Author: Barnabas Miller and Jordan Orlando

ISBN:  978-0-385-73673-2

Click Here To Purchase 7 Souls

This new YA, being released July 13, 2010, is touted as a high-concept thriller.  Unfortunately, for me, the story jumped the line between thriller and just plain stomach-turning pretty early on in the text.

When the story begins, we meet Mary Shayne on the morning of her seventeenth birthday.  Most teens at this stage of the game would certainly be happy about reaching this milestone, but Mary Shayne actually wakes up with the worst headache in the world.  Blinding, in fact; the white light and noise is literally making her head swim with confusion, fear, and pain.  As she begins to slightly recover, she notices her very strange surroundings.  Mary is located in a bed that is on display in the second floor window of Crate & Barrel in SoHo.  Not only is she waking up in this odd venue, but she is also bare-naked; there’s sweat pouring off her body; and, there are lines of dried blood on her back.  Suffice to say, she is out of her mind with fear.

Unbelievably, with the help of a store maid, she makes her way home to her sister, Ellen.  She begs her sister to tell her what on earth happened the night before, as their mother (who is a single parent taking every kind of drug imaginable) walks around the house in a state of oblivion. 

Soon, Mary walks into school – the Chadwick School in Manhattan – and runs into her boyfriend, Trick (short for Patrick).  He, too, is acting completely odd.  He takes her off to the side and tells her in no uncertain terms that they are officially breaking up.  During this little scenario, one of Mary’s friends – Scott – is screaming out to her to “Run away!” quickly because something is very, very wrong.  Before the day is out, Mary has lost a boyfriend – not to mention her mind – and made a date with another young man, Dylan, who is one of her sister’s friends.

It turns out that Mary is actually dead.  Her life was taken in a brutal murder, and we soon find ourselves reliving the incident as Mary sees her death through the eyes of her friends – or, more to the point – through the eyes of the people who seriously disliked her when she was alive.  Each of the seven people that surrounded Mary in life were in some part responsible for her death; and, Mary gets to watch and listen to their views and opinions about what a truly wretched person she was.  Add in a surprise party, an abandoned farmhouse, and an ancient book of spells that offers the Curse of the 7 Souls, and readers will find themselves in a world that certainly is new to the YA and adult markets. 

As a huge fan of science fiction, fantasy, and young adult novels (not to mention a fan of authors like Dean Koontz and Stephen King), I still found this story to be highly disturbing; and, not in a good, fun, or even spine-tingling way. 

 Click Here To Purchase 7 Souls