The Soul Mender is gripping, suspenseful, and terrifying. Not in a horror movie kind of way, more like "Imagine if this actually happened" kind of way.

Riley is a good girl. She doesn't drink, smoke, or do drugs. She completed college with good grades. She wants to work in environmental sciences. She has terribly vivid dreams and manifests bruises and welts on her skin that come from nowhere. In short, she's scared. She has every reason to be.

There was so much happening in this book. Secret government plots, assassins, a serial killer, and others out to destroy what they feel threatens their power. We see two worlds from multiple points of view. While at times it seemed like too much, other times I wanted more. At one point I was gripping the table in front of me, white knuckled, anticipating what was going to happen next. The suspense had me holding my breath and made my heart speed up, I didn't know who was good and who was bad. Even though we get to see it through many POV's, and they are really well done (I truly felt like I was in a different mind every time it switched), I didn't always know which side they were on.

The supporting characters each had their place in the story and I enjoyed the journey with them. I felt Oz's pain, Zach's malice, and Zach's love (read the book to understand that conundrum).

I remember remarking to a friend that I wasn't sure if this was the brain child of a paranoid schizophrenic or a genius. I can honestly say not many books have made me question my life and the world like this one did. I kept asking myself, "what if?". What if this is how it really was? What if this was the world we lived in? How would we cope?

Though I felt it was drawn out a bit, I think that was mostly so we could really experience what the characters were going through. The writing was a smidge clunky in the beginning but it evened out quite nicely.

In an almost masochistic way, I enjoyed every minute of this book. Be forewarned, it's not concluded with this book. I'm truly anticipating the next chapter in this story, and I can't wait.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

At first, I found myself a bit bewildered with the story; there were a lot of random details thrown in that didn't seem to make any sense. However, as soon as Riley moved into her parallel world, everything fell into place. By the end of the novel, I was hooked and I just had to read what happens next. Overall, this novel is fast-paced and has a good storyline. I think that a little more character and plot development in some areas would be beneficial and could elevate the story a bit more, but it was still a solid piece of good work. I liked the way the author broached the subject of two halves of one soul, and I was impressed with the way the other world was created. This novel is definitely gripping and will keep you wanting more, so if you are looking for a new science fiction novel, I would definitely suggest this one!

What an intriguing concept! I saw the description (and cover) and was immediately curious - and the book delivered as promised...

The tale is original and the characters are too - original and human and relatable, which is saying something given the construct of the story. There are some truly thought-provoking quotes and moments; the idea of universal balance presented here is a novel way to approach the ideas of good and evil and makes for some surprisingly unnerving moments. The author is original in descriptions and adept with language ("The American had evil eyes and teeth") and works a lot of simple yet profound truths into the narrative without seeming to proselytize or nag ("It's a strange thing, realizing there's a second story to each book"; "Just because I'm not a saint doesn't make me a monster"; "There's a fine line between devout and mad").

There are, admittedly, a handful of spots where things felt entirely too perfectly coincidental or convenient - where I went "oh come ON!" and rolled my eyes. But that's only because the rest of the book felt so well-assembled, that these moments felt as though the author thought that taking the time to connect the dots through subtlety would have taken too long, so a hurriedly convenient shortcut was taken... Still, there weren't that many of these and they were the few spots of tarnish in an otherwise delightful (and delightfully dark) construction. I"m eager to see the next book in the series...