RITA Reader Challenge Review

Soulbound by Kristen Callihan

This RITA® Reader Challenge 2016 review was written by Christine. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Paranormal Romance category.

The summary:

Once two souls are joined…

When Adam’s soul mate rejected him, there was more at stake than his heart. After seven hundred years of searching, his true match would have ended the curse that keeps his spirit in chains. But beautiful, stubborn Eliza May fled—and now Adam is doomed to an eternity of anguish, his only hope for salvation gone…

Their hearts will beat together forever…

No matter how devilishly irresistible Adam was, Eliza couldn’t stand the thought of relinquishing her freedom forever. So she escaped. But she soon discovers she is being hunted—by someone far more dangerous. The only man who can help is the one man she vowed never to see again. Now Adam’s kindness is an unexpected refuge, and Eliza finds that some vows are made to be broken…

Here is Christine's review:

London 1885 : A young woman stands apart watching her bleeding body on the ground and the thugs who cut her throat being beaten away by two lovely, properly dressed young women who appeared armed with sword and baton.

Eliza had just docked in London hours ago from Boston, fleeing the ugly things she had done there to survive after her family had died, and with the fervent hope of finding her distant relatives in this foreign city. Now she is being told by her two tardy avengers that she must leave the broken body lying at her feet and “move on” lest she get stuck as a loose spirit between two worlds. But Eliza’s will is so fierce, and her desire to live is so strong, the lady warriors warily offer her a different option: to become like them. A man they serve can give her back her life if she will become a slave for him, if she will agree to do the same work and find him other willing spirits. No one knows why this soul harvester takes some of the ones they find back with him and lets others go back to their bodies, but Eliza, clinging to her life, agrees immediately to their deal.

This was an exciting opening and I was immediately on board to follow Eliza on her journey to become an avenging spirit warrior. Unfortunately, none of this set up comes to pass.

The master, “Aodh son of Niall” or “Adam” creator of the “GIM” or (ghosts in the machine), is called to seal the bargain but when he arrives he is hit with a wave of emotion upon seeing his “Eliza May” as her soul is the same gold-silver light as his and its exact match. Of course, he is “larger than life” and as “handsome as dark sin” and everyone but Eliza craves his attention and his touch. He is stunned to realize she is the other half of his soul he has been searching 700 years for, so with the wisdom of his seven centuries of experience, begins by being rude to her, telling her he is her “master” and to shut up. Ah romance! He bullies her into swearing fealty immediately because he needs her capitulation, and once she does, he conjures a thick golden chain around her spirit and her body tying her to him.

Jump to three years later – the setting is now the home/court of Eliza’s “Aunt Mab:” an immortal fairy. Eliza has been experiencing the most luxurious home, sumptuous gowns, and elegant parties with her for the past six months. On the downside, Aunt Mab is also a sadist and a murderer, who tortures her supplicants as dinner entertainment. Adam is referred to as the “demon,” who had imprisoned Eliza before Mab liberated her and “GIM” is finally explained. They are “ghosts in the machine,” humans who were struck down but refused to go on to their rest. Adam binds them to him, giving them clockwork hearts and the immortality to roam free in the spirit world – all except Eliza. She never received a heart or her freedom because what Adam wanted from her was her soul.

All this happens in the first twenty-seven pages during which time the reader is continually trying to keep up and amend their expectations. Okay, Eliza will be a GIM or spirit warrior, excellent. Oh no, she’s to be a prisoner of this mysterious Adam fellow. Wonder how that relationship will play out. Okay, so we didn’t spend any time with them. It’s years later now and Eliza is at some fairy court and has a fairy aunt (so she’s a fairy?) and Adam is MIA and referred to as a “demon” who had imprisoned her. Got all that?

We are told (there’s a lot of telling) that Eliza has a cousin named St. John (pronounced the English way, “Sinjin,” for anyone who hasn’t seen Four Weddings and a Funeral) who everyone calls “Sin” because of course they do – it’s romance novel cliche number two, right after heroes who are called “Lyon,” “Hawk,” and “Devil.” He is under Mab’s control in some way he won’t fully explain, but does give Eliza the very helpful warning:

“I can only strongly suggest you never agree to a blood vow with anyone you do not implicitly trust.”

Which is really good advice for us all, but something I feel I could have guessed on my own. Sin helped rescue Eliza from Adam (all this happened off screen or maybe in the last book?) who had offered her gowns but berated her because she was “angry, sullen” and then stopped speaking because he chained her to his side. They don’t sound like a fun couple and I guess I’m not sorry I missed their (years?) of bickering, but considering they are the protagonists I do feel like I missed a key part of their “relationship.” Actually, their whole relationship so far, because there hasn’t been an entire page yet where they spend time together.

