My Soul To Lose is the prequel novella to Rachel Vincent's Soul Screamers series. It serves as a teaser to the series and primarily is a "meet and greet" to the series heroine, Kaylee Cavanaugh.
It begins as what seems to be an average, ordinary shopping trip to the mall with Kaylee's best friend, Emma. The goal to their outing is to plot revenge on Kaylee's slime-ball ex due to the fact that he dumped her a week before the home coming dance then proceeded to immediately invite Emma as his replacement date.
You soon discover that Kaylee is afflicted by eerie and strange panic attacks. Unfortunately, to Kaylee's mortification and terror she suffers her worse attack in the middle of the Sears department store - where she sees disturbing shadows cloaking a young (what the reader assumes to be a cancer inflicted) boy. Leaving Kaylee with a certain dread that this boy will die ... soon. Kaylee struggles to reign in her painful, soul consuming, horrific screaming fit but fails as grey fog appears and creepy things slither around in the corners of her vision.
Kaylee awakes confused, scared, pinned and strapped down to a bed in the psychiatric ward of her local hospital. Her imminent desire is to get out and back home where things are normal, but in order to do that she needs to convince the doctor and the staff that she is not crazy.
Angry, she struggles to cope with her feelings of betrayal stemming from how could her custodians (her Aunt and Uncle) allow her to be and leave her in a psych ward which, in turn, leads her to loneliness and despair. Trying to play the rules and the game to award her sanity and ultimately her escape; she fumbles and lets it slip that she saw fog engulf her surroundings, shadows wrapping around the kid and the horrible feeling that the boy would die during her attack. Hallucinations are an indication of mental illness - right? Kaylee does not believe that she is crazy, but what other explanation could there be for these attacks and images?
During her "imprisonment" on the ward she catches the attention of a strange yet compelling patient named Lydia. Kaylee knows that something is "off" with this girl but needs to focus on getting herself out of there.
During a visit with her Aunt and Uncle a disturbing scene unravels as a new male patient is brought in. This revelation convinces Kaylee's Uncle that this is not the place for his niece or the way to help her with her panic attacks. New found hope that her Uncle will try to get her home Kaylee impatiently awaits her departure. Surely her Uncle can get her out all she needs to prevent is screaming again before he can succeed.
The new male patient is not going to help ... the shadows appear and the shriek is clawing its way out of her throat. Lydia rushes to her aid and tells her that she can help with the pain; that she can "take it" from Kaylee and stop the scream before it rips out from her, but if Lydia does this something else might be taken too...
The novella ends abruptly and leaving the reader with a sense of what the ...? Too many questions linger leaving the reader desiring more - itching to get the answers to many unanswered questions driving you to read the first book of the series.
My overall rating for this quick, short and engaging read is a 3.9 out of 5
It begins as what seems to be an average, ordinary shopping trip to the mall with Kaylee's best friend, Emma. The goal to their outing is to plot revenge on Kaylee's slime-ball ex due to the fact that he dumped her a week before the home coming dance then proceeded to immediately invite Emma as his replacement date.
You soon discover that Kaylee is afflicted by eerie and strange panic attacks. Unfortunately, to Kaylee's mortification and terror she suffers her worse attack in the middle of the Sears department store - where she sees disturbing shadows cloaking a young (what the reader assumes to be a cancer inflicted) boy. Leaving Kaylee with a certain dread that this boy will die ... soon. Kaylee struggles to reign in her painful, soul consuming, horrific screaming fit but fails as grey fog appears and creepy things slither around in the corners of her vision.
Kaylee awakes confused, scared, pinned and strapped down to a bed in the psychiatric ward of her local hospital. Her imminent desire is to get out and back home where things are normal, but in order to do that she needs to convince the doctor and the staff that she is not crazy.
Angry, she struggles to cope with her feelings of betrayal stemming from how could her custodians (her Aunt and Uncle) allow her to be and leave her in a psych ward which, in turn, leads her to loneliness and despair. Trying to play the rules and the game to award her sanity and ultimately her escape; she fumbles and lets it slip that she saw fog engulf her surroundings, shadows wrapping around the kid and the horrible feeling that the boy would die during her attack. Hallucinations are an indication of mental illness - right? Kaylee does not believe that she is crazy, but what other explanation could there be for these attacks and images?
During her "imprisonment" on the ward she catches the attention of a strange yet compelling patient named Lydia. Kaylee knows that something is "off" with this girl but needs to focus on getting herself out of there.
During a visit with her Aunt and Uncle a disturbing scene unravels as a new male patient is brought in. This revelation convinces Kaylee's Uncle that this is not the place for his niece or the way to help her with her panic attacks. New found hope that her Uncle will try to get her home Kaylee impatiently awaits her departure. Surely her Uncle can get her out all she needs to prevent is screaming again before he can succeed.
The new male patient is not going to help ... the shadows appear and the shriek is clawing its way out of her throat. Lydia rushes to her aid and tells her that she can help with the pain; that she can "take it" from Kaylee and stop the scream before it rips out from her, but if Lydia does this something else might be taken too...
The novella ends abruptly and leaving the reader with a sense of what the ...? Too many questions linger leaving the reader desiring more - itching to get the answers to many unanswered questions driving you to read the first book of the series.
My overall rating for this quick, short and engaging read is a 3.9 out of 5
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