Sakuri by Jacob Henzel

Today we are dipping into the sci-fi that I love!  Sakuri by Jacob Henzel is a roller coaster ride!  It is filled with non-stop action and great characters. I love the anime-style art on the cover. 

Twenty-three year old Sakuri is a courier who relies on roller blades to make deliveries. She still lives at home with her mother. The only social life Sakuri has is her very large dog, Oni, and her very strange boss.  Sometimes the courier business involves dealing with some very shady characters, and Sakuri is very wise to the ways of the world.

But Sakuri has a very big secret, one that she shares with no one, not even her dog.

One day she comes to work and is sent out on a job for a reformed mobster named Jacqueline. Of course it goes horribly awry.  This is the beginning of the most amazing, heart-stopping series of incidents that I have read in a long time.

She makes the delivery in a parking garage, and is the witness to a mob-style hit. In the flurry of hiding, Luke, the man she is to deliver brief case to, tells her to take the case and get out of there.  As she is hiding, it opens and a strange metallic glove-like thing falls out.  She puts the strange glove on for safekeeping.


Unfortunately, the assassins see her, and come after her. She narrowly escapes with her life when a sword wielding girl pulls up and dispatches the assassins.  Sakuri can’t remove the strange glove that she put on, and it sort of becomes a part of her.  The unidentified girl gives Sakuri a keycard that allows Sakuri to escape through a private building. She makes it back to work, only to find it closed.

When she arrives home, she finds the strange sword-wielding girl there.  Her name is Shannon, and she is the daughter of the infamous Jacqueline.  No longer a mobster, Jacqueline is now funding scientific research. Who knew that scientific research was so competitive?

Sakuri can’t remove the glove. Shannon tells her to go to work as normal the next day, and that Jacqueline will send someone to pick her up to get it removed.

The next day Sakuri finds her boss murdered.  The assassins are waiting for her, and her glove helps to save her life.

But now the people for whom she was delivering the package take control of her life.  Nothing is what it seems, and enemies become allies as Sakuri is drawn into a secret underworld that exists to save the planet from a terrible threat from beyond.

The story is told from Sakuri's point of view.  There is a deep personal story that unfolds along with the action. The relationship with Shannon begins rather antagonistically but evolves to a deeper friendship. Her relationship with Luke deepens as the story progresses. As it unfolds Sakuri learns to trust enough to have a friend and to possibly love someone, despite the very big secret that Sakuri does not share with anyone.


  This is a top notch first book by an indie author. I definitely recommend Sakuri to the sci-fi lover, and the lover of flat out adventure!