Saturday

Series Review : Soul Screamers by Rachel Vincent


SOUL SCREAMERS

The last thing you hear before you die...


Ok, Ok, Ok, so I keep saying lately that I will not review an entire series but lately I seem to be sucked into them repeatedly. So I guess I need to stop saying I won't do it and just own it. So here's my first post where I'll admit that it's going to be a new thing here at Toot's, Series Reviews.



Series Blurb

Soul Screamers is a young adult urban fantasy series narrated by teenage bean sidhe (banshee) Kaylee Cavanaugh. Join Kaylee as she tries to balance a normal high school experience with the threat of the Netherworld, a terrifying, hidden world full of reapers, hellions, and countless other mythical monsters out to possess her, body and soul.
With All My Soul, book 7 in the Soul Screamers series, is available for pre-order wherever books are sold and hits the shelves April 1, 2013.


The Books and Blurbs

SOUL SCREAMERS PREQUEL NOVELLA

Kaylee Cavanaugh's trip to the mall ends with a brutal panic attack and a brainscrambling shriek she can't stop. Her secret fear is exposed. It's the worst day of her life.
Until she wakes up in the psychiatric unit.
But the hospital isn't a safe place for Kaylee, and getting out won't be easy because everyone thinks she's crazy. Everyone except Lydia, who has a secret of her own...




SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH KAYLEE CAVANAUGH...

She doesn't see dead people, but she senses when someone near her is about to die. And when that happens, a force beyond her control compels her to scream bloody murder. Literally.
Kaylee just wants to enjoy having caught the attention of the hottest guy in school. But a normal date is hard to come by when Nash seems to know more about the need to scream than she does. And when classmates start dropping dead for no apparent reason, only Kaylee knows who'll be next...




“If she were going to die, I’d already be screaming. I’m a banshee. That’s what we do.”

The last thing Kaylee needs right now is to be skipping school, breaking her dad’s ironclad curfew and putting her boyfriend’s loyalty to the test. But starry-eyed teens are trading their souls for a flickering lifetime of fame and fortune in exchange for eternity in the Netherworld—a consequence they can’t possibly understand. Kaylee can’t let that happen, even if trying to save their souls means putting her own at risk...





WHEN KAYLEE CAVANAUGH SCREAMS, SOMEONE DIES AND KAYLEE IS ABOUT TO SCREAM HER HEAD OFF...

Kaylee has one addiction: her very hot, very popular boyfriend, Nash. A banshee like Kaylee, Nash understands her like no one else. Nothing can come between them. Until something does.

Demon’s breath. No, not the toothpaste-challenged kind. The Netherworld kind. The kind that really can kill you. Somehow, the super-addictive substance has made its way to the human world. But how? Kaylee and Nash have to cut off the source and protect their friends—one of whom is already hooked. And when the epidemic hits too close to home, Kaylee will have to risk everything to save those she loves.



YOU WANT MY SOUL AND MY BOYFRIEND?

Trying to work things out with Nash—her maybe boyfriend—is hard enough for Kaylee Cavanaugh. She can’t just pretend nothing happened. But “complicated” doesn’t even begin to describe their relationship when his ex-girlfriend transfers to their school, determined to take Nash back. See, Sabine isn’t just an ordinary girl. She’s a mara, the living personification of a nightmare. She can read people’s fears—and craft them into nightmares while her victims sleep. Feeding from human fear is how she survives. And Sabine isn’t above scaring Kaylee and the entire school to death to get whatever—and whoever—she wants.



SOUL SCREAMERS PREQUEL NOVELLA


Tod Hudson was a typical teenager. He liked girls, sports, food, and tolerated his younger brother, Nash. In fact, he had his whole life in front of him—and due to his bean sidhe heritage, it should have been a very long life indeed.



All of that changed in one horrible moment and suddenly Tod had to make a choice. Life... Death... or something Between....




NO ONE WANTS TO BE THIS TEACHER’S PET . . . 

Everyone else is talking about Eastlake High’s gorgeous new math teacher, Mr. Beck, but Kaylee Cavanaugh has bigger things on her mind. Kaylee’s a banshee—her scream is a portent of death. 
But the next scream might hit too close to home. Kaylee’s borrowed lifeline has almost run out. 
Yeah—it’s a shock to her, too. So to distract herself from her own problems, Kaylee is determined to defend her school against the latest supernatural threat. That hot new teacher is really an incubus, who feeds from the desire of unsuspecting students. The only girls immune to his lure are Kaylee and Sabine, her boyfriend’s delinquent ex-girlfriend. Now the unlikely allies have to get rid of Mr. Beck…before he discovers they aren’t quite human either. 
But Kaylee’s running out of time, and those who love her will do anything to save her life.



