Audiobook Review:: My Soul To Take by Rachel K Vincent

 

• Release Date : July 29th 2009

• Pages : 279

• Audiobook Length : 8hrs 21 minutes

• Genre : Urban Fantasy

• Publisher : HarlequinTeen

Synopsis: She doesn’t see dead people. 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 her need to scream than she does. And when classmates start dropping dead for no apparent reason, only Kaylee knows who’ll be next.

In Texas, beautiful teenage girls are dropping dead. No one knows why. Not even  Kaylee Cavanaugh who can predict these deaths with a deep ear-splitting scream. Kaylee thinks she is crazy, but with the help of the popular jock, Nash Hudson, secrets will be revealed and the deaths of these girls will be solved one way or the other.

I enjoyed this novel. I liked the way we see how Kaylee is dealing with her special “ability” before she knows what  it is. At first she is confused, frustrated and angry; but even more she is afraid of herself because last time she screamed it landed her in the psych unit. It doesn’t help that her father is living thousands of miles away in Ireland and has left Kaylee with her aunt, uncle and Sophie, her spoiled cousin.

The paranormal elements weave into the story nicely and I found the setup believable. There are a few twist and turns and it’s exciting to see how the story develops.

I was a little frustrated with Kaylee, because when Nash Hudson is introduced he is suddenly treated like the second coming. I mean yes he does help Kaylee, but suddenly Kaylee always listens to him, he is more important than her family and they become boyfriend and girlfriend after like a few days.. This isn’t so bad because Nash is a nice guy. He isn’t controlling or brooding. He’s just an okay guy, but I think Kaylee gives him way to much credit.

Amanda Ronconi performs the female voices perfectly on the audiobook but I thought she had some odd inflections on the male voices. She tried a few different Texan accents which I thought was pretty smart.

Vincent has a good grasp of Urban Fantasy and  I can’t wait to read the next one to see how Kaylee’s world is explored and how her relationship with Nash develops.

Sidenote:  At BEA, our blogger friend Miranda from Texas said that they call all soda “Coke”, something I noticed they do a lot in this book. I think that was a smart move by Vincent. Localizations like this are what makes Urban Fantasy.