Seven Souls Reviewed

a review of Seven Souls by readerfromoz

Phoebe Harris is a police detective with an unusual skill. She is able to read past events and feelings through touch. This has been useful to her in her job and her partner, Charlie accepts that she has this unusual ability and has come to rely on her use of it during their investigations. When Phoebe meets a little girl, Tabitha, who prophesises that Phoebe will have an accident but not die and this occurs, she goes back to find the child and meets Tabitha's father Jack, a private paranormal investigator. Jack is investigating an old case of Phoebe and Charlies where a teenage boy was convicted of murdering his brother. There was never an explanation for the crime as the brothers were close and now the boy's mother is missing. Phoebe is suspended from work following her accident so accepts Jack's invitation to work on the case. More murders ensue and it becomes rapidly apparent that paranormal elements are involved.

I enjoyed the start of this novel where we are introduced to Phoebe, Jack and Charlie (who disappointingly doesn't feature much later in the book). Phoebe is somewhat thrown into the deep end with regards to the appearance of angels and demons and gates to the netherworld. She has amazing powers but remains largely ignorant and blunders around for most of the book despite being given a special book to read by Jack that she doesn't find helpful. On the whole I liked the world building and the integration of angels and demons into the life of the town (the funeral director specialising in angels was interesting). I felt the book got a bit unfocused in the middle with not much happening but then got back on track for the finale. I also felt that the initial point of the brother murdering his brother got a bit confused with other (non-brotherly) murders occurring to make up the requisite number of souls. I may have missed the point somewhere but it was never explained why the brotherly homicides were important to the overall plan and this left me feeling a little confused at the end of the book. However overall, a good debut novel with the promise of more episodes to follow.

Paranormal mystery