A much darker story than what I was expecting going in, but that's not a bad thing.
I loved the magic system and the way the author was able to get humor in the most serious moments. I'd love to have more from this story or maybe from this world.

This book had an interesting synopsis. However, at about 50 pages in I DNF'ed it. It just wasn't for me

This novel was chockful of well-written diversity and surprisingly dark and interesting fantasy. Definitely recommending this book for many readers.

Arnaka is the heir to a powerful magic built upon the sacrifice of the lower class. She rejects the way of life set before her and sets out to bring down the system.

It's a standard fantasy premise made more interesting by the commentary (on sexism, classism, abuse, etc.) and the worldbuilding. I really enjoyed reading about the lore and the magic system that keeps this whole society afloat, although it does come off as somewhat generic. But hey, mix in some casual diversity with poc and queer characters and we're good. It's also nice to see traditionally western European fantasy concepts (the druids) reinvented with poc.

The characters themselves were just so-so, however, and that was what pulled this book down to just average for me. Arnaka is likable enough, but pretty standard in the way of fantasy heroines. The side characters were decent. The romance wasn't entirely necessary and felt underdeveloped compared to the other elements of the story.

This book was painful to get through for me. I hated the writing and the characters. I don't even have anything else to add unfortunately.

*~~*ARC kindly provided from the publisher/author to me for an honest review *~~*

Full review to come

4 stars

The Soulstealers is extremely enjoyable, smart YA fantasy with a lot to say. I thought the way that it tackled cultural clash in a conquered land, and looked at cultural appropriation, was really interesting and well done, and I loved that it put a spin on the traditional coming-of-age story when the heir to the throne realises that her people might well be a little bit evil... It is definitely a darker novel than the cover makes out, but I never found it too heavy going. I also loved the romance, which is f/f - the main character is bisexual, which I'm always pleased to see. I'm not usually a huge fan of enemies to lovers in YA (so often it's 'mildly-annoying-each-other to lovers'), but I thought it was well done here, perhaps due to the darkness of the book as a whole. Overall, I really liked this one - four stars!

This was not a book for me, which is weird because I love druid lore and magic more than anything in this world.
This is a tale of magic and how it can corrupt absolutely, taking you magic through the life of others (not very Jedi) super interesting.... but it felt like too much. Like butter spread over too much bread. The magic system was really hard to grasp also...
The MC never really evolves and that is also problematic, so I never really connected to her.

POC and LGBTQ representation is prominent in this book which is a good thing and we need more of it. I just needed a bit more, something was missing.

All and all this was an okay book nothing too bad, it just did not pull men in enough.

I received a free arc copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, my opinions are my own.

Wow, what a surprise! I found this book to be such a fantastic and refreshing read, a diamond in the rough, so to speak. I won't go into too much detail, as I don't want to spoil any future readers, but I found this to be an incredible adventure full of magic and with such a powerful main protagonist, Arnaka. I quite enjoyed the depth and detail of the world-building without it being an 'information dump', which is what I find usually occurs in YA fantasy. I really want to emphasise that the world building and the overall historical and cultural context of the world itself, was so well written. I felt like I was there, as if I was a part of it as there were so many nuances and subtle but noticable complexities that were presented extremely well. For instance, I think that the way in which the story incorporated the position of women, was fantastic. That although the 'druids' were these incredible powerful women, they were still acting within a society that was extremely mysognistic and sexist and ultimately, ruled by men. It was that added touch that enabled me to sit there and reflect upon our own deeply patriarchal society where women are oppressed and silence; it added to the story's realism, if that makes sense. I should also say that the depiction of the violence and of the oppression is not done so in a superficial manner, so it may e/affect you.

I aboslutely adored the main character, Arnaka Skytree, I found her to be deeply powerful and relatable. I enjoyed the fact that although this is painted as a 'chosen one' type of story, it doesn't fall into the usual tropes - which, if you know me, you know that one of my biggest issues with 'chosen one' tropes is that the individual typically does not demonstrate any sort of growth and development throughout the story which also emphasises a sense of selfishness. In this case, that was not an issue. Although Arnaka was strong and brave and extremely intelligent as well as confident (and slightly unlikeable in the beginning), her flaws were shown unapologetically and the story enables the reader to see her journey of growing up, of realisation and of revelation. I also want to say that the diversity in this book was phenomenal, with the main character a young woman of colour who also identifies as bisexual as well as also having asexuality representation! The focus on female friendship as well as the female/female pairing was a great touch and I hope YA fantasy continues on in this direction of sexuality and racial diversity.