Eliza, who is becoming disenchanted with dear Aunt Mab (because of you know, the torture and murder dinner theatre) hears what she thinks is a dog crying. When she goes to investigate, she discovers the dog is Adam (Eliza helps change him back) as Mab has been holding him prisoner and has been torturing Adam for the past six months by flaying him and cutting his tongue out because she wants him to “love” her and beg for mercy. Adam, continuing his string of good decisions around Eliza, lies naked and tortured but responds to her kindness by being bawdy and snarky to her. Finally, Adam explains he is a 700 year old former Knights Templar cursed by Mab to remain immortal, heal when injured, create life and take a soul unto him or destroy the life he creates. It’s never explained why he gives them clockwork hearts but I suspect it’s just so they can be called “ghosts in the machine” which is a catchy title but doesn’t make much sense or add anything to the story.

His explanation for treating Eliza as a slave is that he was cursed to lose possession of his freedom if he didn’t find his soul’s other half in the allotted time frame (presumably 700 years or so). He also explains Mab is really Eliza’s Grandmother and the Uncle she is pushing Eliza to marry (gross) is really her Granduncle Mellan (even more gross). He was also the leader of the “Black Death” gang in Boston and the man whom Eliza was running from as he knew of her unique fairy “talent” and had manipulated her into killing people for him. Adam and Eliza make a deal to escape together, hand fasting first, because conveniently for Adam, the chains he is in can only be broken by his “bride.” Eliza also agrees to give Adam a chance to woo her, and agrees to spending three weeks together.

To say there is a lot going on in this book is a huge understatement. To complicate matters, the book immediately starts switching back and forth from Eliza and Adam who have finally started interacting with each other, to cousin “Sin” aka “St. John Evernight” and his problems. He’s an “elemental” (controls elements) who is under Mab’s control in some way due to that ill advised blood vow he warned Eliza against taking. It’s never explained why he did it but we are treated to scenes were Mab forces him into sex against his will (gross) amongst other things. While Mellan is a clever and calculating villain willing to use anyone to gain power, Mab is that great cliche of the older, beautiful, evil woman who really just wants all the men to love her!

A whole host of other people are introduced or mentioned in quick order. Layla Starling is a childhood friend of Sin’s whom he is in love with and is basically stalking, but we never actually “meet” her. He runs into his sister Lady Miranda Archer and her husband Lord Benjamin Archer, who I assume are there to remind us that they were the protagonists of a previous book and show how happy and witty they are. I needed a family tree at this point to try and figure out who all the former happy couples are and how they relate. Ian Ranulf is a werewolf, King Of The Lycans, Daisy’s husband and Sin’s brother in law. (Daisy is a GIM and is dying, as are all GIM because their creator’s (Adam) powers have been taken.) Ian also has a foster son, Jack , whose wife Mary is a GIM and together they are the Directors of The “SOS.” None of this is ever explained, so it’s just a big jumble of titles and names and acronyms. For the people who had read the previous eight or nine books it may have made perfect sense, but for anyone picking this (supposedly stand alone title) up and expecting a coherent story it was about as entertaining as reading a chapter of Debretts Peerage. If Debretts Peerage covered titled “Lycans,” “GIMs” and “elementals”.

It only gets more confusing as more and more mystical beings are tossed into the mix. Apart from the aforementioned fairies, Templar, GIM, Lycans, and elementals there are also demons, oracles, angels, gods, goddesses and something called “judgement.” One elemental we meet is also an inventor of steampunk type devices and just happens to have made a submarine that Adam and Eliza borrow when they need one. Finally the whole work just becomes a big stew of different creatures and philosophies and names.

When the book did return to Eliza and Adam on the run, I was bored and had to push myself to finish it. I would put it down to read more interesting novels then make myself come back to read some more, but it was a hard slog. The London setting seems generic and no attempt is made to place the characters in their overall world. They skip about encountering supernatural people and creatures here and there but the “road movie” plot just meanders from place to place. Eliza is supposed to be Adam’s soulmate but I never got more than attraction and lust from them and for a 700 year old man, Adam is absurdly immature. The book also has the annoying cliche of Adam, the great former warrior, killing people left and right without remorse while Eliza has to be racked with guilt and tortured for the people she has killed, including in self defense. I don’t mind an author taking a stance one way or another on the idea of killing, but I really dislike the idea of the woman always having to be tormented with guilt for doing what the man does happily and freely.

Adam begins their relationship by tricking Eliza to bind her to him, lies to her, deprives her of the benefits he gave the other GIM and finally, after he supposedly loves her, tricks her again, using her heartache and tears to ultimately resurrect himself. He begins by using her and by the end hasn’t changed and is still manipulating her, so I could never believe in their love or that they are truly these predestined “soul mates”.

Spoilers for ending
More than anything, the biggest problem I had with this book is the way a “twist” relating to Eliza and her ancestry is handled. We are briefly introduced to Lucien, a “southern creole” who acts as Adam’s factotum. His entire reason for existence seems to be to add a nominal person of color to the story (it’s also mentioned he is gay so he can cover all the “minorities” and show how inclusive Adam is) and for him to notice immediately that Eliza, like him, is “Quateron” or “Gens de couleur.” Up until this point nothing has been mentioned or alluded to that would point to Eliza being anything but Anglo Irish. The only family she mentions are the Irish/Fae side from Boston. All her cousins she meets are English or Irish. She is described with golden hair and no one remarks on her looking or seeming anything other than of some Celtic mix. After Lucien guesses, Eliza admits one grandfather had been a slave in the United States and later an army surgeon during the Civil War but claims she never tried to hide it. Lucien tells her she should have told Adam because that would have made a difference to the 700 year old Knights Templar or as he says: “…had Adam understood your family history he might have treated you differently- no chains.”

