Review: The Lost Saint by Bree Despain

The Lost Saint: A Dark Divine Novel by Bree Despain is the second of the Dark Divine novels.  The story picks up where The Dark Divine left off.  Grace's world is falling apart:  Jude is still missing, her father is gone all the time trying to find him and her mother is a mess.  On top of all this, she is trying to deal with her newly found strength and anger, while Daniel just wants everything to remain 'normal'.  And, in walks the perfect stranger:  friendly, handsome, always in the right place at the right time and willing to help Grace find Jude.  A recipe for disaster...

I have to admit that I had a hard time reading this book.  I was very surprised since I really enjoyed The Dark Divine.  I was bothered by Grace's anger and bouts of self-pity.  It is quite a turn from Grace of The Dark Divine.  Grace, however, is evolving, in more ways than one, and her evolution is painful and hard.  It's painful to read as well, but pushing through it was well worth it.

I did enjoy The Lost Saint: A Dark Divine Novel, although it was not at all what I expected.  I'm not quite sure what I did expect, but the process of Grace's transformation certainly threw me for a loop.  It is a great second segment of the Dark Divine series and I look forward to reading the next.

My Soul to Save by Rachel Vincent

The second novel in the Soul Screamers series finds Kaylee adjusting to living with her newly returned father.  She is taking lessons from Nash's mother, Harmony, on 'how to be a bean sidhe' in order to avoid the kind of trouble she got into in the past.  The problem is, Kaylee seems to be looking for trouble or, at least, trouble finds her pretty easily.  She and Nash, with some help from Tod, stumble upon a system where a Dekker media, bearing a very recognizable resemblance to Disney, sells the souls of young entertainers to an avarice demon in order to guarantee financial success and market domination.  Kaylee and Nash are thrust into the middle of the whole ordeal when we learn that Addison, Tod's old girlfriend and rising teen star, has sold her soul for fame and fortune.  Tod, who clearly still cares for Addy, plays upon Kaylee's sense of righteousness and convinces her to help him find a way to reclaim Addy's soul.  Of course, things can't go smoothly.  Kaylee finds herself in a mess with her father and, along the way, Addison's sister Regan sells her soul as well, so Kaylee is faced with having to save two souls instead of just one.

In the end, all doesn't end happily.  But, I think that's one of the things I like best about Vincent's writing.  She's not afraid for her characters to fail--or, at least, not succeed entirely.  I would have liked more of the story to have taken place outside the main plot line.  Kaylee's character is facing some major changes and I'd like to see more exploration of that.  Also, I hope that, in the future, Aiden's character, Kaylee's father, is more developed.  I'm sure that Kaylee and Nash's relationship will be explored in more depth, as things progress and the characters grow.

My Soul to Save (Soul Screamers Book 2), overall, is a good story.  I feel like it was focused a bit too much on the main plot, to the extent that character development was minimal.  Aside from some insight into Tod, I don't feel like I learned a whole lot more about the story's characters.  I didn't really care for Addison or Regan, so it wasn't easy to empathize with Kaylee's desire to help them; though I easily understood Nash's reluctance to have any part in helping them.  I am looking forward to reading My Soul to Keep (Soul Screamers, Book 3), and I hope that I'll learn more about Kaylee and her family/friends in the books to come.

My Soul to Lose by Rachel Vincent

Recently, Barnes & Noble's Free Fridays download offered Reaper by Rachel Vincent, a part of the Soul Screamer series.  It looked pretty interesting, so I downloaded it and then decided that I needed to read the series up to Reaper before reading it.  So, I started with the novella, My Soul to Lose, which was released as a prequel to the Soul Screamer series.

My Soul to Lose introduces us to Kaylee Cavanaugh, a young girl suffering from unusual panic attacks.  They are triggered when someone in close proximity to her is going to die and when onset occurs, she can not stop screaming.  Usually, she is able to sense when it is happening and can remove herself from the situation before losing control.  Unfortunately, she isn't able to avoid a dying soul at the mall one day and ends up in the psychiatric ward.

What a great teaser for the series.  Kaylee has no idea the purpose for her abilities or why she even has them.  We are also introduced to Lydia, another young girl with special abilities, allowing her to absorb other's pain.  I assume that Kaylee will be the focus of the Soul Screamers series, but it will be interesting to see if Lydia appears in any of the other books in the series as well.

I was a fan of Rachel Vincent's Shifter series prior to reading this, and I hope that this series is as interesting and well written as the Shifter series is.  Next up for me is My Soul to Take (Soul Screamers Book 1), and then, most likely, the rest of the series.