The only issues I had with it would be, first, the pacing. The beginning was quite slow and at times, too slow for my liking. I think that the pacing as well as the amount of time given to specific aspects of the plot needed to be revisted, ie. the romance was not fully developed and should have had more time for that friendship/relationship to bloom. The flashbacks also could be very confusing as it sometimes felt disjointed and disconnected from the story.

I would definitely recommend this book to readers who are interested in magic, in detailed world-building as well as characters who grow and become who they are meant to be.

<i>ARC received in exchange for an honest review.</i>

In a world where druids take their magic from the world around them, and have turned from tending to the world to taking from it, Arnaka Skytree grows up as the heir to a troubled legacy. As a child, she befriends a young Girl (yes, that is her name), only to learn the source of her magic. On the day she came of age, she had to kill Girl and make her soul her familiar. But she made a promise to Girl before her death. A promise to end the corrupt magic of the druids. And Arnaka intends to do exactly that.

I wanted to like this book, I really did. It has a lot of interesting concepts, such as druids stealing lifeforce rather than nurturing it, in a way that I've never seen before. And, in the broad strokes, there was some interesting world building and concepts here. The issue is, there was simply too much to fit in one book, and so many elements of the story, from the plot itself to the characters to how the world works, were not able to have the time they truly needed. The book is split into three sections, and honestly, each book could have been it's own novel in a trilogy. Without spoiling too much, each section had it's own moment that felt like a climax. There was just too much in one book, and it suffered.

Arnaka, being the main character, is the most developed of the cast, but for how many characters there are, she is only one of maybe three I would consider to be three dimensional. And even that isn't saying much. Given how the book shows us parts of her childhood with Girl, the way she acted at the beginning of the book made little sense to me. Additionally, it felt she didn't really develop much as a character because of this. She starts out wanting to put an end to magic and ends the book with that same desire. She also was rather difficult to like. I've read other books where the main character starts in a position of privilege and gradually changes, and those characters still managed to be at least somewhat likable from the beginning. The same could not be said about Arnaka, and even at the end, I didn't care too much for her.

For the most part, almost every other character was pretty flat and two dimensional. The villains felt like they were evil for the sake of being evil, and none really had an redeemable qualities. Even Arnaka's mother is never seen in a favorable light, not even at the beginning of the book. Most of the side characters are the same, with perhaps the exceptions of Nara and Tamlin. However, it did not feel like they gradually grew as people over the course of the novel. Instead, they started out one way, and then about halfway through, they were suddenly a completely different way, with no real explanation. This also caused the romance to suffer, and it just didn't feel genuine, which is a real shame, because I could have really gotten behind an f/f enemies to lovers story that was well fleshed out.

Despite the diversity and representation of this novel (yay for ace characters!), there were still parts of it that felt very distinctly problematic, or at the very least forced. The whole concept of devious/deviant souls is fine on the surface, especially since it was a concept from the villains of the story, but the fact that it is claimed to be genetic and was never really challenged in any way left a bad taste in my mouth, because the whole thing just reminded me of eugenics and the concept of "socially unfit" that was espoused by supporters of the concept. On top of that, woo, overthrow the patriarchy... except the fact that a patriarchy exists at all in the druid society really makes no sense at all, especially when you consider that the only people with magic are the women, which begs the question: how do men have more power in this society when they have no magic? Also, characters seem to be completely fine with same sex couples in the story, but this doesn't make sense when earlier, the political and societal importance of a man marrying a powerful druid or a woman marrying a strong military man is so emphasized. I'm sorry, but in that culture, the chances of characters having no issue with same sex couples is highly unlikely, especially for someone like Arnaka who grew up in so much privilege in said society.

Speaking of the world building: I have no idea how the magic system works. Sometimes druids take life force from their soul familiars (which tended to be mentioned so little I almost forgot about them, rather than being omnipresent) and sometimes they took it from the life around them. What determines when they do what? The druids have tattoos of runes all over their bodies. Sometimes they touch them to cast spells, sometimes they trace it with chalk, and sometimes they simply trace the runes in the air. At times, they seem to do none of the above. What do these different methods mean and how do they effect the spells? And (no spoilers) someone please explain to me what was going on with the Soulreavers, because that entire thing went completely over my head.

