Blog Tour: Review: Altered Souls

Hey guys!  Today I'm part of the tour for The Witch Avenue series.  Be sure to drop by some of the other blogs; you can find the tour schedule here.  Also, please note that Lonely Souls, the first book in the series, is FREE on Amazon during the tour.

Title: Altered Souls (The Witch Avenue #2)
Author: Karice Bolton
Publisher: Bulldog Press
Released: 28th October 2012
Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Altered Souls picks up right where Lonely Souls left off. Triss is determined to get her mother back and do whatever she needs to do to achieve that goal.  But this journey brings with it discoveries about her ancestry, and she herself will need to learn to confront the concept of dark magic, battling her own demons and learning about the power within herself.  With Logan at her side, she enters a world of Altered Souls and knows that not only do they have to save them, they need to prevent anyone else from suffering the same fate.

This middle installment is in ways definitely better than the first book.  For one thing, it brings in a lot more of the witchy action I had kind of expected to see at the start of the series.  Witch books tend to be a bit hit and miss for me, but with this I really enjoyed encountering all the different spells and potions; I find myself quite fascinated with things like the symbolism of colours and flowers and herbs, and this is something that both books have fulfilled for me, at least in terms of learning more about plants.  I was especially impressed with the ending.  The ending brought with it tension, pace, anticipation, and the true personalities of some of the secondary characters really become clear.  I found myself questioning the true intents of a couple of people, uncertain whether they were really on the right side, whether their viewpoints would change, and I liked that suspense.  The ending was then a reflection of the growth of those characters.

Triss is also much stronger in this.  As in the first book, she does question herself a lot, unsure of her own self-worth and what she could possibly do to make this new world she's in any better.  But at the same time, she is also very ready to do what she thinks needs to be done.  She is much more decisive, and much more prepared to fight for her loved ones.  I found myself admiring of the lengths she went to to get her mother back, knowing full well the risks she was taking.  Logan, too, remains as supportive in this installment as he was in the first.  I loved how he was both prepared to help her no matter what and how he also accepted her as her own person.  The romance in this series so far has proved to be wonderfully sweet and endearing.  There is a lot of light banter between them, interspersed with much more serious moments.  Both work at getting the other to open up more and let people in; it is very much a give-and-take relationship.

I'm so glad that after reading Lonely Souls, I was able to read this immediately after.  As much as I liked Triss and Logan before, they have come a long way, and I really appreciated seeing this growth.  Added to that is the much greater presence of the fantasy elements.  The combination of these has made for what I feel is a stronger sequel, leaving me very hopeful for the conclusion to this series.