sort of way. When countless lives lost starts meaning nothing to you, that's when you become less alive than the bodies you leave behind. And that is unacceptable.

David may have come close a few times. He wasn't there yet, but in a few decades, if his time refused to run out, he may have reached his breaking point. David was probably more human in the beginning that most of the other reapers out there on their first day. Listening to his story of how he was damned to this nearly eternal torture broke my heart, and that's when I decided that no matter what, he deserved the happiness that was taken away from him too quickly.

I was very pleased with the ending of this novel, even if it did seem a little predictable when it started coming to a close. I don't really think that there could have been a better option for the author to choose, but because it seemed like the only reasonable choice, it may have lost a bit of it's affect. Perhaps if more angles had been looked at before, I wouldn't have expected it as much, but honestly, it wasn't that big of a deal. In the entire novel, that was the only minor complaint I had, and if you ask me, that's not too shabby.

Rating: 4 stars

Goodreads Amazon B&N

[This excerpt is from the very beginning of the book, where David is taking Adam (the new reaper trainee) to his first soul collection.]

The Excerpt

"The accident had blocked traffic in all directions, creating a rush-hour nightmare that would take hours to unravel. David wove a path between the idling vehicles, leaving Adam no choice but to follow in his wake. The stench of gasoline grew stronger as they got closer, until they reached the intersection and the scene came into view.

It was a wonder she was still alive. The young woman’s broken body lay pinned inside the wreckage, the steering wheel crushing her chest like a vise. Her ribs were shattered, puncturing her lungs, making each desperate gasp increasingly painful.

Her passenger got the better end of the bargain. He died on impact; his mangled remains barely recognizable among the tangled heap of metal. Already, his soul was separating from his body, confused and chaotic in its search for some semblance of order.

David rounded what was left of the front end and sank down beside the passenger side door. “Take the driver,” he ordered Adam before turning his attention back to the passenger.

“How?” Adam kneeled down by the driver’s side window, taking in the sight of a life soon to expire.

“Just do it like I told you!” David barked, too occupied to hold his trainee’s hand. Already, a crowd was forming, human vultures eager to witness carnage, so long as it wasn’t their own. Sirens wailed in the distance as emergency vehicles rushed to the scene. They needed to finish the job and get the hell out of Dodge before the cavalry arrived or anyone got suspicious.

David opened himself up and the soul swept into his body, drawn in by the unspoken promise of warmth and answers. He could feel its essence now, could feel the swirling tempest of love, hate, unfulfilled hopes and dreams, and regrets. When the soul realized its body was gone, there was a sharp spike of bitterness, disappointment, and undiluted despair, and David thought, right there with you, pal.

“David?” Adam called out from the opposite side of the car. “A little help over here?” It took him a few seconds to respond while he waited for the soul to settle down and make itself at home.

“Yeah?” David finally said once he regained his composure.

“Could you come over here, please?”

Moving around the back of the wreck, he crouched down beside Adam. His eyes tracked briefly to the dying driver, her breaths coming closer, her life force bleeding out. A trickle of blood seeped from the corner of her mouth, but she didn’t seem to notice or care. “What is it?”

“She’s not dead, yet,” Adam whispered. “I think I can save her.”

David studied the driver for a fleeting moment, assessing her condition. Already, he could smell the sharp tang of Death, waiting to swoop down to claim its prize. “No, you can’t,” he said with a shake of his head. “She’s not going to make it.”

“How do you know that for sure?” Adam asked, his tone ripe with accusation. He tugged on the handle, but the door wouldn’t budge. “She’s still alive. If I can figure out a way to get her out of the car, maybe I can—”

“No, you can’t,” David interrupted, his patience exhausted. He grabbed Adam by the shirt collar and dragged him away from the window. “I know you mean well, kid, but let’s get something straight. You are an agent of Death, not the angel of mercy.” He gave his apprentice a good shake. “Stop acting like a Boy Scout and do your damn job. If you need to comfort her until she takes her last breath, that’s your choice, not mine. Do whatever the Hell you have to. But do not forget why you’re here.” He nodded toward the woman. “She will die, no matter what you try to do. Get over it.”

He let Adam go and shifted closer to the window. “Take it easy, ma’am,” he said calmly, digging deep for a slice of compassion but coming up with crumbs instead. “Adam’s going to take real good care of you.”

The woman’s gaze drifted up, distant and unfocused. Her mouth cracked open but no noise came out. Then a strangled moan escaped her lips and her eyes went blank.

David grabbed Adam’s arm and dragged him over to the door. “Time to pop your cherry, boy.”"

About the Author

Growing up the youngest of three girls, Lori never had control of the remote. (Not that she’s bitter about that. Really. Okay, maybe a little, but it’s not like she’s scarred for life or anything.) That meant a steady diet of science fiction and fantasy. Star Trek, Star Wars, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits – you name it, she watched it. It fed her imagination, and that came in handy when the hormones kicked in and she needed a creative excuse for staying out past curfew.

After graduating from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelor of Science, Lori worked for nearly a decade in retail management. When that got boring, she switched to financial planning, and then insurance. The writing bug bit a few years later. After completing her first manuscript, she joined the Romance Writers of America and Central Florida Romance Writers. Now she exercises the analytical half of her brain at work, and the creative half writing paranormal romance. When she’s not doing either one of those, she’s usually spending time with her husband and children of the four-legged variety.