Right after that, we see her through Adam’s eyes again but this time (still not knowing of her ancestry) he mentally describes her “golden honeyed glow” and her “bold features with full lips”. When Adam does learn of her ethnicity, he is appalled he put her in chains (not because, as Eliza continually points out, slavery of any kind is BAD) but because her grandfather was a former slave. Apart from the ridiculous idea that a warrior knight from the 12th century would be culturally sensitive enough to understand the horror of 19th century American slavery and THAT would be thing that shamed him about chaining a woman to him, is the fact that Eliza is made a nominal person of color solely to make Adam feel bad. Her being a quarteron is never so much as hinted at before Lucien notices it-and is never mentioned again after Adam apologizes. We learn nothing apart from that one sentence about her grandfather, that part of her family, or any effect it has had on Eliza’s life. Instead of taking the opportunity to explore what it would be like for a woman of mixed ancestry to navigate the aristocratic world of London and make the main character of a popular romance series a person of color with a different background than the standard mystical/Celtic/whatever, the twist exists solely to affect the male hero – and that was the final straw for me.

While I am a huge fan of Steampunk and Paranormal romances, this novel not only offered nothing new or fresh, it didn’t even present the tropes it used in a fun way. Every now and then there would be a spark of a good idea but it would be ignored or smothered under cliche after cliche. The novel tried to be a little bit of many genres and ending up never delivering on any of them. To put it bluntly, I am very surprised this was considered to be among the top few books in its field for this category.

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Soulbound by Kristen Callihan

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  1. DonnaMarie says:

    I was entirely disappointed in this book because the previous books in the series had be so so good. Moonglow,Shadowdance and Evernight are in my desert island stash, so just imagine my dismay over this one. I was so glad someone else had claimed it for the review.

  2. Christine says:

    @DonnaMarie- I am not sure if it makes me feel better or worse that someone who had read all the previous books was as disappointed as I was. I did read Evernight a year or so before but I had skipped all the extraneous parts that didn’t pertain to the main couple because I found them boring. I didn’t remember anything about Adam and Eliza or much of anything about Sin. I did enjoy the couple in the precious book as starchy blue stocking meets sexy demon is a trope I can really get behind. They were fun and cute. I didn’t find anything fun about Eliza and Adam. They mostly bored me except when they were annoying me. The part about Eliza’s heritage was the last straw for me because it was all about Adam then totally forgotten. I absolutely think this book was nominated based on Callihan’s reputation and past glory. IMHO No one who actually read it would think it was one of the top five or six books in its genre. Thanks for commenting and reading the review!

  3. bnbsrose says:

    On top of that, I found the ending incomprehensible. I still just don’t get it.

  4. kitkat9000 says:

    So glad I stopped reading this series long before now, as this would definitely have hit the wall for all the reasons stated in your excellent review. Thanks for that btw.

    Yet another nominated book I’m glad I didn’t read. Gotta say, I get far more TBR additions from the regular reviews here on SB and so far the RITA Awards are not proving the exact opposite.

  5. klee says:

    This book wouldn’t have been my Thing even if done well, but I really enjoyed the review. Thank you!

  6. kitkat9000 says:

    So much for my proofreading skills, that was supposed to be “…so far the RITA Awards are proving the exact opposite.” Please delete the ‘not’ when reading, you know, like I didn’t.

  7. DonnaMarie says:

    @kitkat, I have to tell you that until this book, the series has been amazing. You should read the previous books.

  8. Christine says:

    @bnbsrose- The ending was just weird. I had to read it twice and it still made little sense.

    @kikat9000- I have been really disappointed in the Rita nominees as well. I can think of so many better books for pretty much all the categories. Thanks for the comments.

    @klee- thanks for reading and commenting!

  9. Mary Star says:

    @DonnaMarie @Christine I second your comments regarding the excellence of the rest of the series (so good!) and the unfortunateness of this installment.

  10. Nancy says:

    Wow. Just read the spoiler and this book has been added to my “never read for fear of breaking kindle in blind rage” pile.

  11. Christine says:

    @Nancy- that was the final straw for me. It was the thing that took the book from just being boring and silly to me wanting to toss it at the wall.

    I’m still pretty shocked that the author was that tone deaf to how it was all handled.

  12. I recently read this book as #6 of the Darkest London Series. I love these books & the world she has created as well as the characters and couples. After reading the other comments here I have to say that this book should be read as part of the series & I guess that helps me understand the negative reviews if it was read as a stand alone novel. Eliza & Adam were introducted in Evernight & I found neither one to be very likeable so I didn’t plow right into Soul Bound but reread some of the other previous novels because I wanted to understand the character development better. However, once I started reading Soul Bound it did catch my interest & I loved the fact that the other characters were brought back to be part of the story which follows a family and a complex group of supernatural characters. This is not my favorite in the series but I did enjoy it & would certainly give it more than D rating.

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