Guest Post: Lisa Medley – Reap and Repent (The Reaper, #1) ~ Excerpt

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Why I Write Reapers & the Rules of Reaping

My first work was a vampire novel. I made it around 30K and gave it to my BFF to read. She said, “This is good, but what makes it different?” Erm…nothing. That’s when I started looking for a different kind of hero. There aren’t many books about reapers because let’s face it there’s nothing sexy about a hooded skeletal entity that ends your life with a stroke of a scythe. So I decided to do something about that and the Reaper Series was born. My reapers are hot. You might not be that sad to see them one day.

There are, however, a few rules to reaping.

Reaper Rules: The Basics 

How will you know if you meet a reaper? Two ways. One you’re dead already and it will become obvious rather quickly or two…you’ll never know. Reapers blend into the background. You may have already crossed paths with one. If you did, and you’re reading this now (which means you are NOT dead) you’ll never remember him.

You’ve probably heard the stories of the “mysterious angel” who showed up at the scene of an accident and lifted the car off a child, pulled a driver to safety, saved a drowning person, _____________ (fill in the blank), and then disappeared. No one got a description. No one took a photo. No one remembers clearly what the helpful stranger actually looked like. 

There’s a good chance they met a reaper on his way to or from collecting a soul. 

There are two rules of survival as a reaper: 

  • Keep your energy.
  • Keep your head.

Everything else is survivable, but it also means that even reapers aren’t immortal. They can live for a long time but usually flame out after a couple of centuries. Ferrying the dead is a soul-sucking job (pun intended)

Reaping is a full-time proposition with a human population over seven billion. And that doesn’t even count all of the other creatures with souls that need reapers. Yeah, there are reapers for every creature with a soul. And they all meet in one place. Purgatory. 

While they might not all get along topside, Purgatory is supernatural Switzerland. Forced détente. Conflict will get you smited lickedy-split. 

And no one enjoys a smiting.

Want to read more?

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Reap and Repent 

The Reaper Series #1

Reap & Repent By: Lisa Medley

Genre: Urban Fantasy Romance – Reapers – Demons – Angels – Sex 

Words: 84K  

Pages: 326 

 March 3, 2015

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They see death. Can they share a life?

Ruth Scott can read the energy of every person she meets. Then she meets Deacon Walker. She can see his ice-blue eyes, his black hair, and his gorgeous face. But this beautiful stranger has no aura.

Deacon is just as unsettled by Ruth—and, having spent more than two hundred years ushering souls to Purgatory, Deacon is seldom shocked by anything. As he helps Ruth to understand her true nature, she awakens desires that he decided long ago a Reaper can’t afford.

A demon invasion forces Deacon to confront the darkness in his own past even as he fights to save the human souls he’s charged to protect. When he’s taken captive, his first concern is for Ruth. But Ruth just might be able to save herself—and the Reaper she can’t live without—if she can learn to wield her newfound powers.

Buy Link: Amazon

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Not their first meeting, but the first with introductions.

“Ruth, my name is Deacon. You might have noticed that I have some rather unusual abilities. For one, I’m very fast when I want to be. For another, I can affect your mood by touch, which I did just now to calm you. I don’t want to hurt you, but I do need to know a few things. What are you?”

What am I? Uh, a girl would be a good start. What the hell? 

She shook her head side to side, indicating “No.” 

“No, you don’t understand? Or no, you don’t know what you are?” he asked, obviously growing frustrated.

She shook her head again.

“Okay, this isn’t going to work unless you speak. I don’t read minds, you know.” 

Good to know, she thought. What came out was, “I don’t understand.” 

“When we ran into each other at the hospital, you had no aura. What are you? Are you a reaper? An angel? Christ on a crutch, you aren’t a valkyrie, are you?” he asked, running a hand through his hair, pushing it away from his face. “I’m betting no on the angel front because the Reiki energy doesn’t seem to work on angels. So what are you?”

“A student. Or, I was a student. Now I’m just… I don’t know what you’re talking about—angels and reapers and valkyries. I’m…human?” 

“You are more than human.” 

“I’m not. What do you want with me?”

“I want answers. In the hospital, I sensed something about you when we met… Your mother was Mary Scott. Correct? She died in that hospital room while you were there?” 

“I didn’t do that. It wasn’t my fault,” she blurted out.

“Okaaay,” he proceeded cautiously. “Did you touch her before you left?” 

She considered him, her mouth going dry. She had touched her. She’d given her that final kiss on the forehead.

“Yes,” she whispered. 

Ruth couldn’t look at him as she began to realize what all of this might mean. Had her bizarre handicap really killed her father, and now her mother, too? 

She was a killer. 

“You’re not a killer,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“I thought you couldn’t read minds!” She sobbed, tears choking her throat closed. 

It’s my fault. I AM a killer.

“You’re not,” he insisted. “I think you’re a reaper, like me.”

Her heart starting beating faster and her vision started to go blurry around the edges. The whole room sped down a black chute into darkness. She was going to pass out. She was going to pass out with a strange supernatural man in her house. 

God help me.

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Lisa MedleyLisa has always enjoyed reading about monsters in love and now she writes about them, because monsters need love too.

She adores beasties of all sorts, fictional as well as real, and has a farm full of them in her Southwest Missouri home, including: one child, one husband, two dogs, two cats, a dozen hens, thousands of Italian bees, and a guinea pig. 

She may or may not keep a complete zombie apocalypse bug-out bag in her trunk at all times, including a machete. Just. In. Case.

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WebsiteFacebookTwitterPinterest – Goodreads – Google+ – Amazon Author Page

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I'm an outdoor sun loving reader living near San Fransisco. I’m a mother, wife, animal & book lover. I'm the owner, reviewer & mind behind Angel’s Guilty Pleasures. My favorite animals are horses & dogs. As for reading I love all things paranormal & urban fantasy & my favorite shifters are dragons.

2 comments on “Guest Post: Lisa Medley – Reap and Repent (The Reaper, #1) ~ Excerpt

  1. Thanks so much for hosting me today! Reap on.

    • Thank you, Lisa, for giving us such an interesting guest post today. I will most definitely keep the Reaper Rules in my mind. ^_^