Love the idea and the setting but my attention waned when I belatedly realized this was a male POV. Wasn't for me.
The publisher generously provided me with a copy of the book upon request on NetGalley. The rating, ideas and opinions shared are my own.

As much as I wanted to read this book when I was first granted access via NetGalley I never managed to get round to reading it. I have now gone back through and read the Synopsis and found that now this book is just not for me and will not be reviewing. I want to thank the publisher for allowing me to have access to the book but due to my tastes changing in reading this book no longer appeals to me.

This book had a lot of connections being made between three main characters and the secret society that governs their small town. Add in the elements of magic, and you have an interesting mix of elements on your hands. This book brings an interesting perception on death and the characters go through a wide range of mental health issues, but I found the pace to be dragging and the ending anticlimactic. The character development was amazing and kept me invested in the story.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me a free copy of this advanced copy of the book to read and review.

First I want to say the cover for this book was absolutely amazing! I am a huge cover buyer and I would not be able to resist having this beautiful cover on my shelves. On top of that the story inside was also amazing!

My sales rep raved about this title so much that I just had to read it. I absolutely loved it, which shouldn't have surprised me, given how much I loved We Are Lost and Found. Also, the jacket is fantastic!

I am sorry for the inconvenience but I don’t have the time to read this anymore and have lost interest in the concept. I believe that it would benefit your book more if I did not skim your book and write a rushed review. Again, I am sorry for the inconvenience.

This was such a cool book! Dec was a really lovable character, but also I really loved the atmosphere of St. Hilaire. It was super creepy, while at the same time intriguing. I really love ghost stories and this premise was neat.

Strange and atmospheric. A story about coming of age, small towns, ghosts and psychics. It's a slow read and character focus if that's your sort of thing. Luckily for me, it's mine.

3.5 stars

I really liked the potential of this book.

The themes around family and friendship, the dark, atmospherically mood, the mysteries, and LGBTQ+ representation were the best elements.

The world build around a city of mediums and a secret community and the way the different storylines are weaved together makes it very unique.

Unfortunately, the multiple stories also make the tension weak and the overall plot slow and anticlimactic. That's why it took me forever to finish it. I was getting a hard time getting truly invested. .

A solid read. Had the characters been a little less predictable and a little less annoying (Russ), it may have gotten four stars, but I just can't do more than 3.5. The main intrigue was well written, and I liked the emotional depth of the other two main characters. Overall, I'm glad I read it, but won't likely read more in the series.

I was hoping to enjoy this one but it really fell flat. I couldn’t get into it easily and had to trudge through little by little.

Not quite what I expected. The story was a little too broody in my opinion, and the characters hard to connect with. It's less a story about a town of psychics and more of a story about angry teens trying to escape the small suffocating town they grew up in.

prelude for lost souls was a little disappointing for me the story was very slow and never really work for me. Maybe is not my kind of read.
Thanks to netgalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review

Prelude for Lost Souls was such a fun, interesting read, and I fell in love with the cover. The town of St. Hilaire sounds so interesting and cultish all at the same time - like a paranormal Pleasantville almost. If it actually existed I would probably be drawn to its quirkiness rather than the want to commune with someone who was dead. I found some of the rules The Guild enforced on the residents of St. Hilaire strange, even though I understood some of their reasoning.

In the beginning, even though the beginning of each chapter tells you which character's perspective you'll be reading from I found myself unable to tell the difference between Russ and Dec. That dissipated once I got a little further in and got to know them both better. The unrequited love Russ has for Dec is so sweetly sad - it's not that Dec doesn't love him, it's just not in the same way. The LGBTQ element is fairly tame in this book, is m/m, was done in a completely normal teen hormone way, and didn't detract from the main story. Dec has never fully recovered from the death of his parents two years prior and the town of St. Hilaire is a constant reminder of everything he lost. Naturally, he cannot wait to leave - until the very thing that got him through his darkest days lands on his doorstep. In a town that profits off of grief it wasn't surprising to find that each character has been branded and struggled with their own forms of grief. The male posturing and "chest-beating" some of the characters exhibited was a little off-putting - mainly the Mackenzie brothers and sometimes Russ.

I believe that Prelude for Lost Souls could definitely have a sequel or companion book and I would absolutely read it. Reading this book was so easy to read and get lost in when compared with the last two books I read, even though I adored them. I would recommend reading this book to readers who enjoy young adult, paranormal, supernatural, ghosts, LGBTQ, and mediums. A big thank you to Sourcebooks Fire and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a digital ARC of Prelude of Lost Souls - all opinions are my own.

Thank you so much for allowing me to read and review your titles.
I do appreciate it and continue to review books that I get the chance to read.
Thanks again!

This one was a little disappointing for me.

It feels like nothing really happened. There were lots of little stories going on but the big story was is boy going to leave town and it was all extremely anti-climactic. The little stories were necessary to make this a full length novel because the main story just didn't have enough substance. I didn't feel pulled in by the magic. It didn't start getting sinister until the very end and then it suddenly ended. No one's loose ends got tied up and if any sinister is going to happen, it's after the end, so after all this I'm kinda like, what was the point of reading all this then?

It all just really left me wanting something more.

It says this is book 1. I don't think anything else has been said about book 2 et al, but this was just one massive prologue. There's not enough substance for it to stand on its own. And it didn't pull me in enough (at all, really) to convince me to stick around for book 2.

In the town of St. Hilaire, most make their living by talking to the dead. In the summer, the town gates open to tourists seeking answers while all activity is controlled by The Guild, a sinister ruling body that sees everything.

I will admit the beginning is a bit slow, but I'm glad I didn't put it away! The cover was also so beautiful! The story takes a bit of warming up, but believe me you wont be let down! Great setting and character's!

I have since lost interest in reading this title in the time since I requested it. The book sounds great and promising, it’s just not my thing at the time.

The pandemic led to a delay reading this book the tI was very excited for last year! The combination of music, found families, and the paranormal was nicely interwoven with the protagonist's story. This will have a place on my classroom bookshelf and I'll recommend it to fans of Seanan McGuire's Every Heart a Doorway series.