I'm sure a lot of people will really enjoy this story, and I'm sorry I've mostly talked about the negatives, but I just could not get into it. I had to stop for a few months because of school and started over, and even the second time, it was no better. Perhaps I just am not part of the target audience.

1.5 out of 5 stars, rounded up to 2.

It was a much darker story I expected it to be with an immersive story line. The writing is good and the plot is very simple to follow and yet quite elaborated. I loved the magic system and the world the writer created. I really enjoy the humoristic moments between more serious ones. I'd love to have a sequel !

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to review this. Sadly I had real issues getting into this book. I was drawn in by the cover and the fact that there is a sapphic relationship but I just found the beginning of this book very chewy. I think this is definitely one of those "it's not you, it's me" situations but sadly this just didn't grab my attention like I hoped it would!

I fell in love with the cover art for this and after reading the blurb, I knew I had to read The Soulstealers. And it didn't disappoint![su_quote style="modern-orange" cite="Goodreads" url=”GOODREADS LINK TO YOUR BOOK"]Arnaka Skytree grew up believing she was chosen to bring new magic to the world. As the heir to the cult of druids responsible for keeping their floating palace habitable for the wealthy aristocracy, she’s expected to wield her power as those before her did: by culling the souls of peasant women.But when Arnaka learns more about the source of her magic, and that her best friend’s soul will be harvested, she embarks on a journey to end the barbarous practice and to restore a long-forgotten harmonious system of magic practiced by the original druids. Along the way, she discovers she’s not the only girl chosen to restore balance to their world—many others have powerful magic inside, and with them, she will tear the floating palace from the sky so everyone can live in the sun—out of the shadow of the eclipse. (Goodreads)[/su_quote]I received an eARC of The Soulstealers from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.The Soulstealers is a pretty dark fantasy and needs trigger warnings for mentions of rape, threats of rape, necromancy, familial abuse, gaslighting, internalized misogyny, murder, genocide, slavery and a whole lot else. It's got a lot going on, so make sure to take care of your mental health while you read.The aesthetic for this book is lush and amazing. I could very clearly envision everything the author was describing, which was a great way to really show the differences from the Below and Arnaka's world. Getting to see them both and see the characters grow into themselves was awesome.I'd also like to shout out cover artist Chelsea Geter who did a STUNNING JOB and is at least a third of the reason I picked up this book.I wish Rohrbach had teased the romance out a little more and given the characters a little bit more time to actually get to know each other and thus fall in love with each other, but I understand why she didn't.This book is jam-packed full of a little bit of everything - political intrigue, ghosts, revolution... there's a lot happening. Because there was so much happening throughout the book, the ending felt a little abrupt. I would have loved to have seen more of the ways that Arnaka, Tamlin and Nara worked to change the world. That being said, if there's a sequel with all of that in it, I'm here for it and I think you will be, too.You can pick up a copy for yourself from Amazon, Indiebound, The Book Depository, and The Ripped Bodice through our affiliate links![su_box title="THE SOULSTEALERS*" style="default" box_color="#ff4400" title_color="#f2f2f2" radius="3" class=""]Title: The SoulstealersAuthor: Jacqueline RohrbachPublisher: NineStar PressLength: 365 PagesRelease Date: April 1, 2019Rating: RecommendedGenre: Young Adult FantasyRepresentation: wlw main character, aroace side character, Black main character, asexual author,[/su_box]Want to help support Let's Fox About It and help it go ad-free? Subscribe to our Patreon!Disclaimer: All links to Indiebound, The book depository, the ripped bodice and Amazon are affiliate links. If you buy through those links, LFAI will make a small amount of money off of the sale.

I absolutely loved The Soulstealers. It was truly epic and magical and heart wrenching. The world is harsh and brutal and honestly certain parts were very hard to read about but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Arnaka was a amazing protagonist and goes through a great deal of character development which always felt natural and earner. The friendships were great and while the family relationships were abusive/toxic it was incredibly compelling.
The world building and history was rich and the magic was spectacular! I loved how it was decribed and how creativitly it was used.

I loved this book. I will absolutely recommend it, and will be including it in a future post on my blog. Unfortunately, our Canadian distributors do not have access to this title for acquisition at our shop, which is very disappointing!

