Book Reviews

Book Blurb

Nineteen-year-old college student Levi Reed has spent his life with hollow emotions and a darkness so deep that he’s convinced he’s losing his mind. He’d give anything to feel something, anything, real.

When a mysterious stranger appears, Levi is convinced the man is trying to kill him. When he’s near, Levi experiences head-crushing pain and something surprising—real emotions for the first time. Jeb Monroe is arrogant, self-assured, closed-off, and handsome, but he isn’t the harbinger of doom Levi assumed. Jeb’s mission: help Levi find his missing soul.

Levi is pulled into the secret world of Seers and Keepers, those born with the innate ability to manipulate souls and tasked with balancing the negative energy they can produce. Levi learns he possesses a rare gift, and he’s in danger. As Jeb and Levi grow closer, they discover a group of zealots who want to harness Levi’s power to cleanse the world of damaged souls. Everyone Levi cares for is threatened unless he agrees to become their tool of death. But agreeing could spell the destruction of humankind. With no one to trust and nothing as it appears, it’s up to Levi to save them all.

Book Review

The idea of Seers and Keepers, those who can “see” and “keep” souls is a concept that I think is about as scary as it is fascinating. With both feet firmly planted in the realm of urban fantasy, psi-powers, and more than a little occult magic, Jake C. Wallace establishes a few premises of how this world works and runs with it. The truth of what is going on only emerges slowly, and it had me captivated from beginning to end. There is a main plot with more than one twist and turn, a few subplots that made things even more interesting, and a mystical and mythological back story that had me floored. Then there are the characters, and whether we’re talking about Levi and Jeb and their more than troubled romance, or the multiple secondary characters, they all had a contribution to make and a role to play. In the best tradition of an action/adventure with the qualities of a quest, there is success and defeat, betrayal and unwavering loyalty, and I loved it all. Whether you agree with the idea of being a form of energy that can be seen and manipulated or not, ‘Soul Seekers’ is spellbindingly entertaining.
 
Levi has a lot of issues, and they all stem from the fact that he can’t seem to feel “real” emotions. He’s had a few instances when things got extreme and he got close, but essentially, he just doesn’t get to feel like everyone around him. He has a darkness inside him that scares him and panic attacks when the fear of something he can’t name gets to be too much, and it makes him think he is losing his mind. He has been diagnosed and medicated, but he is fed up with taking all these pills, he finally wants to have emotions. So, being nineteen and optimistic, he decides to stop taking the meds and figure sh*t out for himself. Add the mysterious man who keeps appearing and causing Levi to have the most horrible headaches, a professor who starts babbling about seers and keepers and missing souls, and the mystery is complete.
 
The novel is slow to start – but the initial descriptions of Levi’s situation are needed to understand what follows. And the portrayal of his thoughts is so real that I was practically looking over my shoulder to make sure no dark figures were lurking in the shadows. Levi isn’t very mature in the beginning, as self-centered as any nineteen-year-old, and I was ready to shake him more than once. But then the action starts to take off, one revelation follows after another, and Levi begins to change and grow. New characters and information pop up on almost every page, alliances are made and destroyed, and betrayal had me gasping in horror multiple times. Levi has a hard time knowing whom to trust, and the many strands of the plot are woven together so well that the suspense sizzled almost until the last page. Very impressive!

If you like multilayered characters and complicated plots, if you enjoy watching a teenager grow into a young man before your eyes, and if you’re looking for a read that is set in a mysterious, magical world where anything can happen, then you will probably like this novel as much as I do. It’s imaginative, full of surprises, and has a solid back story that makes this fantasy world seem eerily real.

 

 

 

 

DISCLAIMER: Books reviewed on this site were usually provided at no cost by the publisher or author. This book has been provided by Dreamspinner Press for the purpose of a review.

Additional Information

Format	ebook and print
Length	Novel, 330 pages/113847 words
Heat Level
Publication Date	22-June-2016
Price	$6.99 ebook, $17.99 paperback, $17.99 bundle
Buy Link	https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/books/soul-seekers-by-jake-c-wallace-7177-b