Soulstice

January 1, 2010
Gr 8 Up-Fans of "The Devouring" (Little, Brown, 2008) will eat up this chilling sequel. Six months earlier, Reggie saved her younger brother from the demonic Vours, evil spirits that possess humans on the winter solstice. Now Reggie's uneasy life is disrupted by the ghoulish reappearance of Quinn, her Vour-possessed past crush back from the dead, who seeks her help in stopping the Vours from taking over on the fast-approaching summer solstice. Reggie's ability to enter the "fearscape," or personal hell, of one possessed by a Vour and bring the human spirit back to life pits her against the Tracers, who simply kill the person to exterminate the Vour. Nightmarish imagery and unexpected plot twists move the story along as Vours and Tracers are continually revealed among the population of Reggie's rural Massachusetts town. Fear and tension will keep fans of the first book turning the pages right up to the cliff-hanger ending, despite weak character development and workmanlike prose, but those who missed the earlier volume may feel lost."Joyce Adams Burner, National Archives at Kansas City, MO"

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