Saturday, February 1, 2014

Review: Soul Cutter by Lexa Cain


Soul Cutter (YA Horror/Romance)
Author name: Lexa Cain
Publisher: MuseItUp
Release date: Dec 6 2013

Blurb:
The Soul Cutter is hunting again.

 Seventeen-year-old Élan spends her free time videoing psychic scams and outing them online. Skepticism makes life safe—all the ghosts Élan encounters are fakes. When her estranged mother disappears from a film shoot in Egypt, Élan puts her medium-busting activities on hold and joins the search.

 In Egypt, the superstitious film crew sucks at finding her mom. When a hotel guest is killed, whispers start—the locals think their legendary Soul Cutter has come back from the dead. Élan's only ally is Ramsey, a film-crew intern, but he’s arrogant, stubborn—and hiding dangerous secrets.

 When Élan discovers the Soul Cutter is no scam, she finds herself locked in a deadly battle against a supernatural killer with more than her mother’s life at stake.

 Élan is fighting for her very soul.

Review:

 I've read several books that include Egyptian mythology and was intrigued with the idea of entering another world set in the same place. However, what I found in Soul Cutter wasn't exactly what I thought I would get, but I was pleasantly surprised at what I found. Instead of your typical god and goddess story, this book focuses more on Middle Eastern lore than on true mythology and that is something I have NEVER read before. Elan is a teenager with a sordid past that is dropped into the middle of the desert trying to find her missing physic-reality-show-host mother who is missing and in need of medication to keep her alive. What she finds there is anything but normal and the adventure she is taken on comes with so many twists and turns it will have you reeling from beginning to end!

 Elan was a great main character in my eyes. She was a teenager, but one that has clearly grown up way to fast. She had the perfect mix of strong, hard working and determined but still vulnerable, scared and a little damaged. The thing that struck me the most about Elan was the fact that although her past had clearly hurt or damaged her she wasn't broken. She still had the will to change her life and not let things hurt her anymore. That is what I look for in a great heroine. She isn't perfect but she never lets anything get in her way. Mixing Ramsey with Elan made for a great spark of electricity between the two that you could feel from their very first interaction and all the way through the book.

 For me, the best part of this book was the paranormal elements that the author brought into the story. Not only were these Middle Eastern/Bedouin folk lore stories completely new to me and probably most people, but teaching me about them while still being an active part of moving the book along is challenging and the author does it really well here. It was fascinating to see what the spirits, called darsani, do to Ramsey and the supernatural elements brought into the story by Ali and everyone else who seems to have a secret really make the story not just a trial and romance story for Elan, but an action and adventure story to go right along with it. My only problem with the story came with wanting to more about both Elan's relationship with her mother and for the romance between her and Ramsey to develop even further, but there is only so much you can do in a story that takes place over a day and half in time frame. Overall I really loved all aspects of Soul Cutter and how everything seemed to tie into each other, making the story whole. -My Opinion- **** 4 Stars!


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