ARC Review: The Weight of Souls by Bryony Pearce

Retribution, vengeance, justice, death.

Those were the words inside Taylor's head as Anubis tries to capture her. Coincidentally, these four words also describes a lot of what The Weight of Souls is all about. And those words made the story so very, very interesting.

Title: The Weight of Souls by Bryony Pearce
Release Date: August 6th 2013
Published by: Strange Chemistry
Source: Publisher (thanks Caroline!)
Buy: Amazon | Book Depository

Summary:

Sixteen year old Taylor Oh is cursed: if she is touched by the ghost of a murder victim then they pass a mark beneath her skin. She has three weeks to find their murderer and pass the mark to them – letting justice take place and sending them into the Darkness. And if she doesn’t make it in time? The Darkness will come for her…

She spends her life trying to avoid ghosts, make it through school where she’s bullied by popular Justin and his cronies, keep her one remaining friend, and persuade her father that this is real and that she’s not going crazy.

But then Justin is murdered and everything gets a whole lot worse. Justin doesn’t know who killed him, so there’s no obvious person for Taylor to go after. The clues she has lead her to the V Club, a vicious secret society at her school where no one is allowed to leave… and where Justin was dared to do the stunt which led to his death.

Can she find out who was responsible for his murder before the Darkness comes for her? Can she put aside her hatred for her former bully to truly help him?

And what happens if she starts to fall for him?

Taylor see dead people, but it doesn't end there. They pass along a mark, and Taylor needs to find the killer and pass the mark or else the Darkness will come after her. She's a freak in school and has almost no friends and her dad believes she's having hallucinations, just like her mum. She's also a target of bullies, led by Justin Hargreaves who wants to make her life hell. But then Justin died, and suddenly she's the only one who can help him move on.

Taylor strikes me as a person who was forced to face a destiny she wasn't ready for very early in her life. She had a hard life, and people who don't understand what it's like, to be in contact with something unexplained every day, just judge her. There were moments where I pitied her for being so misunderstood and lacking in so many ways, but I admire her for trying, accepting a destiny forced upon her by an ancestor and trying to make a father understand that she needed to do what she's doing and by no means is it easy.

Justin did not immediately register on my list of potential love interest for Taylor. I told my friend in a conversation over Twitter a few minutes ago that he was a bona fide prick, and I think he was. He was an insufferable person who kept Taylor in an emotional rollercoaster. Does he hate her? Yes? Why? But as I read about him, my perception of his character changed. I love it when someone gets a chance to redeem himself, grabs that and turn into someone likable, like Justin.

Some might say that Taylor and Justin's relationship needed a lot more building to become a little more convincing, but I firmly believe that it only takes a single moment to change things between friends and foes. Justin and Taylor had enough moments to change their perception of each other in the story, and I do believe there were a lot of hints that signified that they had interest in each other long before Justin became a part of Taylor's unusual life. And Taylor deserves that kind of ending! I was so absorbed with the tale of Oh-Fa and the frequent switch between Taylor's life and her ancestor provides a solid anchor and foundation to the story that made it believable.

Reading Bryony's first novel, Angel's Fury, has made me familiar with the peculiar mix of themes, a play on the psychological and the supernatural nature of things and now with The Weight of Souls, Bryony Pearce introduced yet again an odd, interesting mix of Egyptian myth and an opposing scientific nature in an attempt to explain a girl's encounter with the undead. She has a way of writing a story with something you wouldn't expect to work and yet she convinces the readers that it's possible. And then there's more. The Weight of Souls touches base with things such as bullying, the power of cliques, what people perceive as mental illness when encountering the unexplainable and a romance with such an awkward start.

The Weight of Souls greets you with a dark, heart thumping start that transforms into something more complicated involving something ancient. There's no shortage of romance in this book and it provides a good breather in between Taylor's search to uncover the truth of a boy's death. Another great story from Bryony Pearce which I thoroughly enjoyed! With a thrilling storyline, an unlikely heroine, a breath taking, sometimes exasperating ghost of a love interest, it's a novel that made me swoon, anticipate and ultimately fall in love with Bryony Pearce's writing once more. Did I enjoy it? Yes, definitely! Do I want you to give this a try? Yes, please!

Stunning: Worthy of a Goddess' Praise!

When your head starts to be filled of tales about Egyptian Death Gods, ghosts and murderers, Bryony Pearce ups the ante by plunging readers into a dangerous game of dares and truths and a society shrouded in secrecy, all entangled with one girl's destiny of bringing justice and avenging those who were killed.

Book Cover:

Absolutely loved this cover!