I am conflicted to say how much I want to like this book. Perhaps I am not the target audience, but this read very much like a self reflection book at first, which was very exciting, however, the more I read, the more I quite disliked the Soulmatcher/ narrator of the Novella. Giving a more 'holier then thou' feeling looking down on the characters and their experiences. The characters and their interactions themselves were quite interesting and their story flowed and mended very well, which made for a great read. Overall the Novella was enjoyable, and I wish we had focused more on the characters with some minor life lessons here and there that were more pertaining to what the characters experienced than just " this is not how life should be, it should be this" generalization.

I received an ARC of this story from NetGalley for an honost review. Thank you.

Because the first half of this story is written in third person it was kind of difficult to get a connection to the caracters at first. The story is not lineair and moves back and forth trough time and change of location.

Because this story is simple the sequensing of events and the narration of thea made it interesting. I would have prevered her to have been talking to me in stead of random ficticious people. I think it would have been more intemate and engaged me more🤔

The story encompaces a periode from a daring escape over the wall from occupied Germanen to 2 generation later.

It speeks about life, love and living. From the second part of the story we get some more 1st person storyline wich engaged me more with the story.

I liked the part were there striving to chase there dreams in making a difference in the world.

Thea gives away a part of the future that they acheave there goal. I didn't need that. For i believe one of the story lines and would like to expend on it.

The learning is not in the win or the loss but in the draw. The living is not in the succes or failure but in the act of striving and existing.

I liked the story and will look fore more stories from the author.

Honestly not sure how to give feedback on this. I found the narrator interesting at the beginning, but then too preachy and overwhelming, not adding to the story. Main character story line, I enjoyed for what it was.
I found a few typos/errors as well.

The Soulmatcher by Francis J Shaw is a story narrated by the one and only soulmachter Althea the story changes timelines many times as well as having a lot of characters and IDK what kind of entity the soulmatcher is she tends to ask a lot of philosophical questions as the story jumps from England to Germany back to England. I think the story would’ve been much better had not been so many soul seeking questions and time jumps but altogether it was an interesting quick read, but for the most part I did enjoy. #NetGalley, #FrancisJShaw, #TheSoulMatcher,#BooksGoSocial,

I really feel stuck trying to figure out how to give a review on this Novella.
It is well written, and despite the time bouncing backwards and forwards, the plot flows well. It’s not hard to follow despite the narrator calling it out as if it is.
The characters are interesting, albeit, two dimensional at best due to the length of the novel. You really don’t get to understand their inner workings or motivations. You feel like you’re watching them on a screen and not sinking into the world.

My main issue is that of the narrator, Thea. She is painfully preachy and more likely to have you rolling your eyes than nodding along. Even though it is a female character, it is very obviously written by a man who loves philosophy. Women just don’t talk the way the narrator talks.
All the jokes about how the famous philosophers are men because women already knew it all hit home in this book.

I honestly feel like if you got rid of the entire narrator, the book would be stronger. You read fantasy to escape not to be preached at.
Fantasy is full of lessons that don’t need to be stated outright as they are here.