DON'T CLOSE YOUR EYES...

Sophie Cavanaugh is not going to let her freak of a cousin's strange psychiatric condition ruin high school for them both. Not after all the work she's put into cultivating the right look, and friends, and reputation. But then, Sophie sees something so frightening she lets out a blood-curdling scream—and finds herself stuck in a bizarre parallel world where nothing is safe and deadly creatures lurk just out of sight, waiting for her to close her eyes and sleep...forever. 

Could this world be real? Or does insanity run in the family...?



I DIED ON THURSDAY
killed by a monster intent on stealing my soul. The good news? He didn't get it.

The bad news? Turns out not even death will get you out of high school…
Covering up her own murder was one thing, but faking life is much harder than Kaylee Cavanaugh expected. After weeks spent "recovering," she's back in school, fighting to stay visible to the human world, struggling to fit in with her friends and planning time alone with her new reaper boyfriend.

But to earn her keep in the human world, Kaylee must reclaim stolen souls, and when her first assignment brings her face-to-face with an old foe, she knows the game has changed. Her immortal status won't keep her safe. And this time Kaylee isn't just gambling with her own life….



What does it mean when your school is voted the most dangerous in America?
It's time to kick some hellion butt...
After not really surviving her junior year (does "undead" count as survival?), Kaylee Cavanaugh has vowed to take back her school from the hellions causing all the trouble. She's going to find a way to turn the incarnations of Avarice, Envy and Vanity against one another in order to protect her friends and finish this war, once and forever.
But then she meets Wrath and understands that she's closer to the edge than she's ever been. And when one more person close to her is taken, Kaylee realizes she can't save everyone she loves without risking everything she has....


Toot's Review

Soul Screamers is a YA/PNR series where the main characters are Banshee or bean sidhe. The stories follow the main character Kaylee through her beginnings where she thinks she's crazy because she sees black shrouds around certain people whom inevitably end up dying but even crazier is this ungodly compulsion to scream at the top of her lungs for longs periods of time when she does see these shadows. To the present where she has been informed that she is not crazy and in fact is part of a long line of the Celtic Banshee.
In this first novel in the series, Kaylee isn't quite sure if she's crazy or not. She has gone to the Looney bin once already and is not looking for a repeat performance. She is doing everything she can to avoid her "panic" attacks which lead to her screaming uncontrollably. While she's out at a night club with her BFF, she meets the hottest boy in school, Nash Hudson, whom happens to know her name and of course, inevitably, while chatting him up, she sees a girl a crossed the dance floor and seeing her triggers one of her attack. Embarrassed and trying to put distance between both situations, she stumbles into the alley where said male hotness follows on her heals. When her BFF helps to blow over the situation, Nash isn't scared away and even helps calm her down, which no one has ever been able to do once she starts screaming. Is there more to him?

Another character who's introduced in the first book also is Tod. He's Nash's morose dead brother who's also a Reaper in the classical sense. Tod is a major character although in the beginning he's not so much but keep your eye on him, he's the shyte! Trying not to give too much away, as the novel progresses, Kaylee and Nash become a couple and we find out that he is more then he appears, he's a male Banshee.
From then on, The first two books are about Kaylee and Nash as a couple and we follow their adventures. We also eventually meet the rest of the Scooby gang who help Kaylee not only control her Banshee abilities but also help her deal with being a teen. Every teen needs family and friends while dealing with the supernatural world. Throughout the entire series, we have one primary supernatural baddy who ties all the books together and we have our normal high school dramas dealing with these themes among others: relationships, friends, friends in danger, family in danger, drugs, teen pregnancy, promiscuity and ultimately love.

At first I wasn't sure how I was going to like this series. I mean come on, do I really want to read books about a teen who screams at the top of her lungs all the time *grin* but  as the story progresses, I found myself really enjoying the ragtag group of supernatural friends and family but what really got me was the love triangle between the Hudson brothers and Kaylee. I honestly never saw it coming and I think that shows how good a writer Rachel Vincent is. I'm not a reader who likes to read spoilers or read ahead. I like a story to unfold the way it was meant. Most of the time, storylines are not much of a surprise but honestly, I didn't see this storyline coming. Anywho I won't spoil it but I'd definitely recommend adding this series in your YA arsenal. Not only is the supernatural element unique using Banshee's as the primary characters but also the young angst ridden teens and their drama is a fun ride.


4 out of 5 books


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