Soul Screamers: My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent
| Soul Screamers: My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent | |
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| Category: Teens | |
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Reviewer: Robert James
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| Summary: We've had vampires, werewolves, zombies, faeries, and now we
get a new kind of creature. I'm continually amazed that authors can find new ground in a packed genre, but Rachel Vincent definitely does so with a fun start to her Soul Screamer series with some brilliant action and interesting world-building. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 368 | Date: January 2011 |
| Publisher: MIRA Ink | |
| ISBN: 978-0778303558 | |
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After Kaylee and her friend Emma sneak into an over 18's club, Kaylee gets unnervingly distressed by the sight of a girl dancing, feeling as if she needs to scream. As Emma, along with the mysterious Nash, try to calm her and remove her from the club, she tells them that she's convinced the girl is going to die. Waking up the next day to turn on the news, she finds out she was right. And then it happens again… Kaylee's convinced she's a freak and there's something deeply wrong with her, but Nash seems surprisingly unfazed by this, while her aunt and uncle are both acting strangely. What's wrong with her? And why does she know less about herself than they do about her?
I'll avoid coming out and actually saying what is wrong with Kaylee as it's not revealed until around halfway through the book, although doubtless many readers will guess far earlier. What I will say is that I was completely convinced by the mythology Rachel Vincent has built up here – I loved the details she provided about the supernatural occurrences, the mysterious glimpses into the Netherworld, and the freshness of the book as a whole. My only previous experience of Vincent's writing had been the short story Fearless (a prequel to this novel) from Kiss Me Deadly but that served really well to get me interested in the series.
Kaylee and Nash seemed to take a bit longer to get under my skin than many couples in this type of book do – Vincent's strengths perhaps lie a tiny bit more towards plotting and world-building than characterisation – but that's a small quibble and I was definitely eager to read more about the pair once I got to the end of the book, a sure sign of a really good writer. I also thought that her writing style improved as the book went along, with the climax doing a great job of immersing me into Kaylee's situation and raising some fascinating questions as well.
It's not a book that's likely to convert anyone who wasn't previously a fan of YA paranormal tales but for the large amount of people who already love this type of book this is one I wouldn't hesitate to recommend, and I look forward to continuing with the Soul Screamers series.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag.
Further reading suggestion: For more Soul Screamers action, the anthology Kiss Me Deadly edited by Tricia Telep contains not only the prequel to this series I mentioned earlier but 12 other supernatural romances, most of which are fantastic, and it's hard to beat as a way to find new authors in this genre. Despite there having been literally dozens of supernatural themed YA books I loved in the past few years, Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl still stands out ahead of the pack and should be devoured by, well, pretty much everyone!
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