When Kaylee Cavanaugh screams, someone dies.

So when teen pop star Eden croaks onstage and Kaylee doesn't wail, she knows something is dead wrong. She can't cry for someone who has no soul.

The last thing Kaylee needs right now is to be skipping school, breaking her dad's ironclad curfew and putting her too-hot-to-be-real boyfriend's loyalty to the test. But starry-eyed teens are trading their souls: a flickering lifetime of fame and fortune in exchange for eternity in the Netherworld—a consequence they can't possibly understand.

Kaylee can't let that happen, even if trying to save their souls means putting her own at risk….

Thoughts: My Soul to Save makes it clear what type of series Soul Screamers is… think post-book 6 Morganville Vampire. Episodic with a monster-of-the-week. Which is cool, but you need to know that before you start reading.

I enjoyed My Soul to Save even though I can’t say it was the most, er, gripping of novels. Honestly, when I worked out that the plot was going to revolve around saving pop queens who had sold their soul for fame… well, I was more of the “they deserve what they got” school of mind. But Vincent sold the nobility of the entire scenario and the pop queens actually turned out to be pretty sweet. Thank God, really, because there is nothing worse than hating the guest star.

But while I liked Kaylee (who is super independent but not at all idiotic) and the Netherworld (creepy, to say the least), I wasn’t really moved by this book. Everything was perfectly well written, the dialogue was tight and the plot was even tighter…. but My Soul to Save just felt like it was missing something. When I pick up a new book in a series, I expect something to fundamentally change. There has to be something new, otherwise why bother writing the book? And the truth is that nothing really changes at the end of My Soul to Save – a couple of things are different, but nothing fundamental.

These complaints are really rather minor, though. So while this book might not have been the most riveting, I am expecting earth-shattering things in Rachel’s next book!

Bottom line? Great YA series, good installment. Pick up the Soul Screamers series if you want something different-yet-familiar in your paranormal YA.

• Author
• Recent Posts

Kay

Your ghost host at Dead Book Darling

Kay's been blogging about urban fantasy, young adult and werewolves since 2009. She's a firm believer in the many uses of the towel, the science of deduction and other fandom in-jokes. To support her book-buying habit, Kay keeps up a day-job as a science journalist (so feel free to ask her about Physics).

Latest posts by Kay (see all)

• Top 10 Books of 2015 - January 6, 2016
• Image comic-book-buying madness - December 3, 2015
• Review: Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews - November 22, 2015