3.75 Stars. The Soulstealers was a well written, YA fantasy book. I do have to admit that I didn’t love the story as much as I wanted to. However, I’m still rating this on the higher side because it’s a well done, quality, YA book.

In this world magic comes at a steep price. When Druids come of age they steal and trap the soul of a person to leach magic off of. Arnaka, is turning 16 and it is now time for her to get a soul familiar. The problem is the girl that must die to have her soul trapped by Arnaka is her best friend. Arnaka promises her friend that she will do everything in her power to stop any more people having to die for magic. Can Arnaka fight all that stands against her to keep her promise?

While this is a YA book, it is on the darker side. If librarians are considering this I would suggested it for older teens. One of my issues with the storyline is I felt it was pretty depressing. There is friendship, hope and even a teeny tiny baby f/f romance, so it’s not all doom and gloom, I just wish there were a bigger amount of lighter moments. I felt like this book weighed on me a bit.

The imagination of this book is very well done. While a floating city and palace above a ravaged land is not a new concept, the rest of the book felt pretty fresh. I have read a lot of mainstream and LGBTQ fantasy books so it’s always a pleasant surprise for a book to have really new ideas.

The characters are all pretty well done even the more secondary ones. It was a good cast of heroes and villains. As I mentioned before there is a baby romance but nothing more than a couple kisses. I wish there was time to develop the relationship between the characters more but with so much going on in the book, there just wasn’t.

This sort of leads me to one of my issues which was time. I wish there was more time for expanding on things in the book. I didn’t feel enough time was spent between Arnaka and her best friend to really cement their strong friendship connection. I wanted more time for the romance even if it was kept G rated and I wanted more time at the end of the book, the ending was a tiny bit of a letdown.

This book has some great adventures, some good magic battles and well thought out characters. And the story itself felt refreshingly new. It did make me feel a little melancholy because it is on the sadder side. Overall I would still recommend this to YA fantasy fans.

Edit to add NineStar Press really has some of the best covers. They impress me more and more every time I see a new book out.

There were a lot of reasons why I wanted to pick this book up and I'm not going to lie - the cover was among the main ones. It's just stunning! NineStar Press continues to deliver when it comes to art, that's for sure.

Another thing you can always count on them to deliver, though, is great LGBT rep in their books. This time it's an amazing lesbian relationship and, as a lesbian myself, I'm extremely happy with how it was handled. And on top of that, it used one of my all time favourite tropes - good old enemies to lovers.

I adore the worldbuilding, it hinges on such a cool concept! The part I appreciate the most has to be the realism of it, how it's still misogynistic since we still have men in this world; how it's not all shiny, but actually pretty dark and grim. The book offers a lot of humour as well, to balance this out!

Overall, this is a pretty solid fantasy read, with well-developed characters you can root for, a cool core idea and great sapphic representation. It could have been a bit longer maybe? A bit more of its own kind?

This was such a great book, I loved every bit of the story and Arnaka is such a phenomenal character. The world building was well done and not overdone, which is a pet peeve of mine in fantasy novels, Only tell me about the relevant things, don't write 3 pages on some mystical tree that never is part of the plot. I loved the story and our bisexual black main character and asexual representation. The female/Female enemies to lovers storyline was perfect.

I loved that despite "druids" being strong female only mages they still lived in a deeply misogynistic society ruled by men. This was a touch that added a bit of reality to the whole scenario, seemed like a future we could have.

I gave this 4.5 stars rounded down to 4 due to pacing and flashbacks, I found this book rushed and really think each of the three parts of the book could have been expanded into a full novel making this an excellent trilogy. In the beginning, we have few flashbacks to when the main character was a child, which I found mostly unneeded.

Overall I highly recommend this to anyone seeking a good queer fantasy with nice representation.

I will have a more in-depth review on my blog later this week.

The Soulstealers is an amazing book. The first few pages were reminiscent of Children of Blood and Bones but after those few pages the book became its own tale. It's a story of righting wrong, romance, fighting old traditions and treating those who some think are beneath them as equals. Arnie is a warrior and hero. This is a must read for 2019 and years to come.

The cover really caught my attention from the beginning, shes so damn beautiful. The characters were a joy, especially Nara. Although it started a bit slow, the plot and world building was awesome. Hoping for a sequel. 3.5/5