Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Serials and Scenarios - My Soul to Keep






Click on the book cover to visit Amazon's My Soul to Keep page for more reviews. Click on Melanie's cute little face to visit her website.





Here's my review. Come back Friday for Melanie's answers to the dreg questions. Fans of sarcasm will find much to enjoy....


My Soul to Keep


Melanie Wells grabbed me with the unique voice and kept me riveted as she drove me through a story that couldn't possibly end well. A primarily first-person dive into broken hearts, love lost and never found, hope, healing and horror, a plunge that kept me turning pages until the satisfying end.

I've not read her previous works so this was my first visit into Dylan Foster's head and Peter Terry's bizarre antics.

The subject matter is tough. An abducted child and another child traumatized, more sensitive readers may not be able to handle some of the intensity though there is a surprising and clean resolution.

Wells covers some obscure teaching on guardian angels in an engaging manner. Once again, a warning, those who don't do speculative fiction with Biblical stretching might want to pass, as well as those readers who struggle with characters who are working toward holiness but haven't progressed to looking like they've attained it. So what I'm saying is, her characters are as real as those you might go to church or work with, you know, the ones will all the warts and issues. I'm not even going to mention that I may see something of Wells' characters in my own mirror.

When I wasn't struggling with the horror of child abduction and clues with dead ends, I found myself cheering Dylan on in her secondary battle, the one with faith.