In a wild escape to avoid becoming the sixth victim of the elusive Rocky Mountain Murderer, twenty-two-year-old Riley Dale finds herself flung into a universe parallel to her own, where Las Vegas is known for its churches, terrorist attacks are initiated by the United States, and peace can be found in the darkest corners of the globe.As the deadly visions that have haunted her since childhood … childhood become real, Riley is confronted with the implausible story of a world split in two and the stark contrast between good and evil in people she thought she knew.
Racing deeper into the mystery of the new world, Riley discovers the explosive truth about her ancestors who have been hunted for thousands of years because of a single mistake made long ago.
And now it’s her turn to pay for that blunder.
Pursued by both the government and a clandestine sect of assassins, Riley must ally with the only people in the parallel universe willing to keep her safe—the drug-addicted, prostituting other half of her soul, and the counter soul of a man who tortured and killed five young women.
Discover new worlds in this Kirkus Star Awarded (https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/rs-dabney/the-soul-mender/ ) book that is being called “not only highly entertaining, but profoundly edifying!”
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What an intriguing concept! I saw the description (and cover) for this darkly fanciful tale and was immediately curious – and the book delivered as promised…
The story is original and the characters are too – original and human and relatable, which is saying something given the construct of the story. There are some truly thought-provoking quotes and moments; the idea of universal balance presented here is a novel way to approach the ideas of good and evil and makes for some surprisingly unnerving moments. The author is original in descriptions and adept with language (“The American had evil eyes and teeth”) and works a lot of simple yet profound truths into the narrative without seeming to proselytize or nag (“It’s a strange thing, realizing there’s a second story to each book”; “Just because I’m not a saint doesn’t make me a monster”; “There’s a fine line between devout and mad”).
There are, admittedly, a handful of spots where things felt entirely too perfectly coincidental or convenient – where I went “oh come ON!” and rolled my eyes. But that’s only because the rest of the book felt so well-assembled, that these moments felt as though the author thought that taking the time to connect the dots through subtlety would have taken too long, so a hurriedly convenient shortcut was taken. Still, there weren’t that many of these and they were the few spots of tarnish in an otherwise delightful (and delightfully dark) construction. I”m eager to see the next book in the series…
The Soul Mender is gripping, suspenseful, and terrifying. Not in a horror movie kind of way, more like “Imagine if this actually happened” kind of way.
Riley is a good girl. She doesn’t drink, smoke, or do drugs. She completed college with good grades. She wants to work in environmental sciences. She has terribly vivid dreams and manifests bruises and welts on her skin that come from nowhere. In short, she’s scared. She has every reason to be.
There was so much happening in this book. Secret government plots, assassins, a serial killer, and others out to destroy what they feel threatens their power. We see two worlds from multiple points of view. While at times it seemed like too much, other times I wanted more. At one point I was gripping the table in front of me, white knuckled, anticipating what was going to happen next. The suspense had me holding my breath and made my heart speed up, I didn’t know who was good and who was bad. Even though we get to see it through many POV’s, and they are really well done (I truly felt like I was in a different mind every time it switched), I didn’t always know which side they were on.
The supporting characters each had their place in the story and I enjoyed the journey with them. I felt Oz’s pain, Zach’s malice, and Zach’s love (read the book to understand that conundrum).
I remember remarking to a friend that I wasn’t sure if this was the brain child of a paranoid schizophrenic or a genius. I can honestly say not many books have made me question my life and the world like this one did. I kept asking myself, “what if?”. What if this is how it really was? What if this was the world we lived in? How would we cope?
Though I felt it was drawn out a bit, I think that was mostly so we could really experience what the characters were going through. The writing was a smidge clunky in the beginning but it evened out quite nicely.
In an almost masochistic way, I enjoyed every minute of this book. Be forewarned, it’s not concluded with this book. I’m truly anticipating the next chapter in this story, and I can’t wait.
Quite by chance, I met this amazing author at the Readers’ Favorite Awards in Miami and I’m so glad that I picked up her book! It was a fast, fun, original read that I could not put down!