Tortured Souls (Review)

Morning!

Title: Tortured Souls
Author:  Kimber Leigh Wheaton
Publisher:  Sea Dragon Press 

Published Date:  28^th June 2014

Rating: 2 Stars

Synopsis:  Kacie Ramsey sees ghosts—and it's ruining her life. Her mother left, her father blames her, and no matter how hard she tries, she can't keep the ghosts away. Now a new power has emerged. Nightly visions of grisly murders and a relentless predator draw her to the brink of insanity.

When the phantom appears at a party, Kacie's longtime crush, Logan, saves her. He invites her to join the Orion Circle, a group of supernatural hunters with chapters in schools all over the country. Through the Circle, Kacie learns to embrace her spiritual powers, and for the first time in her life she feels in control rather than a victim.

But the Foxblood Demon will not give up so easily. A demented serial killer in life who trapped the souls of the thirteen children he murdered, imprisoning them within the walls of his mansion. Now in death, he plots his return while drawing power from the pure souls of the children. He recognizes something in Kacie he's never seen before—a medium powerful enough to provide a vessel for his tainted soul.

Kacie can't ignore the tortured souls of the children crying out to her every night. With Logan at her side, she will fight the Foxblood Demon. But can they banish this powerful phantom, or will Kacie lose not only her body, but her eternal soul to the monster.

Review: This book is pretty hard for me to review. Is it possible to like something but hate it at the first time? 

Let’s start with the things I liked about the book. The first is that this author can write. Really write. There were some beautiful descriptions in this novel and I knew that if the plot and characters were a little bit more convincing, I would’ve loved it. Kimber Leigh Wheaton has such a way with words, and I am sure you’ll understand what I mean if you read it. And the romance scenes were especially well written :D

What made this book fall short for me was that it was kind of unbelievable. Some things happened too easily. Like when the father, who believed Kacie was lying about being able to see ghosts for all her teenage years suddenly decides to give her the benefit of doubt when a fellow teenager says it’s true. That wouldn’t happen! And then Kacie is opening up and telling all these secrets to people she has never known and… well, I just found it not very convincing :/

Another major problem – the insta-love. It had me roaring at the book for it to just please STAPH! These two people who have never talked to each other before are together after one meeting. Just no. No, no, NO!

That aside, the main character was someone I really liked at times, and at others didn’t. Kacie could be whiny, and she seemed to be moaning and falling into Logan’s arms far too often for my liking, so she bothered me in those aspects. I didn’t really see her as a strong female character, and I am all for those, because who wants to read things from a weeping girls perspective? But then again, I did have empathy for her. She had been harassed as a child, her mother had left the family presumably because of her and her powers, and it was a struggle for her to get by in her family. So then I could feel for the character at times as well. I felt mixed.

As for the elements of ghosts and whatnot, it was pretty well done, I think. The author did a good job of explaining new elements of powers to the story without info dumping the reader, and that in general was something I liked about the book.

To sum it up: I am not sure whether I want to continue reading this series or not…

Olivia’s Question: Do you believe in ghosts? Have you ever seen one before?

Olivia-Savannah x