THE LESBIAN LOVE STORY YOU’VE BEEN DYING TO READ…
AND IT REALLY IS!
Ash Persaud is about to become a reaper in the afterlife, but she is determined to see her first love Poppy Morgan again, the only thing that separates them is death. The last thing Ash hears is the snap of breaking glass as the windscreen hits her and breaks into a million pieces like stars. But she made it, she’s still here. Or is she?
This New Year’s Eve, Ash gets an RSVP from the afterlife she can’t decline: to join a clan of fierce girl reapers who take the souls of the city’s dead to await their fate. But Ash can’t forget her first love, Poppy, and she will do anything to see her again….
Even if it means they only get a few more days together.
Dead or Alive….
I can’t begin to explain how beautifully brilliant and unique this book by Tanya Byrne is. I really struggled to put the book down; I was captured within the story after that very first page!
The pace of the novel throws you slightly, but in a good way. With every love story, it tends to develop throughout the novel growing in love, leaving you interested in each of the characters. Tanya writes this book from the viewpoint of BEFORE and AFTER the death of the main character Ash.
The BEFORE is how her life was before she died, meeting Poppy and quickly falling in love with her. The relationship is quickly developed but although it happens so soon throughout the novel, I still felt the love and connection between her and Poppy. It was like re-watching the first 5 minutes of Up again. I was roped into their love story instantly.
The ‘AFTER’ chapters are based after Ash has died and her transition to become the Reaper. The raw emotion and grief that Ash goes through for losing her family, her girlfriend and her life was a hard read at some points, but all she wants to do is see Poppy again, and that’s what drives her through the rest of the novel, which also brings some fun elements throughout.
There was more to this book than the description makes out; it is about Ash becoming a Reaper but it is also about the life she led, the death she has to deal with and everything in between. I wished this book could have been even longer because I would have loved to have delved into more parts of Ash and even Poppy’s life and afterlife.
The way Tanya creates the world which we are in, including the Reapers and how it all worked, really fitted together well. Sometimes it can be hard to read into some fantasy novels, with all the crucial details you need to be able to immerse yourself in the fantasy and imagine it, but she didn’t make it hard. It was easy to follow and I really loved how all the questions I had while reading were answered pretty quickly. It was fun to learn about the Reapers.
I loved the diversity with the main character Ash coming from a British Indo-Guynese background. Throughout the book, the author brings other races into the story, including slight discrimination towards people of colour, including her friend because she was wearing a hijab. We see the struggles of what it is like to try and come out as a lesbian, and grow to love yourself and be who you are.
Each character had an amazing part to play and I just seem to connect and love each and every one of them for their own specific reasons. My favourite Reaper had to be Esen! She had such a tough exterior but inside she seemed like such a sweet, loving and down to Earth person who would be willing to help anywhere, whenever she could.
I was honestly so blown away by the novel and wish I could re read it again for the first time because it was such a unique book full of emotion, fun and loving plots, with heartbreak and grief. I did shed a couple of tears. You don’t know sometimes what you’ve got until it’s gone and this book really brings that home!
’ You don’t need to be better than anyone else, you just need to be better than who you used to be’
Kellie
YALC Blogger